Serpent's Reach is a 1980 science fiction novel by the United States science fiction and fantasy author C. J. Cherryh. The book was nominated for the Locus Award for Best Novel in 1981 and is set in the author's Alliance-Union universe. Specific placement of the novel within the Alliance-Union timeline is difficult because two of Cherryh's works provide contradictory dates. Most likely, the events in the novel begin in the year 3141 (see "Timelin...
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Serpent's Reach is a 1980 science fiction novel by the United States science fiction and fantasy author C. J. Cherryh. The book was nominated for the Locus Award for Best Novel in 1981 and is set in the author's Alliance-Union universe. Specific placement of the novel within the Alliance-Union timeline is difficult because two of Cherryh's works provide contradictory dates. Most likely, the events in the novel begin in the year 3141 (see "Timeline issues" below).
The work was first published as a Science Fiction Book Club edition through Nelson Doubleday in May 1980, followed by a DAW Books paperback edition in August of that year.
The book is set in the constellation Hydrus, which is known in the Alliance-Union universe as the "Hydri Reach", and also as "Serpent's Reach", from which the book takes its title. The Hydri stars are home to the alien Majat, an insectoid race with a hive-mind consciousness. Like some species of Earth insects, the Majat are eusocial, featuring separate...
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