The Foundation of the Commonwealth
 
• 2340 A.D. ( -60 A.A. ) :  Phylogenesis ( 1999 ):  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 DelRey )
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• 2365 A.D. ( -35 A.A. ) :  Dirge (  2000 ): In the second half of the twenty-fourth century, diplomatic relations proceed cautiously between thranx and humans, who are slow to overcome their aversion to the insectlike beings. But the lowly thranx are nearly forgotten with the sudden discovery of an ideal planet to colonize --Argus V-- and the startling appearance of a new race of space-faring aliens. People are dazzled by the beautiful, glamorous pitar. Then tragedy strikes.

A cargo ship making a routine delivery to Argus V finds a scene of grisly carnage has replaced the bustling new world. The entire human population-- 600,000 men, women, and children--has been brutally slaughtered. Not one survivor or a single clue remains to identify the unseen executioners. Even the combined efforts of all alien species prove fruitless in the search for killers who have perpetrated planetary genocide on such a vast scale.
But from a tiny inner moon of Argus V comes a faint, wavering signal--and on that insignificant chunk of rubble lies the key to the crime. The cataclysm that follows is replete with shock and deadly consequences for thranx, pitar, and human alike. For their worlds will change forever by the colossal space battle that is both in their future and their destiny. ( from DelRey )
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• 2400 A.D. (  0  A.A. ): Diuturnity's Dawn ( 2002 ) :  From the beginning, while sharing the Orion Arm of the galaxy, contact between humankind and the thranx has been tenuous at best. Yet nearly a century after first contact, the likelihood of closer human/thranx relations is as far away as ever. Humans still find these insectlike beings physically repulsive, a distaste the thranx return in kind. At times the cordial veneer barely conceals the suspicion and distrust boiling just below the surface. Yet idealists on both sides refuse to surrender their dreams of achieving a thranx/human alliance. Among the most dedicated are a minor diplomat named Fanielle Anjou and her thranx counterpart. Others intend to make sure such a liaison never comes to pass . . . by any means necessary. ( from DelRey )


Adventures of Flinx and Pip :
 

• 548 A.A. :  For Love of Mother Not ( 1983 ): He was just a freckle-faced, redheaded kid with green eyes and a strangely compelling stare when Mother Mastiff first saw him an the auctioneer's block. One hundred credits and he was hers. For years the old woman was his only family. She loved him, fed him, taught him everything she knew-- even let him keep the deadly flying snake he called Pip. Then Mother Mastiff mysteriously disappeared and Flinx took Pip to tail her kidnappers. Across the forests and swamps of the winged world called Moth, their only weapons were Pip's venom . . . and Flinx's unusual Talents. ( from DelRey )
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549 A.A. :  The Tar-Aiym Krang ( 1972 ): Moth was a beautiful planet, the only one with wings -- two great golden clouds suspended in space around it. Here was a wide-open world for any venture a man might scheme. The planet attracted unwary travelers, hardened space-sailors, and merchant buccaneers -- a teeming, constantly shifting horde that provided a comfortable income for certain quick-witted fellows like Flinx and his pet flying snake Pip. With his odd talents, the pickings were easy enough so that Flinx did not have to be dishonest ... most of the time. In fact, it hardly seemed dishonest at all to steal a starmap from a dead body that didn't really need it anymore. But Flinx wasn't quite smart enough. He should have wondered why the body was dead in the first place...(from DelRey)
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• 550 A.A. : Orphan Star ( 1977 ) :His birth had been shrouded in mystery, and all Flinx knew of himself was that he'd been abandoned by those who had spawned him. Raised by Mother Mastiff in the marketplace of Drallar, Flinx eventually discovered that his unknown parents had bequeathed to him a curious legacy...a legacy of extraordinary mental powers that were both an incalculable asset and a most dangerous liability. This legacy would lead him -- and his potent protector, the minidrag Pip -- into the clutches of one of the most depraved and powerful men in the galaxy...on to a harrowing search for the truth about his birth...and out of one world into another on his most dangerous adventure ever.

( from DelRey )
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• 551 A.A. : The End of the Matter ( 1977 ): Accompanied by his faithful minidrag Pip and a most troublesome alien called Abalamahalamatandra -- Ab for short -- Flinx set out for Alaaspin, the ruggedly primitive homeworld of his flying snake. There he hoped to find the giant man with the gold earring who somehow held the key to Flinx's mysterious past and to the strange powers he possessed. Chasing down his heritage was trouble enough, but Flinx didn't know what real trouble was until he realized that the Qwarm -- a deadly assassin squad -- were three steps behind him with a contract to kill. But the minidrag's homeworld did not offer safety and Flinx had a terrible time just staying alive ... a matter complicated to no mean degree by a collapsar already set on an unstoppable death course across the galaxy! ( from DelRey )
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• 551 A.A. : Flinx in Flux  ( 1988 ): When Flinx, no stranger to galactic intrigue, found an unconscious woman on a riverbank deep in the jungles of Alaspin, he took it in stride. When he learned that the woman, Clarity Held, was a brilliant scientist abducted from a remote outpost on inhospitable Longtunnel by a group of fanatic assassins, he tried to help the beautiful Clarity back to her project.Unfortunately, the assassins were still at work. They would do anything to stop the research on Longtunnel and would kill anyone or anything that got in their way... ( from DelRey )
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• 552 A.A. : Mid-Flinx ( 1995 ): Where Flinx and his flying minidrag Pip went, trouble always followed--that law had governed their lives through years of unsought danger and galactic intrigue. Now an evil rich man was out to kidnap the minidrag for his personal zoo, and Flinx and Pip were on the run again--this time into uncharted space, on a random course they hoped would foil their pursuers. They found more than they bargained for when they landed on Midworld, a verdant planet covered by an immense jungle, hosting an incredible variety of plant and animal life--all of it unknown and all of it deadly. And now they were in real trouble. Their hiding place was in danger of discovery, and their only hope lay with this bizarre and untamed planet . . . if it didn't kill them first! ( from DelRey )

 
• 553 A.A. : Reunion ( 2001 ): It all starts innocently enough. Well, almost innocently. So what if Flinx uses his enhanced empathic abilities to finesse his way into a top secret security installation on Earth? Once there, he bamboozles a sophisticated AI program into releasing classified information about the Meliorare Society, the sect of renegade eugenicists whose experiments with human beings had horrified the civilized universe more than twenty years ago. After all, as one of the few Meliorare experiments to survive, Flinx has a right to know about his past. Especially since his telepathic powers seem to be evolving. The question is, evolving into what? The excruciating headaches afflicting Flinx with increasing frequency make him wonder if he will be alive to find out.

But headaches are the least of his problems. For the information he uncovers leads Flinx into AAnn space, and the reptilian AAnn are more likely to eat human visitors than welcome them. Awaiting Flinx is a planet brimming with hidden dangers and astonishing discoveries. But nothing so dangerous, or so astonishing, as the unexpected return of an old enemy: an enemy as evil as she is beautiful . . .( from DelRey )
 
• 559 A.A. : Flinx's Folly ( 2003 ):  On the planet Goldin IV, Flinx discovers that his dreams about a monstrous evil beyond the Great Emptiness are now reaching other people with deleterious results. He also learns that he's being chased by the Order of Null, dedicated adepts who want a cleansing death for the whole universe and are afraid he'll prevent it. Fleeing in his alien-built supership to the paradise planet New Riviera, he takes up with his old lover, Clarity Held. Unfortunately, she's picking up the dreams, too. Still more unfortunately, Clarity's fiance, Bill Ormann, is becoming homicidally jealous. In fact, he's about to kill them both when Flinx's old mentors, the thranx Truzenzuzex and the human Tse-Mallory, do a good imitation of a deus ex machina and dispose of Mr. Ormann. (Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.)

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• approx. 561 A.A. : Bloodhype ( 1973 ): It caused instant addiction, followed by an excruciating slow death, and there was no known antidote. It was a killer. Supposedly the drug had been totally eradicated from the humanx galaxy years before. At least that's what everyone thought. But somehow, mysteriously, that dreadful substance was back in circulation on Repler and threatening to wreak havoc throughout the known galaxy. Someone somewhere was secretly manufacturing Bloodhype, but nobody seemed to know where or who! ( from DelRey )

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• approx. 558 A.A. : Sliding Scales ( 2004? ):  Not yet published
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The Icerigger saga:
 

• 548 A.A. : Icerigger ( l974 ): Ethan Fortune was simple salesman -- knowledgeable and civilized . . . a sophisticated traveler between many worlds. But he had certainly never thought of himself as a hero. Skua September, on the other hand, never thought of himself as anything else. A matched pair, if ever there was one! When the two of them were suddenly stranded on a deadly frozen world, Ethan Fortune incredibly found himself cast in the role of Leader. And he didn't find that at allam using . . . ( from DelRey )
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• 549 A.A. : Mission to Moulokin ( 1979 ):The further adventures of  Ethan Frome Fortune, Skua September and Milliken Williams as they try to help their Tran friends qualify for admittance into the Commonwealth. ( from DelRey )
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• 550 A.A. : The Deluge Drivers ( 1987 ): It looked as if  Ethan Fortune was stuck on the icy world of Tran-ky-ky, never to enjoy the warm comforts of civilization again. But when the scientists at the outpost of Brass Monkey detected an odd atmospheric phenomenon, things began to heat up. Only the great icerigger Slanderscree could make the dangerous journey to the isolated southern continent, and only Ethan could convince the primitive Tran that the mysterious warm spot was worth the trip. Nothing could have prepared Ethan and his Tran and human companions for what they encountered as they sped southward, for its like had not been seen for thousands of years -- open water on the ice oceans of Tran-ky-ky!

But the worst was yet to come. This was no natural phenomenon. Someone was systematically raising the temperature of the frozen planet. If Ethan and crew of Slanderscree couldn't stop the process, soon Tran-ky-ky would become a paradise for humans -- and a living hell for the Tran.
( from DelRey )
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Other Humanx Commonwealth novels :
 
• 2311 A.D. ( - 89 A.A. ) : Nor Crystal Tears ( 1982 ): Before Man and insectlike Thranx had become allies, when the reptilian AAnn were just occasional raiders of Thranx colony worlds, one young Thranx agricultural expert lived a life of quiet desperation. A dreamer in a world of sensible, stable beings, Ryo buried himself in his work -- reclaiming marshland from a tenacious jungle -- until he came across a letter describing a relative's encounter with horrid, two-legged, soft-skinned space-going beasts . .. ( from DelRey )
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• 106 A.A. : Voyage to the City of the Dead ( l984 ): Two scientists , Etienne and Lyra Redowl, explore the planet Horseye and visit the legendary City of the Dead, where they discover a relic of an ancient race ( the Xunca ).
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• 545 A.A. : Midworld ( l975 ): Born was a child of the rain forest that covered Midworld, part of the primitive society that the peaceful jungle planet had sustained for hundreds of years. He was wise in the ways of his world, and he knew well the precarious natural balance that governed all things. Then one day the aliens came. Giants. They knew nothing of the Upper or Lower Hell -- and they cared less. Born had risked his life to save them, to guide them through the myriad tangled boughs, past unseen, unsuspected dangers lurking in the underbrush. But worse than their ignorance of how to survive, the aliens had plans for Midworld, plans that could utterly destroy the globe-spanning forest that his people called home. As the days passed, Born realized his mistake. And as he had once hunted only to live, he knew now that he would be forced to live only to kill... ( from DelRey )

 
554 A.A.  : The Drowning World ( 2003 ): They call it the Drowning World. It is Fluva, a planet on the fringes of the Commonwealth where it rains torrentially, ceaselessly, and maddeningly for all but one month of the Fluvan year. Chief Administrator Lauren Matthias is fairly new to the position. Her primary goal: keeping Fluva’s indigenous species, the warlike Sakuntala and immigrant species, the timid but hard-working Deyzara, from annihilating one another. Inter-species conflict on Fluva is successfully dealt with by local Commonwealth administration.( from DelRey )
........
• 571 A.A. : Sentenced to Prism ( 1985 ): Evan Orgell,a corporate detective, visits the planet Prism to solve the mistery of the local research station. This novel describes the incredible silicon-based lifeforms of the planet Prism.
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• 572 A.A. : Cachalot ( l980 ): A team of experts was sent to find out what happened to the floating towns on the water planet Cachalot, inhabited by humans and by very intelligent cetaceans.
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• 573 A.A. : The Howling Stones ( l997 ): The newly discovered planet of Senisran was a veritable paradise--a sprawling world of vast oceans dotted with thousands of lush islands and copious deposits of rare-earths and minerals. First-contact specialist Pulickel Tomochelor's mission to Senisran was straight forward: Secure mining rights for the Humanx Commonwealth before the vicious AAnn Empire beat them to the chase. With Senisran's Parramat clan resisting entreaty, negotiations could be difficult, but Pulickel was more comfortable with aliens than with his own species, and looked forward to a triumphant return to Earth. He hadn't counted on the incredible secret of Parramat, though: the strange, powerful green stones that the tribe used to manipulate the forces of nature.Within those stones lay an awesome technology the origin of which was lost in time--a technology that had to be kept from the AAnn at any cost . ..

( from DelRey )
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 Humanx Commonwealth short stories
 

• approx.  525 A.A. :  The Emoman ( l972 ): Tells the story of an emodrugs seller, Sawbill September (yes, he's Skua September's brother).
• 534 A.A. :    Surfeit ( l982 ):This is the story of Joao Acorizal, a champion of the  surfing race on the planet Dis: the biggest of the known galaxy.
• 551 A.A. :    Snake eyes ( l978 ): A short story of Flinx and Pip on Moth.
• 554 A.A. :    Sideshow ( 2002 ): Flinx hadn’t a clue about the alien dancer, but Pip knew trouble when she saw it.

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