Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #154865 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

Highly Recommended
I don't need to give plot details as other reviewers have done enough of this but I've just finished this book & found it engrossing & would recommend it as containing a balanced mixture of action, convincing intelligent alien life & relevant issues (ecology, sanctity of life, damage done to individuals, cultures & environment both intentionally and by accident). The plot moves ahead at an appropriate pace (for me at least) although in retrospect I thought I noticed one glitch in continuity (will have to read it again to be sure).

I note that reviewers of some of the later books in the series say it tails off but I will definitely be reading the next one & then we'll see.

spare a copper
The start of a series of science fiction novels that introduces us to shan frankland, veteran policewoman working in environmental protection somewhen in the future. About to retire from her job, she is asked to go on a mission to a faraway world where contact has just been re-established with a long lost colony. The full details of the mission are buried in her mind and will only come out in due course. And the humans on this world are protected by aras, an alien with a dark past.

Against all the odds, an unlikely friendship begins to develop...

An excellent read and the kind of book that makes you want to rush out and buy everything else by the same writer. Shan is a believable character whom you can relate to. and the writer and the character being british means the slang she uses is totally believable. Aras also is a very interesting creation. Whilst not a lot happens at points in the book, it's still good enough and well written enough to keep you turning the pages. and this is well rewarded with some interesting developments in the last third. the fate of one character sparked a bit of an emotional reaction in me. and that is a sign of good writing.

Now then, let's go and order her next book. I can't wait to find what happens next.

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.