Conquerors' Heritage (The Conquerors Saga, Book Two)
The second novel in Zahn's new trilogy is another finely wrought space adventure. Its theme is interstellar war, as a society faces a new, mysterious, insensate, and deadly race--humans. The whole story is told from the viewpoint of the conquerors of the title--the aliens who call themselves the Zhirrzh--as they desperately try to figure out what hit them and to hit back before the humans unleash a rumored superweapon. Matters are further complicated because the Zhirrzh exist in two states, as biological bodies and, after the bodies die, as incorporeal entities called Elders. Both states are involved in every sort of social, political, and emotional complication, all of which Zahn treats with his usual skill. You may wish the characters' names did not contain so many consonants but, otherwise, hardly fault the book.Roland Green