Book Review: "City of Pearl" by Karen Traviss

“City of Pearl” by Karen Traviss is the first book of the six part Wess’Har series. Given that I learned about Ms. Traviss through her Republic Commando series of Star Wars novels – which are supposed to be quite good, though heavy on the action and light on the plot – this was not all what I was expecting from her.

The story begins with the first human colonists – a community of Christians, not unlike the Plymouth pilgrims – landing on an alien world in 2198, where they make first contact with an alien named Aras. The story then jumps forward to 2374 and introduces the primary protagonist, Shan Frankland, as she commands the second mission to this new planet with orders that even she is unaware of (the orders themselves are rather mundane, and why they are kept from Shan (and the reader) is never really explained). They make contact with the colonists’ descendants and, eventually, with Aras.

Shan is the kind of character that I really enjoy following. She’s practical, confident and smart, but ideological as well. She knows full well the nature of humanity – she’s essentially a cop – and is generally very good at predicting what other people will do or say given a particular situation. Of course that doesn’t help her all that much with Aras, who is a Wess’Har c’nataat soldier. The c’nataat parasite that he houses makes him functionally immortal (think Wolverine from the X-Men), which gives him a rather unique view on life – even among Wess’Har.

Ms. Traviss has made sure that her aliens are suitably alien and mysterious – the Wess’Har thought process only really works so long as you’re willing to accept that it may not make sense. They address all animals, right on down to rats (and probably farther down the pecking order), as ‘people’ and will not tolerate any activity that compromises the natural order of things. Think vegans with very, very big guns. They’re also brutally straight forward and don’t even really understand the concept of lying (except Aras, who has lived with humans ever since the colonists first arrived). Of course, things are a bit different when you can smell when someone is lying…

There are a few other aliens scattered here and there, from the aquatic Bezeri to the expansionist Isenj (the corporate spiders to the Wess’har’s vegan lions). They make brief appearances here and there, but the important parts are that the Bezeri become involved in a critical plot point halfway through the book, and the Isenj are a looming specter through most of the story. They had once landed on the planet and claimed it as their own. Their massive industrial ways caused significant damage to the planet, and virtually annihilated the bezeri. So the Wess’har wiped out the Isenj colonists on the planet. Completely and utterly gone; they even went so far as to destroy all the buildings the Isenj created down to the foundations.

Although there is very much a feeling of nature versus technology to the series, I never felt like Ms. Traviss was lecturing the reader on what is Right and what is Wrong. While the Wess’har are generally presented as holding the moral high ground on the issue, they are also a no-compromise, brutal race that will readily wipe out an entire colony or city over the death of a single indigenous life form in a way that is not natural. Indeed, it’s clear that the only reason we’re meant to view the Isenj as the bad guys is because the primary protagonists are Aras and Shan (who become close friends). It’s certainly implied that the Wess’har are the good guys, and thus the Isenj must be the bad guys, but even Aras is forced to acknowledge by the end that Wess’har way is not necessarily the right way.

Religion is always tricky to write in sci-fi, since throwing aliens into the mix kind of makes things difficult – especially when those aliens don’t even understand the concept of religion or an afterlife. Ms. Traviss, however, manages to handle it quite well and, again, avoids being preachy while still pushing across a positive tone to Christian faith (although readily pointing out its inherent contradictions). Shan herself is a pagan (which is really an atheist in this case, rather than the traditional definition) and tends to stand by her non-belief, but the colonists are Christians, and they’re the kind of Christians that I really wish we would see more of in the world (live a life of peace, and convert by example, rather than by beating your head into the floor with a Bible). They are a good example of good Christians, and it’s very hard not to sympathize with their wish for a simple life on this alien world. (Although they do provide some amusing humor, such as when a Bezeri muses, upon watching an adult baptism, about whether or not their ‘soul-dirt’ will damage the ecosystem). On the other hand, Ms. Traviss is quick to point out that these are not prototypical Christians, and that their view is not necessarily the right one.

If I have a complaint with the story, it’s that this is clearly a setup novel for a series of books, rather than a story that can be read on its own. There is a distinct beginning, middle and end here, but the end is rather unsatisfying taken on its own (and does come a bit out of left field). When taken with book 2, I’m sure it works quite well, but it would have been nice to have an actual, hard-and-fast ending.

“City of Pearl” is, all around, a very enjoyable package. It tends to muse about various subjects like immortality, the natural order, and corporation control of agriculture, but never feels preachy. I went expecting an action fest, but found a nice, mellow read instead, and I’m not the least bit disappointed.