The Sarah Zettel Collection: Playing God, Reclamation, The Quiet Invasion, and Fool's War

Sarah Zettel

Dec 2013 · Open Road Media

About this ebook

Four galaxy-spanning novels by an award-winning author with a “gift for creating fully realized cultures” (Booklist).
In Fool’s War, Katmer Al Shei has done well with the starship Pasadena, cutting corners where necessary to keep her crew paid and her journeys profitable. But there are two things she will never skimp on: her crew—and her fool. For a long space journey, a certified Fool’s Guild clown is essential, to amuse, excite, and otherwise distract the crew from the drudgeries of interstellar flight. Her newest fool, Evelyn Dobbs, is a talented jester. But does she have enough wit to save mankind?
In Playing God, the planet of the Dedelphi has been riven by war for two centuries. Though delicate, swanlike creatures, the planet’s natives are fierce in battle, and their ceaseless conflict has reduced their world to a wasteland. To save themselves and their world, the Dedelphi have forged a fragile peace and called for outside intervention. The Earth corporation Bioverse constructs a plan to heal the shattered planet. It’s the most ambitious engineering project the universe has ever seen, and if it backfires, the result will almost certainly be genocide.
In The Quiet Invasion, Dr. Helen Failia is nearing middle age at eighty-three, but has lost none of her fighting spirit. The founder of Earth’s first fully functioning colony on Venus, she will do anything to ensure that the home she’s built and nurtured not only survives, but thrives. Despite her constant work, funding for the colony is running out, and she’s dreading telling the ten thousand colonists they must move to Earth, a world some of them have never even seen. When one of her probes returns with the unprecedented proof of an ancient alien artifact on the surface of Venus she cannot believe her luck. This is the first evidence that humanity is not alone, and the discovery will surely secure the research colony’s future.
In Reclamation, Eric Born knows his way around the universe. He’s a quick-thinking merchant blessed with natural telekinetic skill. He’s also that rarest of creatures, a human being. Humans have been scattered across the universe, powerless and oppressed, dispersed so widely that no one knows what planet they first came from. Eric survives by selling his talents to the mysterious galactic tyrants known as the Rhudolant Vitae, but has never forgotten he belongs to the human race, and the distant world, the Realm of the Nameless Powers. The Realm may be a backwater, but Eric will do anything to protect his home from the merciless and powerful Vitae. 

Ratings and reviews

This book, or rather collection of four, were riveting & all left me wanting much much more! Zettel's description of the 'aliens' was fantastic, I was both trying to envision them for myself & wishing they were a movie so I could see the nuances of body language. She made the alien cultures as real as our own. I now have another great author to add to my list of favorites. I do wish some of the prayers were dropped or shortened, their entirety added nothing to the books & were at times an irritant.

Four books spanking several years of the author's efforts. Each book is unique and presents a somewhat different concept. I found that I had a hard time putting any of them down. Of the four, if I had to make a choice, I would have to say that The Fools War is one of the best stories that I've read in more than 50 years of reading Science Fiction. The others rank pretty high as well.

I have given it five stars because I won't knock the book until I'm given a chance to read it. Flowing text is not working. It is kind of funny, the book starts in a scene of confusion only to have that confusion transferred to the reader when the next page makes little sense because of the text flow problem. Not everyone would find this funny. Reads okay, though really small on my phone, on original page setting, but better on a decent size tablet. Luckily I have one.

About the author

DIVSarah Zettel is the critically acclaimed author of more than twenty novels, spanning the full range of genre fiction. Her debut novel, Reclamation, won the Locus Award for Best First Novel. Her second release, Fool’s War, was a 1997 New York Times Notable Book, and the American Library Association named Playing Godone of the Best Books for Young Adults of 1999. Her novel Bitter Angels won the Philip K. Dick Award for best science fiction paperback in 2009. Her latest novel,Dust Girl, was named as one of the best young adult books of the year by both Kirkus Reviews and the American Library Association. Zettel lives in Michigan with her husband, her rapidly growing son, and her cat, Buffy the Vermin Slayer. /div