Ascending
{5/5} “All the aliens I had met since leaving Melanquin were stodgy disappointments who did not shapeshift or anything… and what is the point of being an alien if you do not have Uncanny Abilities with which to incite terror in other species? If you cannot disrupt the lives and sanity of other races, you might as well stay home.”
Ascending by James Alan Gardner, published in 2001
Oar had an adventure with Festina Ramos but that was 4 years ago. She fell 80 floors to the ground, and now she has awakened and is perfectly fine. She discovers that a mysterious headless alien had taken her body before she woke up. Eventually she meets that alien, the Pollisand, who makes her an offer — help him defeat the Shaddill and he will fix her brain tiredness.
This is the 4th book in the Festina Ramos series, following Hunted.
The tone of this book is an astonishing perfection. Oar, the narrator, is one of my favourite characters ever — she is hilarious right from the 1st paragraph.
As for the story, it’s about aliens with millenia-long plans. Or, to put it another way, it’s about how we should treat others, whether they are the same or whether they are different from we are.
This is the 2nd time I’ve read it.
I’ve read 10 books by Gardner. I previously reviewed his novel Hunted.