The Humanx Commonwealth is Alan Dean Foster's signature fictional universe, the setting of, among others, his Adventures of Flinx series (which begins with For the Love of Mother Not) and the Icerigger trilogy. But how did the Commonwealth come to be? How did two seemingly dissimilar races--the gregarious, warm-blooded humans and the reserved, insectile thranx--form a union that would become so strong and prosperous as to eventually dominate our part of the galaxy?

The actual first contact between the humans and the thranx takes place in the quite exciting Nor Crystal Tears, but you don't have to have read that novel to follow what happens in Phylogenesis. In this book, which takes place soon after the first contact, the races have embarked on a program of slow, careful cultural exchange. If all goes well, the planners feel, in some decades a few tentative agreements might be reached. But they never planned on the chance meeting of a rogue thranx poet and a human thief who's hiding in the Amazon jungle. The events that surround the friendship of these two, each an outcast from his own society, will force scientists and politicians of both races to alter not only their plans but also their beliefs about human/thranx compatibility.

Foster makes excellent use of his knowledge of Latin American culture to paint a picture of a vibrant yet realistic future South America. The Amazon jungle is presented in such vivid detail it seems almost an alien world itself. Fans of the Commonwealth novels won't want to miss this crucial chapter in its history. --Brooks Peck


From Publishers Weekly
Some centuries in the future come the earliest days of contact between humans and the insect-like thranx. Both species carefully try to keep contact in the hands of approved experts, but the thranx have slipped a covert base into the Amazon rain forest. Desvendapur, a thranx poet obsessed with finding new sources of inspiration through contact with humans, escapes from this base into the jungle. There he encounters Cheelo Montoya, a small-time gangster fleeing a mugging that turned into a murder, a man with no poetry in his soul but abundant street smarts. Their initial misunderstandings and suspicion give way to cooperation, and then to friendship after the two survive an encounter with deadly poachers. The author of more than 40 novels, Foster does a fine job with his misfit heroes and even with his minor characters (such as the reptilian AAnn). He shows his usual mastery of narrative pacing and slips in a great deal of wry wit (the sexiness of a female thranx depends on the slenderness of her ovipositors). The novel will be a treat for those who have followed Foster's tales of the Humanx Commonwealth, to which this is a kind of prelude and which began way back in 1972 with The Tar-Aiym Krang, and can also serve as a splendid introduction to both the Commonwealth and its creator. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Fans of Foster's Humanx, an alliance of humans and the insectile Thranx, now discover its origins. Launching a prequel series, Foster essentializes the allies in two characters: talented, bored Thranx poet Desvendapur and cynical holdup artist Cheelo Montoya. As far as Thranx and human general populations know, a handful of scientists and diplomats are just negotiating relations. Actually, a secret project has installed colonies of each species on the other's planet. Hoping the bizarre, fleshy humans will inspire a poetic magnum opus, Des inserts himself into their colony, but, frustrated by its rigid separation of the species, must escape into the surrounding jungle to meet and study humankind more freely. Meanwhile, Cheelo has fled from a manhunt into the comforting, anonymous Thranx reserve in the Amazon. So the species meet, and curiosity, their common trait, overcomes fear and suspicion. The Thranx are a most appealing creation, and their interaction with humans provides seemingly countless opportunities for philosophizing and adventure. Moreover, Foster's love of big words perfectly suits the formal Thranx. Reliable Foster fare that should stimulate high demand. Roberta ^IJohnson


From Kirkus Reviews
First of a prequel series developing the backdrop of Foster's Commonwealth yarns (Mid-Flinx, 1995, etc.). Humans have just contacted a number of alien races, chief among them the insect-like thranx and lizard-like AAnn. On planet Willow-Wane, thranx poet Desvendapur seeks fresh inspiration for his work, and he becomes fascinated by humans when he learns of the existence of a secret colony, part of a long-term plan to evolve an understanding between dissimilar races, located beneath a cold high plateau avoided by the heat- and humidity-loving thranx. With a series of creative deceptions, he forges a new identity as a food processor and attaches himself to the colony. Soon, a great success, he's transferred to the secret thranx colony on Earth, located beneath the Amazon rain forest. But here Desvendapur's given no opportunity to interact with the nativesand so, illicitly, he goes outside. In the jungle, he encounters Cheelo Montoya, a petty criminal on the run from a mugging-turned-murder. Neither being wants to be reported to the authorities, so both tell plausible lies and agree to travel together. Inevitably, they come to respect each other, cooperate when danger threatens, and eventually confess all. Meanwhile, AAnn spies suspect that humans and thranx are attempting to accelerate the hitherto leisurely process of forming an alliance. Desvendapur's deceptions are revealed; Cheelo surrenders after his friend dies of the cold, but he insists that the thranx's poetry be published. This forces a swift conclusion to the human-thranx treatyto the consternation and annoyance of the rival AAnn. Like the Flinx yarns themselves: pleasant but of no great wit, originality, or significance. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"Foster does a fine job with his misfit heroes and even with his minor characters (such as the reptilian Aann). He shows his usual mastery of narrative pacing and slips in a great deal of wry wit. The novel will be a treat for those who have followed Foster's tales of the Humanx Commonwealth."
-Publishers Weekly


Review
"Foster does a fine job with his misfit heroes and even with his minor characters (such as the reptilian Aann). He shows his usual mastery of narrative pacing and slips in a great deal of wry wit. The novel will be a treat for those who have followed Foster's tales of the Humanx Commonwealth."
-Publishers Weekly


Book Description
In the years after first contact, humans and the intelligent insect like Thranx agree to a tentative sharing of ideas and cultures despite the ingrained repulsion they have yet to overcome. Thus, a slow, lengthy process of limited contact begins.

Yet they never plan for a chance meeting between a misfit artist and a petty thief. Desvendapur is a talented Thranx poet who is bored with his life and needs new inspiration for his work. Venturing beyond the familiar, Desvendapur runs into Cheelo Montoya, a small-time criminal with big dreams of making a fast buck. Together they will embark upon a journey that will forever change their beliefs, their futures, and their worlds . . .



From the Inside Flap
In the years after first contact, humans and the intelligent insect like Thranx agree to a tentative sharing of ideas and cultures despite the ingrained repulsion they have yet to overcome. Thus, a slow, lengthy process of limited contact begins.

Yet they never plan for a chance meeting between a misfit artist and a petty thief. Desvendapur is a talented Thranx poet who is bored with his life and needs new inspiration for his work. Venturing beyond the familiar, Desvendapur runs into Cheelo Montoya, a small-time criminal with big dreams of making a fast buck. Together they will embark upon a journey that will forever change their beliefs, their futures, and their worlds . . .


From the Back Cover
"Foster does a fine job with his misfit heroes and even with his minor characters (such as the reptilian Aann). He shows his usual mastery of narrative pacing and slips in a great deal of wry wit. The novel will be a treat for those who have followed Foster's tales of the Humanx Commonwealth."
-Publishers Weekly



About the Author
Alan Dean Foster has written in a variety of genres, including hard science fiction, fantasy, horror, detective, western, historical, and contemporary fiction. He is also the author of numerous non fiction articles on film, science, and scuba diving, as well as novel versions of several films including Star Wars, the first three Alien films, and Alien Nation. His novel Cyber Way won the Southwest Book Award for Fiction in 1990, the first science fiction work to ever do so.

Foster's love of the far-away and exotic has led him to travel extensively. He's lived in Tahiti and French Polynesia, traveled to Europe, Asia, and throughout the Pacific, and has explored the back roads of Tanzania and Kenya. He has rappelled into New Mexico's fabled Lechugilla Cave, panfried piranha (lots of bones, tastes a lot like trout) in Peru, white-water rafted the length of the Zambezi's Batoka Gorge, and driven solo the length and breadth of Namibia.  


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
No one saw the attack coming. Probably someone, or several someones, ought to have been blamed. Certainly there was a convulsion of recriminations afterward. But since it is an unarguable fact that it is hard to apportion blame--or even to assign it--for something that is without precedent, nascent calls for castigation of those responsible withered for lack of suitable subjects. Those who felt, rightly or wrongly, that they bore a share of the responsibility for what happened punished themselves far more severely than any traditional queen's court or council of peers would have.

For more than a hundred years, ever since there had been contact between AAnn and thranx, animosity had festered between the two species. Given such a fertile ground and sufficiency of time, mutual enmity had evolved to take many forms. Manifesting themselves on a regular basis that varied greatly in degree, these were usually propagated by the AAnn. While a constant source of vexation to the ever-reasonable thranx, these provocations rarely exceeded the bounds of irritation. The AAnn would probe and threaten, advance and connive, until the thranx had had enough and were compelled to react. When forcefully confronted, the AAnn would invariably pull back, give ground, retreat. The spiral arm that was shared by both heat-loving, oxygen-breathing species was big enough and rich enough in stars so that direct conflict, unless actively sought, could be avoided.

Habitable worlds, however, were scarcer. Where one of these was involved positions hardened, accusations flew more sharply, meticulously worded phrases tended to bite rather than soothe. Even so, the swift exchange of space-minus communications was always sufficient to dampen a potentially explosive confrontation. Until Willow-Wane. Until Paszex.

Worvendapur bent his head and reached up with a truhand to clean his left eye. Out on the edge of the forest the wind tended to kick up dust. Lowering the transparent, protective shield over his face, he reflexively extended his antennae through the slots provided for that purpose and moved on, striding forward on all six legs. Occasionally he would arch his back and advance only on his four trulegs, not because he needed the additional manipulative capacity his versatile foothands could provide, but because it raised his body to its maximum standing height of slightly over a meter and a half and enabled him to see over the meter-high, lavender-tinted grass that comprised much of the surrounding vegetation.

Something quick and chittering scuttled through the sedge close to his right. Using the truhand and foothand on that side of his thorax, he drew the rifle that was slung across his back and aimed it at the source of the noise, tensing in readiness. The muzzle of the weapon came up sharply as half a dozen !ccoerk burst from the meadow. Letting out a whistle of fourth-degree relief, he let a digit slip from the trigger and reholstered the gun.

Their plump brown bodies shot through with purple streaks, the flock of feathered !ccoerk fluttered toward the satin-surfaced lake, cooing like plastic batons that had been charged with static electricity. Beneath a feathered, concave belly one trailed an egg sac nearly as big as herself. Idly, Worvendapur found himself wondering if the eggs were edible. While Willow-Wane had been settled for more than two hundred years, development had been slow and gradual, in the conservative, measured manner of the thranx. Colonization had also been largely confined to the continents of the northern hemisphere. The south was still a vast, mostly unknown wilderness, a raw if accommodating frontier where new discoveries were constantly being made and one never knew what small marvel might be encountered beneath the next hill.

Hence his rifle. While Willow-Wane was no Trix, a world that swarmed with dynamic, carnivorous life-forms, it was still home to an intimidating assortment of energetic native predators. A settler had to watch his steps, especially in the wild, uncivilized south.

Tall, flexible blue sylux fringed the shore of the lake, an impressive body of fresh water that dominated the landscape for a considerable distance to the north. Its tepid, prolific expanse separated the rain forest, beneath which the settlement had been established, from inhospitable desert that dropped southward from the equator. Founded forty years ago, the burgeoning, thriving colony hive of Paszex was already sponsoring outlying satellite communities. Worvendapur's family, the Ven, was prominent in one of these, the agri town of Pasjenji.

While rain forest drip was adequate to supply the settlement's present water needs, plans for future growth and expansion demanded a larger and more reliable supply. Rather than going to the trouble and expense of building a reservoir, the obvious suggestion had been made that the settlement tap the ample natural resource of the lake. As the possessor of a subspecialty in hydrology, Wor had been sent out to scout suitable treatment and pipeline sites. Ideally, he would find one as close to the lake as possible that was also geologically stable and capable of supporting the necessary engineering infrastructure, from pumping station to filtration plant to feeder lines.

He had been out in the field for more than a week now, taking and analyzing soundings, confirming aerial surveys, evaluating potential locations for the treatment plant and transmission routes for the water it would eventually supply. Like any thranx, he missed the conviviality of the hive, the press and sound and smell of his kind. Regrettably, another week of solitary stretched out before him. The local fauna helped to divert his thoughts from his isolation. He relished these always educational, sometimes engaging diversions, so long as one of them did not rise up and bite off his leg.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
The first in a new "prequel" series from one of the premier writers of fantasy and science fiction, Phylogenesis traces the origins of bestselling author Alan Dean Foster's highly popular novels of the Commonwealth (For Love of Mother-Not, The Tar-Aiym Krang, etc.). Here Foster presents the reader with a science-fiction spectacle that is a quest for both inspiration and redemption, beginning with the love of poetry and ending with the mutual respect and union of two worlds. Narrative threads of adventure and well-done characterization twine together to form a profound tale of conflict, interplanetary fellowship, and poetry's place in an always unpredictable and dangerous universe.

On the planet of Willow-Wane a precarious truce exists between the insectoid thranx and the smaller but much more aggressive community of the lizard-like AAnn. Rumors arrive that other sentient beings have arrived on the planet, a group of intelligent mammals called Humans. Desvendapur is a thranx poet suffering from a stagnant career and lack of creative inspiration. Unsure if the supposed secret colony of Humans at Honydrop is only gossip or a conspiracy of his world government, Des sets out to learn the truth in the hope of finding his muse again. Hidden in a secluded complex on a high plateau of ice and snow where none of the humidity-loving insectoids dare roam, Desvendapur discovers that there is indeed a human settlement on Willow-Wane. He learns that it is part of a huge project devoted to greater understanding and interaction between the two species. Through a series of liesandfalsified information, Desvendapur immediately gives up his identity as a poet to become a food technician at the complex.

Des studies all he can about this strange new race, even learning the rudiments of their unwieldy language. After inadvertently wandering outside into the snow, Des is saved by a man and suddenly finds his poetic imagination fired once more. Des is eventually transferred to the Amazon forest on Earth to take part in an exchange project. There, he meets Cheelo Montoya, a small-time criminal trying to gain a better position in a local crime syndicate. Cheelo is on the run for accidentally murdering a mugging victim, and together he and Des travel and learn more about one another and each other's race. Soon, AAnn forces are tracking them, as man and thranx become bound in friendship and eventually in blood.

As always, Foster manages to infuse his polished writing with a true sense of realism and easy readability. With a cast that ranges across three intelligent species and a number of class systems, we see how societies not only interact with other cultures, but also which internal problems, complexities, and intrinsic values are present within them at any given time. Foster offers a wonderful balance in Phylogenesis, instilling in Desvendapur a voracious muse for which he will sacrifice almost anything. This is more than just the hub around which the plot revolves, it's an utterly engaging element showing the true humanity of the creative individual. Foster is skilled at capturing several character traits at once, as well as at fashioning various underlying plotlines and dramatic tension. Again he gives us a perfectly-wrought and intriguing novel, with a multi-faceted narrative vision that allows the reader a greater understanding of the magnitude of such sprawling, poignant, and soulful SF elements.

—Tom Piccirilli

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In the years after first contact, humans and the intelligent insect like Thranx agree to a tentative sharing of ideas and cultures despite the ingrained repulsion they have yet to overcome. Thus, a slow, lengthy process of limited contact begins.

Yet they never plan for a chance meeting between a misfit artist and a petty thief. Desvendapur is a talented Thranx poet who is bored with his life and needs new inspiration for his work. Venturing beyond the familiar, Desvendapur runs into Cheelo Montoya, a small-time criminal with big dreams of making a fast buck. Together they will embark upon a journey that will forever change their beliefs, their futures, and their worlds . . .

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Some centuries in the future come the earliest days of contact between humans and the insect-like thranx. Both species carefully try to keep contact in the hands of approved experts, but the thranx have slipped a covert base into the Amazon rain forest. Desvendapur, a thranx poet obsessed with finding new sources of inspiration through contact with humans, escapes from this base into the jungle. There he encounters Cheelo Montoya, a small-time gangster fleeing a mugging that turned into a murder, a man with no poetry in his soul but abundant street smarts. Their initial misunderstandings and suspicion give way to cooperation, and then to friendship after the two survive an encounter with deadly poachers. The author of more than 40 novels, Foster does a fine job with his misfit heroes and even with his minor characters (such as the reptilian AAnn). He shows his usual mastery of narrative pacing and slips in a great deal of wry wit (the sexiness of a female thranx depends on the slenderness of her ovipositors). The novel will be a treat for those who have followed Foster's tales of the Humanx Commonwealth, to which this is a kind of prelude and which began way back in 1972 with The Tar-Aiym Krang, and can also serve as a splendid introduction to both the Commonwealth and its creator.

Kirkus Reviews

First of a prequel series developing the backdrop of Foster's Commonwealth yarns (Mid-Flinx, 1995, etc.). Humans have just contacted a number of alien races, chief among them the insect-like thranx and lizard-like AAnn. On planet Willow-Wane, thranx poet Desvendapur seeks fresh inspiration for his work, and he becomes fascinated by humans when he learns of the existence of a secret colony, part of a long-term plan to evolve an understanding between dissimilar races, located beneath a cold high plateau avoided by the heat- and humidity-loving thranx. With a series of creative deceptions, he forges a new identity as a food processor and attaches himself to the colony. Soon, a great success, he's transferred to the secret thranx colony on Earth, located beneath the Amazon rain forest. But here Desvendapur's given no opportunity to interact with the natives—and so, illicitly, he goes outside. In the jungle, he encounters Cheelo Montoya, a petty criminal on the run from a mugging-turned-murder. Neither being wants to be reported to the authorities, so both tell plausible lies and agree to travel together. Inevitably, they come to respect each other, cooperate when danger threatens, and eventually confess all. Meanwhile, AAnn spies suspect that humans and thranx are attempting to accelerate the hitherto leisurely process of forming an alliance. Desvendapur's deceptions are revealed; Cheelo surrenders after his friend dies of the cold, but he insists that the thranx's poetry be published. This forces a swift conclusion to the human-thranx treaty—to the consternation and annoyance of the rival AAnn. Like the Flinx yarns themselves: pleasant but of no great wit, originality, orsignificance.