After being held hostage on a world called Issel, Tristan, the hero of Ganwold's Child, has been reunited with his military family. Now a soldier himself, he and Lujan Sergey, commander of the special forces and the father he has never known, try to find some common ground on which to build a relationship. A new universe is opening up to Tristan, and his military training is progressing, when a new crisis occurs. Tristan is pressed to return to hazardous service. The alien masuki slavers have invaded the Issel system, and only Tristan, once held captive there, knows the planetary defenses.

In Echoes of Issel, Read expands and deepens both the personal relations in this military family and the social and political structures of the Unified Worlds as another war threatens.

"[Read] handles action-adventure scenes with that rare mixture of poise and authority, grace and grittiness, which leaves a reader breathless, heart-pounding, wholly caught up in the story. There is a balance few writers achieve--she neither glorifies the violence nor denies the glory due to courage and honor." --Elizabeth Moon