SOLVED. SF First Contact with Humans the best warriors in the galaxy [s]

[Wulfae]

Edited to add: Thank you all! I had a feeling it was by a really well known author, and lo and behold it was!

The first book is A Call to Arms, and it's from the series called The Damned. (link leads to wikipedia, spoiler warning.)

WHEN: I read this... I think before 2000. It was a trilogy of books, but I remember the first one best.

Reading level: Adult. It was in the normal SF section of my then-local library.

What the story is about: There's some sort of intergalactic war going on, and the alien protagonist of the book is part of a ship going planet to planet to try to gather forces. The ultimate hope is to find warriors to help fight, since there are only a few races out of all the known universe who are either physically or emotionally capable of fighting. Our protagonist is one of them.

They land on earth, I feel like it was the middle of the ocean? They run into this guy on his boat, and he winds up breaking the arm of our warrior alien without even trying.

Turns out that the 'fight or flight' response is unique in all the galaxy, and that humans are perfectly created to fight this battle.

The first human they contact is a song writer, I think? Something very non-threatening. He fights against the idea that humans will basically be the military for the galaxy, but by the end of the book (spoilers) I think he was on board with it as well. Maybe he had also gone to war?

Humanity frightened the rest of the galaxy.

I don't remember much of the second book, except that there was a bit where the two human characters had a date on a beach? Or something?

The third book was from the point of view of an avian alien, one who's race has exquisite manners. I think there was a lot of dancing involved, but I might be mixing it up with that David Brin book the Uplift War.

Genre: Science Fiction

Format: Dead trees all the way!

I've done a few searches and haven't been able to find anything about this. Either 'first contact' and 'war' is too broad, or it's too narrow.

Thanks for any help!

[Pamela]

I can't find the title, but I believe it's by Alan Dean Foster. Found what I think it is: A Call to Arms, the first in a series called The Damned. A Call to Arms

[Andy]

That's definitely it - the hero was a composer living in New Orleans. We had another thread about the book recently https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Justanotherbiblophile]

Just a note, it's called The Damned Trilogy

Wikipedia has spoilers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Damn...

[Wulfae]

Thank you! That is it exactly! I will update my post.

[Pamela]

You're welcome.