Ally, by Karen Traviss

With Ally Karen Traviss delivers the fifth entry in her Wess'har Wars series. The aliens are now one step closer to Earth and the Wess'har will cleanse and rebalance life on Earth...which will result in significant loss of human life (but salvation for the other forms of life on the planet). Shan Frankland, once a police officer, a "copper" in her words, once a human much like any other, is, and has been for several books, much more than human. She identifies much more with the Wess'har and due to her infection of c'naatat Shan is nearly immortal. She can die, but even stepping out in the vacuum of space is not enough to kill. Shan's ideas about conversation and the value of the lives of non-humans fall in line with much of Wess'har. She is also married to a Wess'har, Aras, who is also infected with c'naatat and has been alive for five hundred years, and to a human soldier, Abe, who suffers the same fate. Shan knows that she cannot return to Earth ever because humanity should not have access to c'naatat.

But this is only one aspect of what is going on and only identifies who Shan Frankland is. There is war on Umeh, the home planet of the isenj, and the Wess'har have been invited to restore Umeh to a natural balance, but they have not been given full permission to cleanse the planet as they would wish. So, there is conflict on the planet as some of the isenj revolt against the isenj leadership, but in that revolt they pit themselves against the Wess'har and ensure the destruction of the isenj. On Bezer'ej, the world known as Cavanaugh's Star, there is a different problem. The world is in balance and though the bezeri have been nearly exterminated by a couple of humans and a big mistake, there are still survivors and Lindsay Neville, the guilty party here, was infected with c'naatat to serve the survivors in the oceans. Lindsay wonders if that service could be to save the bezeri by infecting these creatures, once thought harmless but recently discovered as overhunters who have destroyed eco-systems, and bringing them on land.

There is less a sense of discovery and raw excitement than there was in the first entries of the Wess'har Wars. This is only to be expected as Traviss is telling an ongoing story and not introducing the reader to an entirely new culture and worldview. One thing that Traviss does well to keep her novels fresh is that each novel introduces something entirely new and shattering which changes everything for the next novel. Earlier in the series it was infecting Shan with c'naatat, infecting Abe, the near destruction of the bezeri, killing Shan (which obviously didn't work), the planned invasion of Earth by the wess'har, and infecting Lindsay and Rayat. Because c'naatat is nearly impossible to eliminate (but it is possible), having more characters infected each with different views on life and what should be done with c'naatat, everything changes. All of this helps keep the series fresh and leaves the reader to end a novel with something shocking and spend the next year wondering what will happen next.

So what about Ally? Well, Traviss gives us our shocking event which changes everything. Something about Ally felt far more compelling than the previous volume, Matriarch. Perhaps it is the sense that in Ally something is really happening and the overarching storyline of bringing the Wess'har to Earth may actually happen in the series. There has been a sense of stasis in recent volumes where there was a bit of a question of whether or not Traviss would actually write about the Wess'har getting to Earth. Real progress on that storyline has been made now. Add this progress to the already fascinating ethical discussions and actions of Shan, the Wess'har on Umeh, the bezeri, and the possibility of Earthly invasion and what we have is an improvement in the series and a step back to what we had in the first three novels. There is simply a greater sense that things are happening in this novel than in the previous one and this leads to greater satisfaction with the novel.

Unrelated to the review: Beautiful cover.

Book 58: The World Before

At the end of Crossing the Line the entire bezeri population of Bezer'ej was destroyed by a nuclear bomb laced with cobalt. They were killed as an after effect of Lindsay Neville attempting to destroy the c'naatat organism that had infected Shan Frankland (human) and Aras (wess'har) and which would be a disaster for the human race back on Earth should any government get their hands on it. C'naatat grants the host near immortality, though at the cost of making the host different than the species it once was. Frankland can never go home to Earth because she would be a lab rat for centuries and Aras can never be a true part of Wess'har society. Also at the end of Crossing the Line, Shan Frankland died. One of the very few known (or believed) ways to kill an organism infected with c'naatat is the vacuum of space. Frankland deliberately stepped out of a ship without a suit so that Neville would not have the satisfaction of killing Frankland herself.

Now in The World Before the wess'har are gathering for a potential war against Earth. Since it was humans who were responsible for the genocide of the bezeri and that there is a line of responsibility back to Earth, the only thing that will save humanity is if they act in accordance with the wess'har notion of personal responsibility. The more people who try to cover for those responsible or make excuses, the worse the wess'har response will be. The Wess'har on Wess'ej have called their more aggressive kin from their home planet to help and these wess'har will take a stark response. Meanwhile Aras is trying to come to terms to the loss of Shan Frankland, his isan (a wess'har term for wife). Frankland was the only known individual to also be infected with c'naatat and he loved her. But, now Aras learns that Ade Bennett, a marine and a good man has been infected in the fight to capture Frankland (from the previous book) and a bond grows between them. Frankland is presumed dead because she was lost in space without a suit, but c'naatat is highly adaptable and anyone who read the first two volumes has to be asking the question: Is she really dead?

After the power of the first two volumes and the shocking end to Crossing the Line, The World Before has a lot to live up to. Karen Traviss has proven herself a talented novelist and one who can tell a brutal story and make it compelling like nothing else. But while The World Before has a lot going on, it feels more like a middle book than the middle book did. The novel serves to set up Matriarch far more than it does to advance a storyline here, and that's not a bad thing, but it does knock the novel a peg or two down below the first two volumes of the Wess'har Wars. What this means is that the writing is just as sharp, the emotions just as strong, but that the story doesn't have quite the same punch of narrative imperative that the first two did. There is resolution for the characters and so on a personal character scale, the novel completes a story arc, but it sets up a grander story arc that is not at all complete. To say that The World Before is a peg or two below City of Pearl or Crossing the Line only means it isn't quite as excellent as the previous novels but that it is also still far above nearly every other science fiction and fantasy novel I have read in years. Karen Traviss has set the bar awfully high for herself.

Book 55: Crossing the Line

In City of Pearl Karen Traviss introduced us to Shan Frankland, an Environmental Hazard cop (En-Haz). Frankland, on the brink of retiring, was sent to Cavanagh’s Star II on a mission that because of a Suppressed Briefing she would not remember until certain words and locations triggered the memory. Frankland is a hard woman, a hard cop, and one who has let her personal morality influence how she does her job. She is very capable and when she needs to act, she does not hesitate. On CSII, Frankland discovers the surviving human colony, but also the alien Aras of the wess’har. Aras has been modified by a symbiotic disease called c’naatat which has given him extraordinary long life as well as making him incredibly difficult to kill. It has also alienated him from his own people. He is literally untouchable, and the wess’har are a physical race. Frankland sides in every dispute with the native humans, wess’har, and bezeri over the scientists and military that is under her command on the mission, but there are disputes and accidents and in the end Shan Frankland is infected with the c’naatat. She will be changed by it, making her more and less than human. She decides to remain with the wess’har and to attempt to serve them as she can to help prevent a possible conflict with humanity.

This brief and dirty synopsis brings us up to Crossing the Line, the second novel in the Wess’har Wars. Shan Frankland is adapting to c’naatat and being cut off from humanity. She knows that she would be used to duplicate the c’naatat for human use and the last thing humanity needs is fast breeding humans who won’t die. Frankland advises the Wess’har leadership of ways to “discourage” Earth from sending any more ships or fleets to CS2. There would not be much of a book here if there was not a further human intrusion on CS2, so it spoils nothing to say that the potential conflict is not over, and there are personal issues from Frankland’s former team to contend with.

Karen Traviss is very quickly becoming one of my favorite science fiction authors. Her writing is sharp and the characters she chooses to focus on are drawn out very vividly. We can tell who is talking or thinking by how they think and talk, even if names are not given. The primary characters have a distinct voice. If I spend time thinking about it, Crossing the Line does suffer from “Middle Book Syndrome”. While there is a clear beginning and end to the book (and this is a huge plus), the ending serves to set up The World Before. Karen Traviss writes character driven science fiction. The character of Shan Frankland is central to the story here and she is not a placeholding character which could be substituted by just anyone. Her beliefs drive her actions and her actions are what drive the plot of the novel. Everything that Frankland does is consistent with her character and the good decisions have negative consequences and her wrong decisions have consequences as well. Frankland feels real, all of Traviss’s characters do. She even creates a believable alien culture. The pace of Crossing the Line is a little bit odd because throughout the novel Frankland is working to prevent something, so there is a narrative tension but not a real hard driving pace. It’s more of anticipation. I will absolutely not spoil the ending here, but I was left shocked by how the novel ended and the “event” changed the nature of where the series could possible go. Very powerful.

There are certain things that I know will occur in the next volume because of how Traviss set up the characters and situation, but I don’t know to what extent or how much, and I can’t wait to find out what happens next. The joy is in the discovery when books are as well written as the work Karen Traviss publishes.

Book 48: City of Pearl

Before I started reading City of Pearl I was most familiar with author Karen Traviss because of her first two entries into the Star Wars Universe. She is the author of Republic Commando: Hard Contact and Republic Commando: Triple Zero. These are easily two of the best Star Wars novels. City of Pearl was a well regarded debut and I had been meaning to pick the book up for months. Now I wonder what took so long.

Like the Republic Commando novels, City of Pearl focuses on the "guys on the ground". Shan Frankland is an officer in Enviromental Hazard Enforcement. What this means is that Frankland is an eco-cop. In 2299 the Earth is a pretty messed up place. Corporations own patents on every variation of seed and probably DNA on the planet. Farmers can only grow what they can buy and most seeds are terminator seeds, which means the seed dies after one planting thus making the farmers, the economy, and pretty much everyone who wants to eat, entirely beholden to corporations. Frankland's job is to enforce the laws of the planet (and beyond) in order to protect the environment from being harmed even more. She is a hard edged cop, very intimidating and willing to act without hesitation. She is also one of the few who have not accepted some sort of modification to her DNA and body to better do her job. She's just good at it.

But this is background. A senator from the Federal European Union offers Frankland a mission to a faraway planet which had been colonized by humans. The catch is that Frankland won't know exactly what the mission is after she accepts it because she is given a Suppressed Briefing. This is a drug which will inhibit the memories of the previous conversation and the memories will only return in time and when certain things trigger the memories. The Senator has her reasons and Frankland apparantly has her own reasons for accepting when she was about to retire. The mission will, because of space travel, take one hundred and fifty years of Earth time by the time Frankland returns. Everything and everyone she knows will be long gone when she comes back. Still, she accepts.

Cavanagh's Star II is the planet. Besides the remnants of the human settlement, the planet is claimed, one way or another, by three alien species: The Aquatic bezeri, the invading isenj, the harshly protective wess'har. The peace is uneasy because the wess'har have a blockade of CS2 to prevent the isenj from returning. Like everyone else, they have their reasons. The bezeri truly call the planet home.

But this is starting to get overly complicated in the description. Shan Frankland finds herself as the civilian commander of a group of marines and a team of scientists. The scientists work for corporations and want to take as many samples as they can. The humans on CS2 live in a very ecologically friendly manner and refuse to let samples be taken. Frankland finds herself siding with the natives and with the wess'har, of whom she meets Aras. Aras has a long history of protecting CS2 and the humans and he is willing to destroy Frankland's ship if necessary to protect the world.

What Karen Traviss has done here is create a military, environmental, character driven science fiction novel that doesn't hit the reader over the head with any of the points. It's quite remarkable, really. Traviss, as one might except after reading her Star Wars work, is quite adept at writing from the perspective of the soldiers. They are hard working and pragmatic and respect strong leadership and Frankland's leadership is stronger even that the military commander on that field. Frankland has to balance the requirements of the natives, the wess'har, and her own people. She also needs to discover what exactly her mission is on CS2. She hasn't found all of the trigger points to bring the briefing to the front of her mind. All of this is well written by Karen Traviss. Her focus on the characters rather than the over-reaching ambitions of the folks with true power is what is so fascinating, that she writes about the people who actuall do stuff and she writes it well.

City of Pearl is one of the best science fiction debuts I've read, though I admit I am not widely read in the genre. The only part of the novel that did not work was the cliche of using apostraphes in naming. In this case it was for some alien names rather than human, but still, I don't like it. There is much here to like, however. Traviss's use of flashbacks for Frankland was very effective as the flashback with the gorilla is one of the most memorable ones I've read and it really put the character into perspective and gave a good idea of why Frankland is the way she is. Excellent writing, excellent story and I cannot wait to read Crossing the Line, the next volume in the Wess'har Wars.