Traviss, Karen: Ally
Ally (2007)
Written by: Karen Traviss
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 388 (Mass Market Paperback)
Series: Book Five (Wess'Har Wars)
Why I Read It: I've devoted myself to finishing the Wess'Har Wars series by the end of the calendar year, and since I had two books left and it's now December, I figured it's time to get cracking. I'm hugely invested in this series and discovering how it all ends.
The premise: ganked from publisher's website: The worlds orbiting Cavanagh's Star are in turmoil.
Civil war on Umeh -- ignited by outsiders -- threatens to annihilate the teeming masses of a grossly overpopulated planet. On Bezer'ej, the handful of native aquatic creatures who survived extermination must take extraordinary and terrible steps to ensure the future of their kind . . .
And the interlopers from a distant planet called Earth can only watch the chaos they helped, in part, to create -- knowing their home world will be next to suffer.
The day of reckoning is rapidly approaching when the powerful Eqbas will remake the Earth at the expense of its dominant species. And Shan Frankland -- once a police officer, once human, now something much more -- must decide where her loyalties truly lie: among the gethes, on a planet she once called home, or here, where a dying species presents her with a new and unexpected crisis.
Spoilers, yay or nay?: Yay. And not just for this book either, but rather the WHOLE SERIES. So if you're not caught up, just skip to the end and come back later when you are caught up, because there's plenty to talk about! Everyone else, onward!
I don't know if it's because I read books three and four earlier this year, or if the pace of the series has significantly slowed and Traviss needed to pad out her volumes, or if it's just a case that because I'm reading the books in a relatively fast succession, I'm already hyper-aware of the world-building and character relationships and don't need to be reminded of said things every other chapter. Because this was the first book where the writing style grated on me, and by style I mean repetition. We hear over and over and how Lindsay is cowed by Shan and how she'll never live up to Shan's ideal. We learn over and over how Rayat is an utterly untrustworthy bastard from both Shan and Lindsay both. We learn over and over what an incompetent fool Shan thinks Lindsay is.
And after a while, I'm starting to wonder if the author doth protest too much?
Here's the thing: I like repetition when there's a rhythm to it, or spaced out just enough that I don't feel beat over the head with the info and the reminders. However, in Ally it just feels like the author (or the characters) is trying to convince the reader of something that isn't really true to begin with, which makes me question what's going on and why.
While I, as a reader, do have the advantage of knowing several POVs and therefore am able to draw my own conclusions about various characters, the characters don't have that. So by the end of Matriarch, I trusted Rayat. However, Shan and Lindsay had no reason too, and that's frustrating. It's like these three characters are locked into a never-ending cycle of hate and distrust and because they can't move beyond that, I lose my sympathy. I want the story to move forward, and that's tough to do when those characters sections are spent on hate and ruminations.
And maybe it's because the world is no longer shiny and new to me, but I found myself questioning things that the characters feel MUST BE DONE. Like the destruction of the bezeri eggs. Was that really necessary? Forget the fact the kids would be c'naatat. If the law was laid down -- no more kids until we tell you so -- then what harm would come out of letting those eggs hatch? It would've been one thing if the eggs had been deliberately laid after the law had been laid down, but they weren't, and I vehemently disagreed with our heroes' actions at that point. Forget the fact that it tore the bezeri into two camps, forget the fact that it's going to spark war between the bezeri and the remaining wess'har and humans. I'm quite removed from that whole storyline, because this whole series has been leading the readers back to Earth, and that's where I want to spend my time in the last book. Based on the events in Ally, it looks like my time will be split, and I'm not thrilled about that.
And no, I've got no sympathy for the bezeri at this point. Yes, destroying the eggs was wrong, but the bezeri have proven themselves to be bastards.
Yet, the planet is THEIR native planet, isn't it? So who are the wess'har or humans or Eqbas or Skavu or anyone to say that the bezeri are a threat? Which leads to the next question: humans are native to Earth, so who has the right to dictate that humans are a threat?
The answer seems to lie with the purposeful extinction of other species. The bezeri clearly have crossed that line, and the humans have many times over. But it's funny: animals have been hunted into extinction by other animals, no? What would the wess'har do to those animals, since they view all living and breathing creatures as people?
The irony of the overall theme of this series, the theme being that one should live a life close to nature as possible, without disrupting anything, is that theme ignores the basic rule of survival, and which is that life is a bloody, violent mess. Wild or civilized, it doesn't matter. I'm curious to see how the irony and the theme come together in the last book, what the final message is that I come away with, and whether or not that's the message the author wants me, as the reader, to have. I won't know until I read on.
Regardless of my grumbling, this book finally stops treading water and starts heading towards a conclusion. Of course, what that conclusion is I have no idea. Usually, I have a sense of where stories are headed, but here, I'm utterly at a loss. With Esganikan infecting herself (and Shan would've known, too, if only she wasn't so stuck on her own prejudices), with Shan, Ade, and Aras going to Earth . . . and then, of course, there's the Skavu. I honestly can't picture any sort of happy ending, but we'll see. What's interesting is Aras' belief (and I think he's right) that it all started with him, long before the colonists settled on Constantine. Back when the bezeri asked for aid. That's one thing I do love about this series, how actions have consequences. And I also love how the book does ask hard questions, one of which I mentioned (who has the right to tell another species how to live their life) and the other I'll quote: Aras . . . wondered how God could take personal umbrage at so many things done to others, and why the deity had the right to forgive the perpetrator if the victims didn't want to. (page 300).
My Rating: Good Read
Ever since Crossing the Line, there's been a fair amount of repetition, and as the series nears the end, the feeling that the story itself is treading water. I should've been more involved in the whole destruction of Umeh, especially since it's a foreshadow of what could potentially happen to Earth, but after the major, major, MAJOR events of the first two books, I suspect I feel a little numb as a reader. It's not to say the book isn't good, nor that there aren't major events that happen (the major events in this book definitely jumpstart the final installment, make no mistake), because it IS good, and major events DO happen. It just takes a while to get there. And while some character development I adore, like Eddie, Aras, and Ade, some character development seems to be stuck in neutral (Lindsay, Shan), and that can be occasionally grating. That said, with the introduction of the Skavu, there's a new threat against Earth, and I can't wait to see how everything ends.
Cover Commentary: I think this is the first cover in the series that actually features alien life. You have to look closely and squint a little to realize it, but the aliens are there. That said, it's disappointing, because I can't reconcile what I see on the cover with any of the aliens I've visualized while reading the series. That aside? It's a pretty cover that'd catch my attention thanks to the lovely, warm coloring and the solitary bad-ass woman on the cover, holding a gun. In heels. Boo to the heels, actually . . . .
Next up: The New Moon's Arms by Nalo Hopkinson