Unfamiliar Territory [Paperback]

Nina M. Osier (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2001

Sacorra 6 is a conundrum, and Renata Colby loves puzzles. The top-ranking environmental scientist for the Council of Worlds seldom goes on project evaluations, but Sacorra 6 is intriguing enough to deserve her personal attention. Not even the most sophisticated scanner technology can track life-forms there. The cause of this so-called dissimulation effect has to be natural, since the Harimi who want to alter Sacorra 6 to their environmental liking are new arrivals and the planet has no native sentients.

Colby and her coxswain are traveling as guests when the Harimi-piloted shuttle crashes. With their hosts dead, the humans are rescued by descendants of Terran colonists who landed secretly several hundred years earlier. Only then does Colby learn that the Harimi's plan to "improve" this world will soon destroy it-and she has no way to escape, or let her own people know she's still alive, before that happens.

Editorial Reviews

Review

...characters that you come to care about and worry what will happen to them. -- Annette Gisby

...grips the reader from the opening paragraph. Dialogue is witty, scenes are well developed, characters are fleshed out. -- Molly Martin, Scribes World Reviews

About the Author

Nina M. Osier started "writing" at the age of two, when her parents decided to write down her stories and read them back to her. She is the author of science fiction novels Exile's End, Matushka, Silent Service, and Regs from eBooksOnThe.Net, and Rough Rider from Adventure Books. Tabitha June Is a Shoulder Cat, her first Xlibris book, was written after family and friends repeatedly asked her to write down her extensive repertoire of pet stories. It will soon be followed by SF novels Unfamiliar Territory and Conduct Unbecoming from Xlibris, and Starship Castaways from CrossroadsPub.com.

Nina directs the Division of Records Management Services at the Maine State Archives, where she gets some of her best ideas! She lives in a turn-of-the-century Victorian house in Augusta, Maine, where she writes, gardens, and wishes humans didn't have to waste time sleeping.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 268 pages
• Publisher: Xlibris Corp (May 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401002978
• ISBN-13: 978-1401002978
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 3.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,310,176 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Hello, I'm '9-UH' - daughter of a Maine fisherman and (wouldn't you know it?) a reading teacher. I usually write speculative and mainstream fiction, although I've also authored a couple of nonfiction titles. I'm especially interested in speculative fiction with strong, mature female protagonists, so much of my work centers on them. My latest Amazon release is HIGH PLACES, the first book of a trilogy. It's available as both a trade paperback and a Kindle eBook. For more detailed information about my books, plus a few articles and some great freebies, please visit me at http://www.geocities.com/nina_osier.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Intigue and Adventure, July 4, 2002

By 

Annette Gisby "agisby" (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unfamiliar Territory (Paperback)

The book starts off with a bang, literally. Admiral Renata Colby, now a science adviser and her coxswain MacKenzie are on a scientific mission. They are the guests of new members to the Council of Worlds, the Harami, when the shuttle they are in crashes on Sacorra 6.

The Harami have been changing the climate on Sacorra 6, to make it more suitable for themselves, they need a very warm climate, warmer than what would be comfortable for humans. The two Harami piloting the shuttle die in the crash, and Colby and MacKenzie are injured.

The next morning, they discover that there was something the Harami forgot to mention to the Council of Worlds. Sacorra 6 is a planet that cannot be scanned for life forms, but Sacorra 6 is already inhabited by the People. People who claim be descendants of people from a place called Terra, Earth.

These people are living at the tribal level and are appalled that Colby and MacKenzie have spent the night alone together, when they are not mated. A hasty wedding ceremony follows, and Colby and MacKenzie have no choice but to go along with the charade in order to stay alive, but as time goes on and no sign of rescue, they come to trust one another and love one another, even though Colby has a lover back home, a female lover, and she is sure the People wouldn't be too pleased to hear about that.

As the months pass, the planet is heating up and they realise that the human life will not survive there for much longer, nor will any Harami, their climate changing has spiralled out of control and they are all in danger. And then they discover why nearly every shuttle trying to land on Sacorra 6 crashes...

Although a science fiction novel, the plot doesn't get too much involved with lots of scientific jargon that is difficult to understand, instead it features more on the characters and how they interact with each other in a place with people so much more different than themselves.

It's a well written book, with a depth of characters that you come to care about and worry what will happen to them. A great read...