A Not-Quite Human Story Unable to find a home and acceptance on Earth, an intrepid band of misplaced youth seek their ancestral home among the stars. Unfortunately, their reception is not what they hoped. The home they discover is a hostile environment, involved in a huge interstellar war with a hostile alien species. Viewed as untrusted interlopers, they search for a place in a universe with no use for them, and no place turn for assistance. One chapter has some explicit interspecies sex, but it's part of the plot.
During the Earth-Silth conflicts, two commanders of opposing warships played a game of chicken at one of the outer known solar systems, the result being a head-on collision and two ships fused together at the bows. After the cease fire agreement plans were made to salvage what they could from the ships and Alain from Earth was sent as part of a two man crew to recover components from the Earth vessel while a team from the Silth would handle theirs. Nothing turned out to be as expected.
There's some reaction these days that holds scientists responsible for war. Take it one step further: What happens if "book-learnin'" is held responsible.?
Just because a man can do something others can't does not, unfortunately, mean he knows how to do it. One man could eat the native fruit and live. but how?
The loss of solar heating has caused the Earth's atmosphere to freeze into thick layers of "snow". The boy's father had worked with a group of other scientists to construct a large shelter, but the earthquakes accompanying the disaster had destroyed it and killed the others. He managed to construct a smaller, makeshift shelter called the "Nest" for his family, where they maintain a breathable atmosphere by periodically retrieving pails of frozen oxygen to thaw over a fire.