Betrayed by my own title?

 For months now, the most visited post on this blog --  by a substantial margin -- has been Betrayer of Worlds. 

It is, in general, a Good Thing when a post is popular. But the announcement of the fourth book in the five-novel Fleet of Worlds series? Approaching twelve years after the book's initial release? With no corresponding show of popularity in the novel itself (judged by sales comparisons with other titles in the series)? 

It's puzzling.

Is the phrase "Betrayer of Worlds" inadvertent clickbait? If so, well, the click-throughs must be generating considerable surprise. Because what political content the novel offers concerns alien species, centuries from now, light-years from here.

Now to see what kind of traffic this innocent speculation generates .... 

The best novels of First Contact

For frequent visitors here, my interest in the the First Contact theme will come as no surprise. My fiction has explored the possibilities fairly extensively, for example in Moonstruck, the InterstellarNet series, and, most recently, Déjà Doomed. In "Alien AWOLs: The Great Silence," a chapter in Trope-ing the Light Fantastic: The Science Behind the Fiction, I address the absence of contact -- so far -- in a nonfiction sense. (Click on cover thumbnails on the blog RHS if you're curious about these titles.)

Why am I so interested? First, there’s the Big Question of are we alone. Whatever the answer, the implications are profound. But beyond that, there’s just so much great SF on the topic. A reader recently challenged me to name my favorite First Contact fiction. So: here 'tis! (And as hard as it was winnowing the candidates to a few, the order within my list is not a further ranking.)

(Oh, and please excuse Blogger's odd word-line spacing of this post.)

The list? Drumroll please ...