Mammoth, John Varley.
Another competent, pedestrian science fiction novel from former sf god John Varley.
Pretender, C.J. Cherryh
"The second book of the third FOREIGNER sequence." That would make it book eight in this series about the politics of various factions of humans and aliens on planet far from Earth. The cover art still sucks; the prose is as good as ever if you like her thing, which I do.
