A Thousand Words for Stranger

Our heroine Sira starts out the book as a near tabula rasa, without any memory of her own history, name, or nature, and finds herself a pawn in a struggle for power within a secretive Clan of powerful psionics. What appear to be fairy-tale-romance coincidences are later revealed to be subtle

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machinations.

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The tenth anniversary edition of Julie Czerneda's debut science fiction novel, the story of a woman on the run, from the law, her own people, and an unknown pursuer. Her memory taken from her by a stasis block, Sira must stay free long enough to regain her identity and the full use of her

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telepathic powers-for failure may cost not only her own future but that of her entire race.

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Stories that feature mind powers have too much of the feel of the ad hoc. Not enough world build up to believe in the aliens.

The best, and first, in a three book trilogy, Stranger follows Sira in her quest to discover who would have blocked her memories and why she is being hunted across the galaxy by pirates, the Enforcers, and a mysterious group of beings called the "Clan."
Sira finds herself mind-blocked and wandering

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the spaceport of a world she has never seen before. Lacking her memories, and any sort of directions save a compulsion to find the Spacer Morgan, Sira must act quickly to save her own life. The book manages the tension between Sira's amnesia, and her growing resolve to save herself and those around her admirably, and the various alien races keep the universe of the story interesting.
Worth the read (as are the other two), although, again, it is the best of the three book series.

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Good story learning what happened to the people from the Stratification series. New characters and races.

Julie's debuet novel that launched her book writing career and the beginning of her Trade Pact Universe series. However, I'm not that taken by the characters or writing here, and probably wouldn't have read anything further. The continual switch between first person for Sira and third for everyone

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else didn't work well. It was too confusing as Sira, and too many other characters for it to be clear.

Although SIra is clearly the heroine by the end of the book, she doens't start out that way, and ht eopening third is mostly follwoing a couple of police officers as they investigate an unusual brawl on some random world. There are odd excerts of first person view as someone flees the scene. But they can't remember who they are, or what they want other than to get away safely to s spaceship.

Julie is a evolutionary biologist by professiona dn this flavours all her writing. In this case she dreamed up a race where the males have to overpower a female, leading to progeny that are increasingly powerful (and eventually a female who can't be overpowered....) It is this superfemale idea that is explored in the novel, but doesn't seem to make any sense to me. In a large enough population there's no reason for one generation of female so be so powerful than no male can succeed. But given a small population (which is trouble in itself) maybe it could happen - always the point of SF!

Other than the switching of voice I between the first and third person the rest of it was well writtne with a suitable drip feeding of ideas and continual twisting of plot to ensure no-one really knows what is going on even beyond the final action scenes - Julie does get better at pacing in her latter books, but this wasn't that bad either.

Readable, but not my favourite by this author.

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A thousand words would not be enough to express or even to explain just how magnificent, creative, thoughtful, intricate and imaginative this book and this series is. Not only is the intricate plot flawless, each species' habits and characteristic is so detailed while the individuals are varied.

A

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powerful heroine and an admirable hero with some of the most loveably frustrating species of unhelpfully helpful characters. The book goes beyond the genre of Science Fiction as it allows us to experience cultural differences of species and that willingness to adapt to differences of beliefs and traditions.

A touch of the romantic flows throughout but contains values of love, support and understanding; a team rather than a singular heroine and it makes the book more personal and humanistic rather than a traditional dry sci-fi model.

This is a book for those who enjoy imagination to the extreme. (Also for those who read Fantasy but are bored with the same witch/wizard/dark lord themes.) There are very few believable characters and yet, the unbelievable becomes most believable simply by being explained in such depth. The characters have telepathic and other psychic powers which always makes a story more interesting. Travelling through space and time... even more fun. With lots of adventure letting loose in myriads of strands which do come together in the end.

Beyond all the requirements of the genre of story-telling, sci-fi, etc., Czerneda is also simply a good writer. Her words flow well.

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I was looking forward to this book after reading the Stratification novel by the same author. While the story was interesting and had an decent finish, I was a little disappointed overall. The story line seemed to jump around a lot and I has some trouble following the overall plot line. My

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impression that this could have benefitted from a tightning up of both the story and characters and resulted in a better book.

3.5 stars for a decent ending.

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I quite liked this book, however I think the next in the series will probably be less entertaining. The reason: this book has a classic flaw, characters that are too powerful. This will no doubt turn the next books into a game of arm wrestling, or in this case mind wrestling. I may try the next

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book to see if I am wrong about this.

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This is a sci-fi novel (a slight departure for me) with a touch of fantasy. This is a first novel, and once I found time to read it, I enjoyed it.

The majority of the story is told in the first person by a woman who has no memories. The narrative is interspersed with short 'Interludes', told in the

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third person, about other characters in the story. This device does work, and gives us information that the main character doesn't have; for instance, her real name is Sira, and (though she assumes she is human), she is a humanoid alien, of a species that has psychic abilities which it wishes to continue to keep secret from other species.

While in transit on the planet Auord, Sira is attacked and separated from the rest of her party. With no memories before that point, she is rescued by Captain Morgan of the Silver Fox; and so begins an intergalactic chase, as she begins to piece together her past, and tries to understand why so many different factions want her.

I will admit to a few alarm bells (bad romance novel) going off when I discovered the hero had piercing blue eyes, but it turned out alright in the end. I found this book nicely written, with a bit of a mystery as we try to work out the secrets of Sira's past with her. An excellent first novel.

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The first time that I read A Thousand Words for Stranger, I was about middle school age. I was pulled in by the title, as I recall, and I loved the book! This was space opera before I knew what space opera was called, and all that I knew was that I loved it. The world of competing cultures and

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fantastical alien races gripped me thoroughly. I don't think that I finished the book, which is extremely rare for me (I can count on one hand the number of books that I've began but not finished in my life), but, on this recent second reading of the novel, I found that I eventually crossed a point beyond which I remembered nothing.

I also found that the book read quite differently over twenty years later.

I'll say up front, this is Czerneda's debut novel, and debut novels seldom carry the strengths of an author's later works. That disclaimer out of the way, what she does so strongly in this book is to create such a wildly imaginative world (that will be the basis for a series, the rest of which I own but have never gotten around to reading). In these pages you will find creative new aliens, worlds, and cultures, which are painted with prose that, while perhaps not literary genius, certainly has its flashes of brilliance. I had no difficulty soaking in the scenes that were being painted for me here, and, were I to identify a single strength of the author, this would be it.

The alien race with which we become most familiar is the Clan, a race that looks Human, but is a race of reclusive, arrogant, and very powerful telepaths, who consider themselves far above races without telepathic abilities. They look down on the use of technology, seeing it as a tool that inferior races use to place themselves onto somewhat equal footing with more advanced races. This is an interesting theme to develop in a science-fiction novel, that of technology being viewed as inferior to natural, organic abilities. Certainly, it's been done before, but Czerneda explores it well here.

The theme that she is exploring more than any other, though, is the power of choice, the fight to master one's own fate. Sira, our protagonist, wakes on a planet with no recollection of who she is, what she is doing...or of what she is capable. When she discovers the truth, finally won as she fights through webs of deception, she discovers that she has become someone entirely new during the journey, someone that she likes better. Will she be able to push back on the powers that seek to set her destiny for her and choose her own? Well, I'll avoid spoilers, but that should tempt you a bit.

The problem that glared at me reading this as an adult is how Czerneda flirts with a romantic sub-plot (pardon the pun). More than the simple issue that romance is not at all a genre that I read, is the issue that she introduces romantic elements, but never brings them to fruition. Romance is a key conflict for storytelling, but it must be permitted to run it's course once it has been introduced. Czerneda feels timid in writing this element, seeming to toy with the idea and then retreat, all while leaving us with about one hundred too many references to Morgan's blue eyes. Perhaps this was a plot point that she was coerced to emphasize beyond what she wished by an editor? In any case, it feels forced, and was distracting enough to pull me away from the story on many occasions.

When I initially placed this book on my Goodreads shelf, I rated it with five stars based entirely on my childhood recollection. Now, with much maturity between readings, that rating falls by two stars. I think that, if you're interested in reading a story with a very spectacular world, then you should give this a try. I think that the rest of the series will get better, and I hope to make time to read it soon.

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I'm not entirely sure where to go with this book. I picked this up a long time ago (back when I was into Bookcrossing), traded it away and then re-picked it up at my local Indie. Admittedly its the cover that made me interested and I'm a sucker for amnesia trope stories in science fiction.

Largely I

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liked the cast and I liked Sira and Morgan, but it was not an enthralling read for me. Plus the "Interludes" tended to break things up, distracting me from Sira's current plight (most of the time, occasionally it was Morgan who was the focus of the Interlude, but mainly it was Barac who I had little interest in to be truthful). Sira also, while not unlikable, wasn't the kind of female I liked to read about in scifi books (there was nothing...deadly about her. She wasn't very snarky. She spent much of her time sullen or confused). She's kind of watery, a bit bland and sometimes refreshing.

Morgan...rather seemed like a lot of rogue-ish Captains (I'd venture to say he reminded me of Malcolm Reynolds, but Morgan came before Malcolm).

Overall I'm glad enough to have read this, but I wish it was as engaging as her later reads.

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