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 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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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 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. ( )

A solid enjoyable sci fi book. My only complaint is that Morgan’s character wasn’t as completely developed as I would have liked. It made him a bit of a card board character. I did still enjoy the relationship between him and the heroine. The only other complaint I had was the ending was a bit too abrupt. This was my first book by this author. I liked it well enough to try more of her stuff.. ( )

I dived into the audiobook version of "A Thousand Words For Stranger" knowing nothing about it except that I loved the title.

The start took my breathe away. I was dropped into a complex, planet-spanning, multi-species universe where neither I nor the main character knew what was going on other than that she was in danger and had to get off-world fast. I felt the same excitement that I did going to "Star Wars" in 1977 when everything was new and unknown but it felt solid and it moved fast and I really wanted to learn more.

What followed was a romp across strange worlds, including a gigantic shopping mall in space (no, it wasn't called DS9), a swamp city with venomous priests and a city where the buildings had no doors, with the main character, Sira being pursued by pirates, Trade Pack Enforcers and members of a telepathic, teleporting race call The Clan.

Sira's memory has been suppressed so she doesn't know who she is or why so many people are after her. She takes refuge with charismatic Captain Morgan, who runs his own spacecraft single-handed and trades across Pact Space.

The relationship between Sira and Captain Morgan is built skillfully and manages to provide the emotional drive of the story as well as being central to the mystery surrounding Sira and her loss of memory.

Some of the secondary characters are beautifully drawn, almost to the point of distracting me. For example, the book opens from the point of view of a Trade Pact Enforcer from an avian species. I loved being inside his head but I didn't get to go there again after the first few chapters.

There was a slight hiatus about eighty per cent through when a major crisis is spectacularly resolved but none of the hinted at but not explained issues around Sira have been dealt with. This made the set-up of the ending a little too dense in content that could have been shared earlier.

These are minor niggles. I spent most of my time cheering for the good guys, hissing at the bad guys and wondering if what I thought I'd figured out would actually turn out to be the explanation (The answer: mostly yes but with a few surprises- I think this is the perfect mix).

After I'd cheered at the end, both because it was a good ending and a great set up for something else interesting to happen next, I looked up Julie E. Czernado and discovered that this idea-packed, well-written, epic SF story was her debut novel and that it was published way back in 1997 (and still stands up).

So the bad news is that, even though I'm an avid Science Fiction fan, I somehow missed out on reading Julie E Czernado until now. The good news is that I have another seventeen novels set in the same universe ahead of me. ( )

I’ve been aware of this very prolific writer’s works for some time, and I finally managed to read the first book in the Trade Pact trilogy, that’s also Julie Czerneda’s debut novel: it took me a while to understand where to start because this first trilogy is followed, in terms of publication, by a ‘prequel’ trilogy (called Stratification) and is now being complemented by a follow-up triptych named Reunification, whose title This Gulf of Time and Stars caught my attention and imagination before I understood it was not the best place to begin delving into this series [...]


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