Howling Stones

Enter another realm in the amazing world of the Humanx Commonwealth--the interstellar empire governed jointly by humans and aliens! 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 straightforward: 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 the Paperback edition.

Alan Dean Foster was born in New York City in 1946 and raised in Los Angeles, California. After receiving a bachelor's degree in political science and a master of fine arts degree in motion pictures from UCLA in 1968-69, he worked for two years as a public relations copywriter in Studio City, California.<br><br>He sold his first short story to August Derleth at Arkham Collector magazine in 1968, and additional sales of short fiction to other magazines followed. His first try at a novel, The Tar-Aiym Krang, was published by Ballantine Books in 1972. Since then, Foster has published many short stories, novels, and film novelizations, including the New York Times bestselling Splinter of the Mind's Eye and Flinx in Flux.<br><br>Foster has toured extensively around the world. Besides traveling, he enjoys classical and ro

So intense was the green-blue light that spilled from the interior of his backpack that he could barely stand to look at it. He could just make out the source of the light and heat: a single uneven mass where earlier there had been two. The individual stones must have melted into one when he fell.

His fingers hovered over the lambent mass. The heat was substantial, but not unbearable. How did one separate commingled stones? How did the Parramati stonemasters do it? He felt he had to at least try. Maybe a good, strong, old-fashioned tug on both ends simultaneously, he speculated. He pulled, twisting first in one direction and then in the other. As he worked his hands and wrists, he thought he felt something give within the mass.

The stone exploded.

No, he decided, aware that he had not lost consciousness. The glassy mass had not blown up. In fact, he and the conjoined stones were the only things that had not exploded.

It was the universe that had detonated.


From the Hardcover edition.

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Excerpted from The Howling Stones by Alan Dean Foster
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