Nearly two centuries after the starship Phoenix disappeared into the heavens, leaving an isolated colony of humans on the world of the Atevi, it unexpectedly returns to orbit overhead, threatening the stability of both Atevi and human government. This is the sequel to Foreigner.

Haunted by mysterious images of dark figures and strange birds, Magdalen Lorne, chief Terran operative on Darkover, must pursue her quest for an ancient city to the ends of the physical world as well as to the perilous limits of the spiritual overworld.

Weyrwoman Fiona struggles to keep her surviving Weyr in fighting shape while Lorana plans a complicated time-travel journey to save their world.

An unusually gifted man who has the power of self-healing and bodily regeneration as well as the ability to cause earthquakes and drain lakes is exiled on a primitive planet and leads a revolution against its Offworld oppressors.

Jack Holloway, prospecting on Zara XXIII for ZaraCorp, finds an immensely valuable stream of sunstone. But when he forwards footage of the planet's catlike, native "fuzzies" to a biologist friend --who believes the "fuzzies" are sentient--hired company thugs, murder, and arson soon follow to protect ZaraCorp's mining interests.

Ben Cameron, a human diplomat, must negotiate with a young atevi alien lord unfamiliar with humans in the hopes of convincing him to stop hostilities towards the west.

Continues the story of the ancient Forerunners engineering race, who are worshiped as gods by the Covenant while their mysterious connection to humanity slowly unfolds.

"Long before the First Order, before the Empire, before even The Phantom Menace...Jedi lit the way for the galaxy in The High Republic. Padawan Reath Silas is being sent from the cosmopolitan galactic capital of Coruscant to the undeveloped frontier and he couldn't be less happy about it. He'd rather stay at the Jedi Temple, studying the archives. But when the ship he's traveling on is knocked out of hyperspace in a galactic-wide disaster, Reath finds...

"Colonists from Earth wanted the perfect home, but they'll have to survive on the one they found. They don't realize another life form watches ... and waits ... Only mutual communication can forge an alliance with the planet's sentient species and prove that humans are more than tools."--