Stardoc

Stardoc and its sequels—also collectively known by the title of the first book—are a series by American romance novelist S.L. Viehl that are best described as part Space Opera and part Medical Drama.

The ten books in the series are:


 * Stardoc
 * Beyond Varallan
 * Endurance
 * Shockball
 * Eternity Row
 * Rebel Ice
 * Plague of Memory
 * Omega Games
 * Crystal Healer
 * Dream Called Time

Viehl's duology Bio Rescue and Afterburn, the stand-alone novel Blade Dancer, and several short stories are set in the same universe, and have some overlap in cast.


 * You don't find out the full extent of their status as such until fairly late in the series.
 * Accidental Marriage: First, . Later subverted by the son of the Patriarch of Furin: The proposal is an entirely symbolic act of  gratitude.
 * Back From the Dead:, in Dream Called Time, thanks to.
 * Bizarre Alien Biology: The series absolutely revels in it. Jorenians alone have green blood, twelve-chambered hearts, unusually large and complex spleens that are a vital organ to the species, compartmentalized stomachs, and built-in cartilaginous subdermal "body armor."
 * Blue Skinned Space Babe: Jorenians are arguably an entire race of these.
 * Burial in Space: Jorenian tradition, as seen in Stardoc, is for the dead to be ejected from the ship on a course that will result in cremation by stellar or planetary atmosphere. As seen in Plague of Memory,.
 * Cosmic Retcon: The main plot of Dream Called Time.
 * Cunning Linguist: Duncan.
 * Dead Guy on Display: Jorenian warriors do this to anyone who threatens their families.
 * Death of the Hypotenuse: Poor, doomed.
 * Designer Babies: Are explicitly illegal, thanks to some laws that Joseph Grey Veil got pushed through.
 * Disposable Fiance: See above.
 * Fantastic Racism: Terrans have a mostly-deserved bad reputation for being rabid xenophobes. Extraterrestrials can only even visit Terra on a limited basis, and certainly aren't allowed to live here . As a result, no one likes us much, either.
 * Flatline Plotline: instigates one in order to break up with  in Beyond Varallan. Justified in that.
 * Gay Aesop: Plague of Memory contains an in-universe one.
 * Half-Human Hybrid/Nonhuman Humanoid Hybrid: Oh, so many of them.
 * Humans Are Bastards
 * Interspecies Romance: Between Kao and Cherijo in Stardoc. There's also Ilona/Dhreen in Eternity Row, and Qonja/Hawk in Plague of Memory.
 * "It's Not Rape If You Enjoyed It": Played disturbingly straight more than once.
 * Mister Seahorse: This is how Thgill's species in Blade Dancer reproduce. Also comes up in Stardoc, when someone naïvely presumes the same of both humans and Jorenians.
 * Omniglot: Duncan can learn alien languages telepathically by making physical contact with the alien in question.
 * Opposite Sex Clone: is one of . This was ostensibly.
 * Pair the Spares:
 * Planet Terra
 * Ret-Gone: . They end up creating an alternate timeline in which the only real evidence of their existence is the fact that...well, they're there.
 * Romantic False Lead: for Cherijo. One could stretch a point and call.
 * Screw Yourself: fancied himself too good for anyone except his Opposite Sex Clone.
 * He's also implied to have . All in the name of science, of course.
 * Veganopia: Jorenians are, for the most part, vegetarians (despite being a pastoralist culture whose ancestors were predators). Zigzagged in that they're portrayed as both an entire race of Cultured Warriors and/or Warrior Poets and as a Superior Species (by default).
 * Villain with Good Publicity: Dr. Joseph Grey Veil, and how.
 * Wife Husbandry: Turned out to be
 * Yandere., so much. is Flanderized into this in later books.