I recently read A Darkling Sea by James L. Cambias. I liked it, and would recommend it. The story is fundamentally about a group of humans studying an alien society in the ocean under the ice of a distant planet's moon. I found the story engaging because Jim created a set of characters that you wanted to know more about and see what happened as the story progressed. I particularly liked how he presented the aliens from their own perspective: they were both alien and accessible, which is a hard thing to do.

I have known Jim a long time, and know how much effort he puts into his ideas and thoughts on alien species. I think this novel does a great job creating a truly alien view, while not making it so alien as to be inaccessible. I picked this up while on a trip to Saratoga Springs, and stayed up too late each night as I wanted to know what was coming next in the story.

Another piece of  Jim's work I really liked is his story The Alien Abduction. This link has a blurb about it. It was published in 2000 in Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine.