Isaac's Universe

Six intelligent species have the run of this galaxy and not one of them enjoys the company. Humans — Erthumoi, to everybody else — share it with the winged Crotonites, the aquatic Cephallonians, the sonar-sighted Locrians, the serpentine Naxians who read your emotional state at a glance, and the silicon-bodied Samians, who think on a geological schedule. Nobody is the villain. Everybody is exasperating. Between them stands the Diplomacy Guild, which exists because six species who cannot share a room still have to share a galaxy. Isaac Asimov designed the frame and then handed it to other writers. Three anthologies — The Diplomacy Guild, Phases in Chaos and Unnatural Diplomacy — collect the stories that grew inside it, and two novels carry the setting further: Hal Clement's Fossil, and Janet Asimov's Murder at the Galactic Writers' Society. This is old-fashioned puzzle science fiction in the best sense — alien biology worked out properly, then a problem that can only be cracked by several incompatible kinds of mind arguing about it. The fun is watching each writer take Asimov's six species and invent a fresh way for them to misunderstand one another. Start with The Diplomacy Guild, which lays down the rules; after that the volumes stand perfectly well on their own.