Description:
From Nebula and Hugo Award-nominated Carolyn Ives Gilman comes Dark Orbit, a compelling novel of alien contact, mystery, and murder.
Reports of a strange, new habitable world have reached the Twenty Planets of human civilization. When a team of scientists is assembled to investigate, exoethnologist Sara Callicot is recruited to keep an eye on an unstable crewmate. Thora was once a member of the interplanetary elite, but since her prophetic delusions helped mobilize a revolt on Orem, she's been banished to the farthest reaches of space to minimize the risk her very presence may pose.
Upon arrival, the team finds an extraordinary crystalline planet laden with dark matter. Then a crew member is murdered, and Thora mysteriously disappears. Thought to be uninhabited, the planet is in fact home to a blind, sentient species whose members navigate their world with a bizarre vocabulary and extrasensory perceptions.
Lost in the deep crevasses of the planet among these people, Thora must battle her demons and learn to comprehend the native inhabitants in order to find her crewmates and warn them of an impending danger. But her most difficult task may be persuading the crew that some powers lie beyond the boundaries of science.
Brief description:
Carolyn Ives Gilman is a Nebula and Hugo Award-nominated writer of science fiction and fantasy. Her novels include Halfway Human and the duology Isles of the Forsaken and Ison of the Isles. Her short fiction appears in many "best of the year" collections and has been translated into seven languages. She lives in Washington, DC, where she works for the National Museum of the American Indian.
Review Quotes:
"Gilman has artfully conceived and depicted her world, from the futuristic society marked by tensions among various planets, social castes, and corporations; to the planet of Iris, with its mesmerizing, crystalline botanical life forms and strange gravitational disturbances; to the intricate way of life of the native inhabitants...It's riveting and has a lot of promise...The ethical, philosophical, and scientific dilemmas presented in this book are fascinating."
-- "New York Daily News"