Judith Moffett (1942 - )
Judith Moffett is an American author and academic who began her career writing poetry before turning to SF with an ape-as-human tale, "Surviving", for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in June 1986. She gained immediate attention by winning the first Theodore Sturgeon Award in 1987 and her reputation was further enhanced with the publication of her first novel, Pennterra, in the same year. The following year she received the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

In the early years of the twenty-first century, Earth teetered on the brink of ecological destruction. Then the alien Hefn came, determined to save the dying Earth - and to the Hefn, the ends always justified the means. Humans were given nine years to correct their mistakes - alone, with no recourse to the Hefn's advanced technology. If by then the Earth's ecology had not stabilized, the Hefn would solve the problem for good . . . by eliminating humans entirely.
But slowly, against their will, some of the Hefn became deeply involved with their human counterparts. And to the handful of people who came to know them, the Hefn made a great difference: as mentors, researchers, rulers . . . and saviors. But could those few friendships sway the Hefn to help save a despoiled planet - and the human race?