Dave Duncan 
Pock’s World 

Journey to a quarantined planet in this “entertaining, fast-moving, and thoughtful” science fiction novel (S. M. Stirling). On the outskirts of the Ayne Sector sits Pock’s World. Years ago, humankind settled the planet. Now, it might or might not have been infested by humanoid aliens, hidden amongst the populace, waiting to interbreed and use humans as incubators for their parasitic spawn. Five people are chosen to travel to the quarantined Pock’s World to find out whether it should be sterilized of all life–a ruthless priest, a scandal-seeking reporter, an ambitious politician, a bureaucrat, and a questionable billionaire. Each has his or her own agenda as to what they wish to find on that distant planet. Instead, they discover the unexpected–a web of deceit, love, politics, and religion. With very little time left, there don’t seem to be any simple answers in the complicated universe of Pock’s World. From the celebrated author of Portal of a Thousand Worlds and the Seventh Sword series, this is a suspenseful adventure from Dave Duncan, who “has produced one excellent book after another” (Locus).