Golden Witchbreed

I read this book decades ago from a library, and it stuck with me to such an extent that I had to go out, find it back, buy it, and read it again. Both the characters and the worldbuilding are breathtaking. The story is full of intrigue, politics, careful diplomacy, and self-interested string-pulling, love, fear, and wonder. It's an absolute doorstopper, and I inhaled it.

An Earth Ambassador visits the planet Orthe to try to persuade the human-like inhabitants to join an interplanetary union. Christie’s blonde hair makes the suspicious native people associate her with their former ruling class, the Witchbreed, now overthrown, to the detriment of technological advance. 

While no listing would be complete without Ursula leGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, I am sure that has been a popular choice, so I’m taking a step further to a similar and later novel. I like the Ambassador being female this time; and her discovery that the Orthe people are derived from reptiles can… show more.