The Others: A Science Fiction Novel

This intricate and elegiac novel concerns the meeting of two species that occupy one world and tells how the more primitive and vigorous race eventually moves to destroy the other. Facing death along with the rest of the Others, Lingri the Chronicler looks back over her life, telling of her youth as a Monitor from a more advanced culture secretly studying the vigorous, artistic and passionate People. The Others, on the other hand, had suppressed strong emotion for centuries, in the interest of peace and order, with science taking the place of the ``disruptive'' arts. Lingri moves obliquely from the doomed present to her disguised encounters with a young woman who becomes her first friend among the People, to the first open meeting between the two species. Flashbacks and documents concerning the stormy People/Other relationship illuminate how a leader appealing to the disaffected People came to power, making the Others scapegoats for the chaos and dislocation brought about by the advent of modern Other technology. Bonanno ( Risks and two Star Trek novels) crafts strong characters and depicts vividly distinctive societies in this thoughtful and unusual tale. (Oct.)