Cuckoo's Egg by C.J. Cherryh

Presenting the stones -- Hatani test

     Often, I am content to make a few simple little sketches after reading a book. Sure, I'd love to make complete illustrations, but to at least do SOMETHING is okay... it's enough.
But then there's some books for which I can hardly stand to make even those few simple sketches -- not because the book is uninteresting or hard to visualize, but because it's a story that is particularly engaging to me, and it bothers me not to be able to represent it with a genuinely GREAT picture.

Cuckoo's Egg is one of those books.

  I wish I could give you a beautiful, fully rendered painting (or two, or three). Then you could really see, could *feel*, this story. But alas, I have neither the skills nor the time to make anything beyond a couple rough sketches

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 One narrator knows nothing; the other knows everything but reveals very, very little. Something huge is going on. Something desperate. Chaos descends over a world, and we have only a few speed-blurred glimpses of it, barely understood through Thorn [the protagonist]'s eyes:
...A shuttle, poised against the smoke-stained sky. On the horizon, a red sun burst, and swelled, and faded...
   

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Thorn -- Hatani solution

 Cuckoo's Egg has a good, satisfying ending, and yet... it's left so wide open. It's like the story's only getting started! But... copyright 1985, and no sequel in sight. Oh well.

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