I won't give away the horrific twist that comes near the beginning of this novel, the moment when I realized exactly what I was about to read. Going in, you know this is the story of a desperate attempt by humanity's last descendants to colonize a terraformed world already inhabited by a non-human civilization. The shock comes with a moment of recognition followed by some of the smartest worldbuilding I've ever encountered. My advice: don't read the reviews. Go in cold and enjoy a stellar example of modern evolutionary science fiction. Fans of Sue Burke's Semiosis duology and Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep will find a lot to like here.Publisher's description:
The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age--a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind's worst nightmare. Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?