[Sergey Chronicles 01] • Ganwold's Child

Tristan grew up a human among aliens. Now he must use his alienness to survive among humans.

The Sergey Chronicles, one military family’s saga and a large-scale epic of interstellar war, begin with the odyssey of Ganwold’s Child. Combat surgeon Darcie Dartmuth is taking her toddler son, Tristan, to rejoin her husband, Lieutenant Lujan Sergey, when their military transport is captured by alien slavers, the masuki. Darcie and Tristan manage to escape in a lifepod and land on Ganwold, home of the primitive and alien ganan. Tristan is barely eighteen when Darcie contracts a life-threatening illness. Accompanied by his gan “brother,” Pulou, Tristan sets out to seek help for her. When he ventures into an enemy colony, he is captured and turned over to Sector General Mordan Renier, his father’s nemesis, who uses Tristan as bait to trigger a new war for Renier’s lost homeworld. Now an Admiral and commander of the Unified Worlds’ special forces, the Spherzah, Lujan must repel Renier’s impending attack, realizing he could lose the family he has just learned is still alive.

“A very good first novel,” wrote Orson Scott Card, “in which a youngster plunges into a demanding military environment and is forced to find out just how good he is. This novel is exemplary for showing how the effective military mind really works—you’ll find no romantic military nonsense here.”