Scapegoat

Three notable science fiction authors pit men and women against difficult alien races in their respective stories of extraterrestrial wars of the future The Scapegoat - C.J. Cherryh How can humans and aliens end a war which neither wants, when their ideas about war and peace seem to have no point of contact? Seasons - Joe Haldeman It was supposed to be a peaceful anthropological study of an alien race, but it went hideously wrong. Cordon Sanitaire - Timothy Zahn The aliens were beyond primitive: they were animals never seen to use tools in the wild - so why were they using weapons far beyond any invented by men?