Beholder’s Eye (Web Shifters) Free Audiobook

Julie E. Czerneda (Author)
Read By: Tom Pettingill

Beholder’s Eye is Julie Czerneda’s second novel. She entered the science fiction scene last year with her delightful debut book, A Thousand Words for Stranger. In Beholder’s Eye, she continues with one of the key themes from Stranger, in which a member of a secretive, powerful race winds up getting much too closely involved with a human, leading to profound consequences.

The book’s protagonist is Esen-alit-Quar, the youngest of a race of shapeshifters. Being only a few hundred years old, Esen is now just ready for her first assignment — to spend a decade on a planet studying the culture of the local inhabitants. Despite her confidence, things rapidly go astray when she finds humans on the planet as well. Soon, she’s managed to violate her race’s most important rule by revealing her nature to a human.

Throughout it all, Esen becomes closer and closer friends with a human. Since she has hardly had any meaningful interactions with someone of another species, she is ill-prepared for the consequences that friendship can bring.- This friendship is further complicated by the danger that her friend will be drawn into the hunt against her.

The unusual premise and excellent writing combine to make Beholder’s Eye a wonderfully entertaining book. I’m looking forward to the sequel Czerneda has planned for the future.

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