Cam, Lucca, Soledad: three ordinary people chosen by an alien power for reasons no one understands to undertake a journey no one on Earth could have imagined. They, and eighteen other young humans, have been sent by the alien Atoners to distant worlds to observe. To discover the Crime. To see with their own eyes the wrong done to humanity. At first everyone thought it was a joke. Then they thought it was some kind of viral marketing campaign. The ad had appeared on the Internet: "We are an alien race you may call the Atoners. Ten thousand years ago we wronged humanity profoundly. We cannot undo what has been done. But we wish humanity to understand it. Therefor ewe request twenty-one volunteers to visit seven planets to witness for us. We will convey each volunteer there and back in complete safety. Volunteers must speak English. Send requests for electronic applications to witness@atoners.com." A few days later, a huge new installation appeared on the mo
Author
Nancy Kress is an American science fiction writer. She began writing in 1976 but has achieved her greatest notice since the publication of her Hugo and Nebula-winning 1991 novella Beggars in Spain which was later expanded into a novel with the same title. In addition to her novels, Kress has written numerous short stories and is a regular columnist for Writer's Digest. She is a regular at Clarion writing workshops and at The Writers Center in Bethesda, Maryland. During the Winter of 2008/09, Nancy Kress is the Picador Guest Professor for Literature at the University of Leipzig's Institute for American Studies in Leipzig, Germany. Excerpted from Wikipedia.
