Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #208864 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 400 pages

Locus, January 2004 (Gary Wolfe)
A thoroughly competent and satisfyingly complex tale...(which)...evokes the earlier moral fables of Le Guin...a writer worth watching.

Locus, February 2004 (Faren Miller)
....makes the old tropes new again. Traviss handles everything with a mixture of panache and restraint... a bravura performance.

Locus, March 2004 (Russell Letson)
Skilful working of point of view...to lovely and often ironic effect. (An) engaging, thoughtful and sometimes uncomfortable book.

Customer Reviews

A Pearl of a Novel
From the moment I started reading I couldn't put this book down. I know that's a cliche but with this book it was true. The characters really leap out of the pages as 'real' people.
The main character, Shan Frankland, is one of those rare human beings, someone with integrity. Throughout the book she is struggling to keep her charges alive despite their best efforts. The whole environmentalist theme of the book really appealed to me. And Karen's view of the future, one of human society being run by large corporations, while at once sinister is also very believable. And the vision of humans rapaciously spreading to other worlds is all too familiar to human history so far.

If you like your science fiction with a lot of realism, with a hard edge and without too much techno-babble getting in the way of a strong story, then this book is for you. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good story.

Ripping yarn!

Finest Science Fiction
I think this novel is a rare treat for the most demanding readers of Science Fiction: clear and profound narrative, intriguing, original story, marvelously described aliens (Weinbaum and Vance come to mind) , interesting characters, plausible and competent in scientific speculation. The commander of an expedition to a forgotten Earth Colony on planet Cavanagh II believed extinct finds the colony alive, but also finds the expedition is less than welcome, as the humans on the planet have managed to adapt to the alien and complex eco-political balance under the surveillance of the planet appointed aklien Guardian, Aras. From this, the tale which unfolds largely from the POV of alien species, which the Author depicts with unusual skill and originality. No little green men with silly antennas, here, but truly alien beings here, thinking in alien ways. Isaac Asimov would have been delighted as I've been by Karen Traviss narrative art.

more, more, more
I began reading this series with book no. 2 for some reason and thorougly enjoyed that. I wondered how Shan got infected and decided to buy no. 1 - no regrets. This is an excellent beginning to a new series. The characters are neither one nor two dimensional but seem like real people. The definition of people is challenged in this book - even with regards to the creatures on this earth. Humans are seen for what they are - monkeys with power.

Environmental Hazard Enforcement officer Shan Frankland agreed to lead a mission to Cavanagh's Star, knowing that 150 years would elapse before she could finally return home. They all thought they would go to an unchartered planet - one that humans possibly could take over and make into their own. But alas, three separate alien societies have claims on Cavanagh's Star already.

With her on her mission, Shan has Marines and scientists. They meet up with the human colony, and are told by Aras - the Wess'har protector of Besenjey (the planet) - that they may not collect any samples of anything. Information will be provided. Being human ensures that this order will not be followed by all. From there on one catastrophe after another comes about for the humans away from home.

Shan discovers that Aras is something more than Wess'har. It turns out he has been infected by something called c'naatat - an entity (bacteria/parasite/whatever) that infects a body and adapts it so that it will survive anything but an explosion. She understands the implications of this. If humans get their hands on something like c'naatat they will go crazy.

There is a lot happening all the time in the book. Traviss has done an excellent job and I would recommend it to anyone wholeheartedly.