City of Pearl
On the day she is to retire from Environmental Hazard Enforcement, Shan Frankland agrees to take on one last mission. The catch? The mission is to distant Cavanagh’s Star, and Frankland won’t be able to return for over 150 years. So begins Karen Traviss’s City of Pearl.
In addition to a small human colony, three other intelligent species have a presence on Cavanagh’s Star: the bezeri, an aquatic native species; the Wess’har, who protect both the local species and the human colony against aggression; and the isenj, a militaristic culture who would like to displace all of the others.
Frankland doesn’t remember the exact nature of her mission, only that she accepted it. She’s been given suppression drugs which will open her memory on a need-to-know basis (a plot device that the author uses skillfully to increase suspense). Frankland does know she is to work with Aras, the Wess’har representative who serves as guardian of the planet. Aras’s age, his ability to heal rapidly, and the strange way in which others defer to him but still avoid him are all part of the story’s mystery.
To complicate Frankland’s problems, she’s in charge of a group of scientists who would love to exploit Kavanagh’s biodiverse ecosystem for new commercial products, but who have been put under extreme restrictions in what they are allowed to do. Humans, in this story, are certainly not the most powerful species in the universe, and they need to tread carefully if they are to survive, but of the humans, only Frankland seems to understand their limitations.
This is a suspenseful, well-paced yarn with fantastic lead characters. The moral dilemmas that they face will give real pause to thoughtful readers. Traviss, a veteran of Star Wars series novels, has learned her craft well. While this novel has a satisfactory ending, if you like it you can continue with the other excellent books of her Wess’har Wars series, starting with Crossing the Line.
Check the WRL catalog for City of Pearl
