"Nancy Kress at her very best!" First in the hard science fiction trilogy based on the Nebula Award-winning novella Yesterday's Kin (Greg Bear, New York Times-bestselling author).
 
Locus 2017 Recommended Reading List
 
The aliens have arrived . . . they've landed their Embassy ship on a platform in New York Harbor, and will only speak with the United Nations. They say that their world is so different from Earth, in terms of gravity and atmosphere, that they cannot leave their ship. The population of Earth has erupted in fear and speculation.
 
One day Dr. Marianne Jenner, an obscure scientist working with the human genome, receives an invitation that she cannot refuse. The Secret Service arrives at her college to escort her to New York, for she has been invited, along with the Secretary General of the UN and a few other ambassadors, to visit the alien Embassy.
 
The truth is about to be revealed. Earth's most elite scientists have ten months to prevent a disaster--and not everyone is willing to wait.
 
"Sparely constructed and cleverly resolved, [it] provides everything readers need for an immersive plunge into a frightening, fascinating, and inescapable predicament." --The Seattle Times
 
"Kress mixes contemporary issues of isolationism and refugee status with classic SF first-contact tropes, threaded neatly with solid scientific theory and speculation." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)
 
"Most inviting introduction to science fiction for new readers." --Chicago Tribune