Species Imperative Trilogy

Species Imperative Trilogy (Survival, Migration, Regeneration), Julie E. Czerneda, DAW Books

This series is about Mackenzie "Mac" Connor, a female salmon researcher at a scientific research station in the Pacific Northwest of a near-future Earth. Most of Earth's population and heavy industry has been moved off-planet, so there is plenty of room and peace and quiet.

In "Survival", her research is disrupted by the arrival of a large, blue, multi-limbed alien called a Dhryn, the first one ever to set foot on Earth, and who really wants to talk to Mac. The visitor, named Brymn, is an archaeologist studying a region of space called the Chasm. It's an area of dead worlds that used to be populated. Brymn feels that Mac, as a biologist (a forbidden field of study for the Dhryn), would have some ideas as to how to stop the Myrokynay, Ro for short, the race that caused the Chasm. Mac is still very uninterested in getting involved, until the research station is attacked, and Emily Mamiani, her friend and colleague, is kidnapped by the Ro. Forced to flee with Brymn, Mac finds herself the only human on the Dhryn home world. She also discovers that, on several different levels, things, and people (including Emily) are not always they seem.

In part two, "Migration", Mac is called to a grand conference of all beings in the Interspecies Union, of which Earth is a member, with any knowledge of this matter, to figure out, once and for all, how to stop it. Far from being the "victims," the Dhryn are actually the race behind the Chasm. Also, the area of interstellar devastation is getting closer to Earth.

If the Dhryn are some sort of invasion force, they certainly don't act like it. After they devastate a planet, they just pick up and move to the next one; they don't leave any occupying forces behind. Mac thinks that they are migrating; not normal Dhryn behavior. If some other race are using the Dhryn as some sort of weapon, holding out "bait" for them to follow, who could it be and why? Suddenly, a large number of Dhryn ships, each of which can split into many smaller ships, arrive in Earth orbit.

In "Regeneration", the researchers from the Interspecies Union conference spread out across the Chasm, looking for clues on how to stop the Dhryn. Mac is among those heading to an ice planet, now called Myriam. Emily, who was returned at the end of part two, stays behind on Earth, for several reasons. The first is that as the only person to survive kidnapping by the Ro, Emily is not yet 100%, emotionally. Second, it will allow her to continue work on her own personal quest/obsession, a device to contact the Survivors, a near-mythical race, who are the only race to escape the devastation of the Dhryn. Third, during their attack on the station, the Ro may have left behind a device to turn Earth into another Chasm world, by draining all of Earth's oceans. Who better than Emily and her colleagues to know what does, and does not, belong under the water.

Individually, these books are excellent. Collectively, they constitute a wonderful piece of writing. The author does a fine job from start to finish with the science, the speculation and the storytelling. She also gives the aliens real personalities; more than just "aliens." This trilogy is very highly recommended.