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Czerneda, Julie E

Entry updated 15 July 2024. Tagged: Author.

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(1955-    ) Canadian author who began publishing work of genre interest with "First Contact" in First Contact (anth 1997) edited by Martin H Greenberg and Larry Segriff, First Contact being a theme of clear interest to her as it clearly shapes much of her work, either explicitly as in In the Company of Others (2001) or as an underlying template in the Web Shifters sequence (her second) which begins with Beholder's Eye (1998).

Throughout, the underlying Xenobiology involved in her description of Aliens has been consistently interesting. In both these examples, moreover, some fairly routine Space Opera riff and high jinks are sobered by the Conceptual Breakthrough implications inherent in first contact stories of substance. Her first series, on the other hand, the relatively ambitious Trade Pact Universe sequence – comprising A Thousand Words for Stranger (1997), Ties of Power (1999) and To Trade the Stars (2002) – becomes over-congested through an accumulation of Aliens and Telepaths, none of this material very convincingly enfiladed into an overall structure itself burdened by the task of presenting interstellar trading as a viable enterprise. Her third series, the Species Imperative sequence, beginning with Survival (2004), competently engages with (and occasionally skirts) similar issues and venues. A later singleton, To Each this World (2022), again focuses on Homo sapiens as a species in a state of constant Evolution, a conglomerate of sentients, as here, that are increasingly difficult to understand as a single species.

As an anthologist, Czerneda has very usefully assembled several attractive volumes with high Canadian content. [JC]

Julie E Czerneda

born Exeter, Ontario: 11 April 1955

works

series

Trade Pact Universe

Trade Pact Universe: Stratification

Web Shifters

Web Shifter's Library

  • Search Image (New York: DAW Books, 1998) [Web Shifter's Library: pb/Matt Stawicki]
  • Mirage (New York: DAW Books, 2020) [Web Shifter's Library: pb/]
  • Spectrum (New York: DAW Books, 2021) [Web Shifter's Library: pb/]

Species Imperative

  • Survival (New York: DAW Books, 2004) [Species Imperative: hb/Luis Royo]
  • Migration (New York: DAW Books, 2005) [Species Imperative: hb/Luis Royo]
  • Regeneration (New York: DAW Books, 2006) [Species Imperative: hb/Luis Royo]
    • Species Imperative (New York: DAW Books, 2014) [omni of the above three: Species Imperative: pb/Kenn Brown]

Night's Edge

Reunification

individual titles

works as editor

links

previous versions of this entry



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