Everybody's attention is on Mars these days, but Sarah Zettel must like going against the flow. Her new book, The Quiet Invasion, is the first must-read novel of 2000, and it's about what one of her characters calls "Earth's forgotten twin," Venus.

Venus hasn't been a very good subject for science fiction in recent years. It's an inferno of a world, hot enough to make metal glow on a surface where the air pressure is ninety times that of Earth. Exploration is difficult at best, and there is so little water vapor that terraforming and widespread human habitation are almost impossible.

The People originated on a Venus-like world in some other star system, where they mastered biology to the extent that they are able to create living cities, tools and even organic teleportation devices. However, overuse and lack of genetic variation has nearly destroyed their homeworld's ecosystem, forcing the People to find a new home. Venus is the one world that fits.

Humans confuse the issue
There's a complication, though. Humans have established a research base in Venus's atmosphere, and the People don't know what to make of it. Are the humans claiming the planet for themselves? Can they even claim the entire planet when they only have one colony? And if the humans aren't willing to share Venus, how can the People reconcile their need to survive with their respect for all life, even alien life?

Zettel has played with similar themes of ecology and understanding alien life before (most recently in 1998's Playing God), but The Quiet Invasion takes her concerns to a new level of complexity. Her story bounces from the homeworld of the People to Venus to Earth and back again, from living alien cities to the massive human-built research base of Venera to the underground cities of the Moon.

While there are only a few villains in the story, almost every character contributes to the crisis by imposing their obsessions upon the miracle of first contact. It's a stark reminder that learning the other's native language is only the beginning of communication, and that personal agendas make understanding a fragile thing.

A host of human and alien characters round out the book, while there is enough carefully thought-out technology to please the hardest of hard SF fans. Zettel's also paid close attention to history, which means that even a seemingly incidental event like a Martian revolution 20 years earlier can be crucial to the plot.

It's the contemporary politics that make the story engrossing. The major problem the novel poses is that, for all their explorations, since Zettel's humans can't settle on Venus's real estate, why not let the People share it? Unfortunately, the politics of Earth, the People, and the individual characters conspire to make this seemingly simple solution almost unworkable, driving both humans and the People to the brink of genocide.

The book's message about politics is decidedly mixed. Few of her characters enjoy the stuff, as demonstrated in a charming moment where the human and People ambassadors exchange heartfelt condolences after learning that politics is something they have in common. At every step, Zettel reminds readers of the politically-driven actions that made her characters' actions necessary.

The Quiet Invasion is set to hit the shelves in January.