Elizabeth Moon

Elizabeth Moon has a great name for a science fiction/fantasy writer and has written more than 2 dozen novels so far, both the science fiction and fantasy genres.   I have only read one of them so far, but she has several that have been nominated for major awards before.  She is best known for her military science fiction.

Remnant Population

This is the only one of her books that I have read yet and it had a very interesting premise.  It was nominated for a Hugo the year it came out.

An old woman named Ofelia has spent most of her life in a colony on another supposedly uninhabited planet that has just been deemed a failure and is to be abandoned.  Her age is not given, but it is implied she probably at least in her late 60's and came from a poor and uneducated background.  The people of the colony will be relocated to a new world, but she doesn't want to leave her home so she hides when the ship comes to take them away and they don't really care enough to look for her.  She likes living on her own and hears on the radio when a new colonizing group is attacked and destroyed as it lands on another part of her planet.  No one had seen any evidence of intelligent life on her planet before and eventually she befriends several members of the bird like species that soon come to investigate her home.  She has to protect them from possible revenge by

This was a very unique book in that it is mainly a character study of a very average person who then gets thrust into a position of first contact with an alien species.  Ofelia is old and tired and doesn't want to move or restart her life.  The colony gardens and supplies can take care of her and keep her busy, but she finds new meaning in her life when she has to get used to having all these very curious aliens who suddenly invade her hermetic living space.  She has to learn to communicate with them and then has to reintegrate into human society when people come back to her planet and serves as a go between and peacemaker for humans and the aliens.

All around a very pleasant read and unique take on a story that has been done many times before with stories like Avatar (which came out a decade after this book) and Dances With Wolves since it is not resolved with violence and the natives are not shown as superior nor the colonizers as evil.  Its appropriate for even early teens who I think will be able to relate to Ofelia just fine.

The Speed of Dark

I haven't got around to reading this yet, but it is generally considered one of her better novels and won a Nebula award.  It is about an autistic programmer who is under pressure to accept a cure for his autism.  It is supposedly another good character study and deals with ethical and identity issues.