Customer Reviews

City Of Pearl

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

World-building is one of those terms that infest science fiction and refers to how well an author can "sell" the reader on the notion that the fictional and usually alien background that they have placed their story in is real.

Karen Traviss succeeds in this in impressive fashion with an economy of language that keeps the story moving while at all times adding flesh to an already meaty book.

You have to watch Traviss, she moves on you and is hard to pin down. To simply call City of Pearl science fiction is to take away the fact that Traviss deftly mixes hard science, politics, romance, military jargon, religion and more in a seamless fashion.

Her sense of pacing and plot is excellent as the story moves from the always difficult task of initially setting the world up to getting involved with the meat of the plot. Traviss never overloads the reader with info dumps yet she gives depth to the world through which her characters walk with a sure hand.

Even though the fate of the main character is mildly predictable, this is easily forgiven as it sets the stage for what promises to be an intriguing series that is sure to contain many suprises.

Traviss closes the book well, giving the reader a sense of satisfaction and closure while at the same time placing the threads of the story that will continue her next book CROSSING THE LINE.

I can't wait

I very much enjoyed this book, which really should be 3.5 stars but there isn't an input option for that. I think five stars that other reviewers here are handing out are a bit excessive, given the story's flaws.

What is best about Traviss's writing is her main character, a police woman who comes off as gruff and cynical as any gothic alchohol-saturated private eye. (Although she doesn't drink.) Her beat seems to be enforcement of ecological laws in the bleak future of the world. She expects the worst of people and generally gets it, so what is interesting is what happens when she is plonked down in the midst of an otherworldly colony of vegan eco-fanatics that are sheparded by some sort of super-altrusitic alien.

That's where the story breaks down a bit. The motiviations of the super-alien are recognizable, but unconvincing. You can cut the author some slack because after all it is an alien we are talking about here but the entire history of the story here is turning about his whim. That is too small a fulcrum for the size of the lever -- the possible movement at the work-end is too limited.

Also, the resolution is a bit too predictable.

Perhaps this will be improved in the sequels, so I am looking forward to seeing them.

Let me state this upfront...I can't believe that this is a first novel! This is a mature and polished work, filled with deep characterization, imaginative aliens, psychological complexity and an unrelenting pace of narrative. Traviss has created a rich and very believable alien landscape, 'peopled' by characters that one truly grows to care about. Shan and Aras especially are endlessly fascinating beings, and ones that I wanted to spend
more time with. Thankfully, this is only the first book of a planned trilogy, so I expect my wish to be satisfied.

Other reviewers have outlined the basics of the story, so I won't cover the same ground. For real SF fans, Traviss has drawn on many of the great themes and genre predecessors, but has made them convincingly her own. While reading, I found in parts echoes of Anthony's 'Macroscope', Clarke's 'Childhood's End', Asimov's 'The Gods Themselves', Larry Niven's oeuvre and einlein's 'Starship Troopers' to name a few -- but creatively built upon with terrific characterizations and a unique perspective. I really can't wait to see what becomes of these new literary 'friends', and the worlds they inhabit, next!

CITY OF PEARL, the beginning of a trilogy, is a fine debut for Karen Traviss. For me, the first forty pages or so were a bit rocky, but after that I was hooked, pulled slowly but surely through the first half of the book then literally unable to put it down throughout the latter half.

Traviss' prose isn't remarkable, but it is solid and readable. Her strength, though, lies in her characters. This book is, as other reviewers have pointed out, "hard SF," but it's not about its science. It does have a group of marines, but unlike so many other books with similar plots, it doesn't devolve into milporn with stock characters and action scenes. Each character is well-developed and human, often all too human. (In fact, one of my problems with this novel is one I have with a lot of SF novels: the aliens are too human for my liking. But that's a minor quibble.) This is a very character-driven novel, despite the silliness on the cover. Also, Traviss manages the tricky feat of integrating her various themes and ideas -- environmentalism, responsibility and loyalty, heroism and courage, humanity and its various strengths and shortcomings, and plenty more -- into the novel without coming over as preachy or pretentious.

One thing about the book that left me cold was the violence. There was remarkably little of it, but what there was was neither terribly engaging nor terrible effective; it just kind of happened. Makes me wonder how the inevitable violence in Traviss' upcoming Star Wars novel will turn out.

But that aside, this is an extremely compelling and quite satisfying novel that definitely kept my interest to the end and left me thirsty for more. It ended well, with an appropriate amount of closure, and I can't wait until Book 2 comes out to get back into the lives of these characters. I wonder whether we'll stick with Shan as much in the sequel, or whether the focus will shift to a POV character closer to the Isenj. Either way, I hope and suspect we'll be seeing more of Eddie, the journalist character (into whom I suspect the author poured more than a little of herself), the Constantine colony, and, perhaps, if he can be worked in, Bennett.

Really, this is a 4.5 star novel, an extremely impressive debut and quite a worthwhile and satisfying read.

This is the First SF novel by newcomer Karen Traviss and is an exceptionally polished work for a first novel. Even better is that it is "hard SF". As did one of the other reviewers I found that once started, this novel pulled you along until the finish, making it difficult for me to put down until I had reached the end.
This book has a very interesting central character in the person of Shan Frankland, who on the verge of retirement is persuaded to accept a mission to Cavanagh's Star, where one of the planets circling Cavanagh's Star is home to the only extraterrestrial human colony. A mission with an elapsed time of 150 years.
When they arrive at Cavanagh's star they find that the colony is there by permission of the wess'har, one of three alien species in the Cavangh system. Earths first ET contacts.
Traviss has created a realistic future earth/world. Her aliens have interesting, believable and quite different cultures. Her characters are also interesting and believable. I do not want to say to much about the storyline as I feel that it is best in this instance to let the reader discover what is going on as they themselves read the story. The story does contain/make some interesting comments on human behaviour.
So what you have is a great debut novel well worth reading. Better yet, the next novel of the wess'har wars is scheduled for publication in November 2004. And the fact that I plan to pick up and read this next novel as soon as it hits the shelves is all anyone really needs to know to judge just how impressed I was by this debut.

From the moment I started reading I couldn't put this book down. I know that's a cliche but with this book it was true. The characters really leap out of the pages as 'real' people.

The main character, Shan Frankland, is one of those rare human beings, someone with integrity. Throughout the book she is struggling to keep her charges alive despite their best efforts. The whole environmentalist theme of the book really appealed to me. And Karen's view of the future, one of human society being run by large corporations, while at once sinister is also very believable. And the vision of humans rapaciously spreading to other worlds is all too familiar to human history so far.

If you like your science fiction with a lot of realism, with a hard edge and without too much techno-babble getting in the way of a strong story, then this book is for you. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good story.

Ripping yarn!

Environmental Hazard Enforcement Officer Shan Frankland is looking forward to early retirement but Foreign Minister Perault gives her one last mission. A signal from the Constantine Colony was received and the authorities want to see for themselves if it is really suitable for the human race to reside there. Shan has a second mission, memory suppressed until she needs to know it.

When they arrive on Constantine, the colonists are not happy to greet them because they are there on sufferance. The planet belongs to an aquatic sentient species and is guarded by the Wess'har against the isenj who want to colonize Constantine. The major guardian is Aras, who is unique even among his own people, and finds in Shan a kindred spirit who has the same moral code that he abides by. When tragedy strikes, Aras is forced to break the rules of his own people to save Shan who might not thank him for her new life.

The world of Constantine is a fascinating one, a planet that four races have a stake in yet it only really belongs to the race that can't use any of "the land" mass but doesn't want humans polluting their pristine world or conquering it. Aras is there to make sure that does not happen but he is a very lonely person, isolated in many ways from his own kind and the original colonists on Constantine. Karen Travis is a talented storyteller and this reviewer would like to see more adventures starring Aras and Shan.

Harriet Klausner

I'm always prepared to give a first time novelist the benefit of the doubt so I was pleasantly surprised that I didn't need to with Karen Traviss. It really is hard to believe this is just her first book. I did a bit of research and it turns out she has a lot of published short stories in places like Asimov's so she definitely has some chops.

This book, simply put, rocks. Shan makes Lara Croft look like a grade school teacher and Aras is about the coolest dark and brooding alien ever put to paper. The plot, which I won't give away here, is a complex web of political machinations mixing several alien species, military-industrial projects, religious convictions and personal demons, and that's basically just one character! I read this in one glorious sitting and when it was done I was already trying to find out when the second book was coming. Her aliens are rendered brilliantly, but for me the biggest thrill was seeing Royal Marines do their thing. A close second was the wonderful interplay of the reporter assigned to cover the trip to Cavanaugh's Star and who winds up getting the story of several lifetimes, if he can only live long enough to tell it.

If this sounds effusive, well, it is. City of Pearl is a truly masterful first novel that any seasoned writer would kill to have in their backlist. It's fast, furious, deep, and intricate. I hope other publishers take notice, this is the kind of SF we need.

A very, very impressed reader