Books like A Darkling Sea by James L. Cambias

In the icy depths of Ilmatar, a division of deep‑sea explorers investigates a blind alien race that inhabits the planet’s sub‑ice oceans. The Terran team has negotiated a fragile truce with the Sholen, the first extraterrestrial contact: as long as their habitat remains undisturbed, the explorers may conduct their missions peacefully. The fragile arrangement shatters when media personality Henri Kerlerec is injured by curious Ilmatarans, igniting tensions between Terran and Sholen forces and threatening a diplomatic disaster that could spiral into war. Against this backdrop of deep‑sea guerrilla conflict, a new era of human exploration begins as alien cultures collide and both sides seek the aid of the enlightened Ilmatarans. The stakes for the native population and the future of human exploration are anything but certain.

First publish date: 2014