Traviss, Karen: Judge
Judge (2008)
Written by: Karen Traviss
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 391 (Mass Market Paperback)
Series: Book Six (Wess'Har Wars)
Why I Read It: It was a personal goal of mine to finish this series by year's end, so I'm proud to say I finally did it! I remember reading the very first installment last year and how it completely floored me. The series since has offered more than it's fair share of twists, turns, and tough questions. I couldn't wait to see how it all ended.
The premise: ganked from BN.com: The Eqbas have come, bringing justice, change, hope to some . . . and death to many.
Seeking to punish the human gethes who caused the near destruction of an ocean-dwelling race in the distant Cavanagh's Star system, the Eqbas have finally landed on Earth. But another, equally important obligation has drawn them across the galaxy: the salvation of this environmentally ravaged world, a mission that could entail the annihilation of billions of humans.
Former police officer Shan Frankland has come as well -- along with her two lifemates, one alien and one human -- carrying in her blood the parasite that makes her virtually immortal. Though she once vowed never to let the powerful contagion reach the homeworld she left nearly a century ago, she feels compelled to play an active role in the unfolding drama -- and to follow the catastrophic events that have devastated civilizations and defined her life to their shocking, inevitable end.
Spoilers, yay or nay?: Yay. Sorry, but it's just gotta be like that, since not only do I want to talk about how the series ends, but I want to talk about the events that lead up to that ending. So, consider yourself spoiled for the whole series, which adds up to six books. If you aren't caught up, just skip to "My Rating" and you'll be fine. Everyone else, onward!
Endings suck. No, seriously, they suck.
Be it books or television, there's a certain amount of time, investment, and anticipation that comes along with following a series. Time and investment come with reading/watching the latest installment, but the anticipation comes between installments, and inevitably, readers get their own ideas about what they want to the series to be about and how the series should end.
I've come to the conclusion that as a whole, endings to long-running series tend to be disappointing. Not to everyone, mind you, but as a whole, it's kind of inevitable. Not only will SOMEONE be disappointed, but there's the general sadness that comes with knowing it's the last Harry Potter ever, or the last new episode of Lost ever.
Now, in all honesty, the discussion of endings and why they suck in general is really a discussion for another time. But if you really want to get into the meat of the issue, read this. It's actually referring to end-dates for television series, but the argument, I think, is applicable to books.
So, with that out of my system, am I trying to say that the ending to The Wess'Har Wars sucked? No. But it wasn't wholly satisfying either. There's lots of reasons for this, many of them technical, so let's break them down:
Unresolved tension/lack of villains: going into Judge, I was rather terrified. I feared something HORRIBLE would happen in this book, and I was right to think so. Horrible things had happened in the past (Shan spacing herself in Crossing the Line), and the set-up with the Skavu being over zealous coupled with Esganikan dosing herself with c'naatat made for a really scary tension going into the final book. That and the fact we were FINALLY going to Earth, and after what happened to Umeh and the isenj, who wouldn't be terrified?
None of these things panned out. Sure, the Skavu went batshit crazy when they learned Esganikan had c'naatat and killed her, but that had no real consequences. We never hear that the Skavu treated humanity on Earth the same way they treated the isenj, and no, the destruction of the fighter jets didn't really register on my radar. Nor did Esganikan's self-dosing of c'naatat ever cause problems for anyone but herself. She doesn't accidentally infect anyone, nor do the wrong people (except the Skavu) get wind that she had it.
Which leads me to Shan and the FEU: sure, there was a lot of hot air about turning Shan over to the FEU (and we knew what they really wanted), but nothing ever came of it. The attempt to capture Shan was feeble and laughable, and after a while, I stopped fearing that Shan and therefore c'naatat would get into wrong hands, which really killed the tension for me.
That said, I do have some admiration for the realism here: you have to ask yourself, what can Earth POSSIBLY do to overpower the Ebqas and get Shan? Little to nothing, so on one hand, I'm glad there wasn't an implausible action scene where through sheer stupidity or hand-waving, Shan ended up in the hands of the enemy. HOWEVER, I think there should've been close calls. The prime minister of Australia and his people were too quick to roll over and be mouthpieces for the Eqbas. It would've been interesting if someone had balked over the handling of Shan and tried to make the whole situation work to their advantage. And/or if they had gotten a hold of Ade or Aras for the same thing.
But in the end, c'naatat was never a threat. We never even explored the ethics behind the c'naatat being its own life form that deserves to spread. I was rather hoping for a moment where this was truly realized, and the ethics of eradicating it even out of a host's body was considered just as bad as an extinction event (or something). Traviss kind of gets there, but it's never really illuminated in a way that satisfied me, and the question of removal was all about whether or not the carriers deserved that extra time and immortality and what kind of threat it was while it was still in a carrier.
Don't get me wrong: the decision that each character had to make regarding the removal of c'naatat was pretty powerful. At one point, I was convinced that Shan, Ade, and Aras would all have it removed and they'd go their separate ways (though I knew Shan and Ade would stick together in the end, despite my fear that what happened on Earth had broken him). In the end, it was just Aras, and that saddened me in a way I really can't articulate. Because I've read these books over a year and a half, I can't really pinpoint why, but I feel like I'd lost touch with his character since Crossing the Line, so the decision was more heartbreaking to me than inevitable and necessary. It would've been heartbreaking anyway, because I feel certain that Aras loved Shan and Ade regardless, but it was tough to swallow, and I wish those decisions had been earned a little more.
And then there was Rayat's chewing out of Shan at the end when he learned she and Ade were keeping it. How hard would it have been for Shan to open her mouth and just say, "The wess'har won't let me." ? Too hard: after all, she's all about martyred silence or some such nonsense, but this late in the series it felt unnecessary, especially since I wondered if, at one point, Rayat wouldn't take matters into his own hands and fragment Shan and Ade if they didn't comply. And a better question is: why didn't he?
There were so many moments of missed conflict. The whole bit with the berezi basically dropped to nothing, despite the destruction of the eggs in the previous books. You would've thought it would've caused more problems.
Despite the ending, this is a series I feel like re-reading again sometime in the future. I still have unanswered questions, like how Earth even knew about c'naatat to begin with, because that's why Rayat was sent on the mission, you know? Eddie's story on it was not the first time they'd heard of the parasite, it was just confirmation.
And now that I know the arc, I'd like to focus more on the apparent intent on making Lindsay and Rayat villains. That's probably too general though, because Traviss didn't appear to favor black and white labels in her series, so while Rayat and Lindsay were antagonists for Shan, they weren't necessarily bad people. Just people who had made bad decisions and fucked up. But Shan's vehement hate for them for the whole series wore very thin, and I wanted to smack her when she refused to listen to anyone once Rayat's name came up (and that brought up another question: why did it take so long for someone to realize they just needed to blurt out the important message without preamble? Giyadas was the only one who did).
So much of this book was an anti-climax though. It's obvious from the start that Shan should've never come back to Earth, and there was no pay off for that decision either, good or bad. Sure, she and Ade got officially married and that was sweet, but she was never in any danger, and she didn't play a major role in how Earth was handled. The events in the book, for the most part, are pointless. Things would've marched along just fine without her, Ade, and Aras being there, and that is ridiculous. True to life, perhaps, but in fiction there needs to be a bit more push, and Traviss never took advantage of the opportunity, which surprises me, because she didn't pull back from punches in the previous books. In many ways, I think the only reason for Shan to go to Earth and come back was to use time dilation -- it forced things in fast-forward on all the planets, so that major progress could be made, and people could age.
Eddie's arc was very lovely though, and I loved the resolution the readers got for his story and his life, as well as the equally beautiful moments anytime friends were in pain. Ade showing up for Aras when he was having c'naatat removed was very sweet and very moving.
Shan's disillusionment of the Eqbas and their role in the solar system was interesting. I wish it hadn't taken her so long to get there, but I also wish we'd spent more time in her head to examine regrets. At the time she refused to give David c'naatat, the removal of it wasn't possible. But I can't remember if it was possible by time she aborted her own child, and I really wanted to see some hindsight and regret there. Because the actions she did and didn't take added up to nothing after all: had she saved David, her and Lindsey's arc would've been much different. Had she not aborted her own child, that child could've been cured and taken to Earth, and perhaps Aras would not have felt the need to go back to his own people (though who knows: that particular result may have still happened regardless).
But these meaningless actions are one of the reasons I want to re-read the series: to follow more closely the cause and effect of everything that's happened, to really understand if Traviss is just being really subtle and/or I'm reading too fast, or if the author just dropped the bomb and missed out on several opportunities.
Because let's face it: there could've been a seventh book. Seriously: what happens when the Skavu come back through the system without Esganikan? That could be its own book, and who knows, maybe we'll get that story one day. But that's one of many lingering questions I ended up with.
My Rating: Worth Reading, with Reservations
In all honesty, I think Traviss could've taken some risks with the Earth meets c'naatat storyline and split the finale into two books instead of the one. I felt there were several missed opportunities, and I'm still struggling to decide if I admire that or not. Because on one hand, life doesn't play out like a movie: things don't happen the way you expect, and sometimes the decisions you make end up amounting to nothing. But on the other hand, this is still fiction, and considering how much bang I got for my buck at the start of the series, I wanted something more out of this final book, and I didn't get it.
Be that as it may, if you've made it this far, you've got to finish. There was some lovely, heart-breaking moments towards the end that make reading worth it. And as a whole series? Sure, it ends with more of a sigh than any kind of bang, but the series as a whole is definitely worth pursuing, especially the first two books, which starts with such a loud bang that maybe it's inevitable that the end of the series would feel the opposite. I'm really glad I read this series, and some day in the future, I would like to re-read this so that I can really study the craft and plotting. In part to see what I missed, and in part because now that I know where everything ends, I can appreciate the arc all the more. Especially in regards to all the ideas and questions Traviss packs into her narrative. The ideas are definitely worth chewing in SF, and the directions Traviss takes with her story is often at odds with what the stereotype is, and that leads to interesting results. I do wish the final installment had been stronger, but I'm happy to have read it and the series itself. It's definitely worth reading.
Cover Commentary: Pretty sure this is my favorite of the six. I love the oranges, the way the model is looking out over the land, and the spacecraft and moon in the sky. All of its quite lovely, and I think this cover finally made me give in and get the first book in the series. :)
Next up: Batman: Noel by Lee Bermejo