Ally (Wess'har Wars) [Mass Market Paperback]

fifth in a series of science fiction novels involving shan frankland, tough ex policewoman who is thrust into a life changing situation on a world shared by aliens and humans. and as a result of what happens to her the future of several races and the planet earth are at stake.

A great main protagonist, with some convincingly british dialogue. you could possibly get into this if you've not read any of the earlier novels in the series but I recommend instead starting with city of pearl, the first one, and reading it in order to get the most out of the series.

For those who've followed the series all the way is slightly stronger than book four as things really come to a head here. certain characters once again have to make very hard choices that will make your heart ache for them, and things are set up very nicely in an ending that starts to bring everything to a head. it promises some strong resolution in the next volume in the series. I look forward to it

I've been following this saga through & bought & read this book even after reading the rather disappointed previous review. (slight spoiler warning!) I recognise (& share) the impatience to find out what happens a little more quickly but I found plenty to engross me in Ally, the development of the triangular relationship of the between Shan & her two "husbands" & the spread of the "infection" to other humans and other species seem significant developments to me, not to mention the introduction of a fearsome new species which considerably ups the stakes for the future of Earth. Looking forward to the next instalment.

Ally doesn't live up to the standards set in previous chapters of Karen Traviss' Wess'har Wars. This may be due to padding out an otherwise shorter series to sell more books, or perhaps to overwork. Since the publication of the first two Wess'har novels in 2004, Traviss will have through the end of 2007 published an additional 3 Wess'har novels, plus 5 Star Wars novels - with 3 more novels already scheduled for 2008.

Ally disappoints largely because it doesn't go anywhere, covering much the same ground as in Matriarch, which when it finished left us anticipating the eqbas arrival on Earth. By the end of Ally, they're just packing up.

The title refers to partnerships formed among competing factions to protect common interests, the outcome of Ally's most common activity - talk. Having taken the decision to intervene on Umeh, the eqbas matriarch Esganikan finds herself looking at a decade-long occupation, followed by a potentially equally lengthy assignment to Earth, when she'd most like to go home and start a family. To speed things up and get her off Umeh, she allies herself with a new species, the skavu, ruthless reptile-like bipeds Shan Frankland describes as Eco-Jihadis. The skavu are so fierce and so feared that the Bezer'ej wess'har and the isenj set aside their differences, allowing Esganikan to leave for Earth (skavu in tow) secure that the restructuring of Umeh will be properly managed. What Esganikan doesn't yet know, however, is that the ecological balance on Bezer'ej is once more threatened by c'naatat, which Lindsay Neville has given to the bezeri to save them from extinction. In their own private alliance, Aras and Shan promise not to reveal to Esganikan the c'naatat infection provided Lindsay keeps the super-powered squid from reproducing.

While the plot is rather thin, Ally continues to deliver on character development. Perhaps the most endearing person in this volume is Aras, who struggles courageously with conscience and the need for forgiveness and reconciliation. While observing that a lasting sense of betrayal is characteristically human, he is confounded that Deborah Garrod has been able to forgive him for executing her husband. Perhaps, he thinks, he can do the same for the isenj who tortured him while a prisoner of war. And so he visits Umeh to see if perhaps he can relieve himself of the demons that have tortured him for most of the past five centuries.

Traviss also includes more of her cutting observations on humanity. When Eddie Michallat insults a human as a "stupid cow," his adolescent wess'har companion Giyadas is intrigued by his word choice: "So by comparison with what you think of as an inferior species, you insult her. And you also make her not human, and so not worthy of respect." She's also critical of Eddie's excision from his reports of some of the most brutal images of the war: "When you look at something, you remove all that doesn't affect you. You see what you need and feel, nothing else. You see nobody else." This propensity to demean and ignore other sentient creatures is also found, Aras observes, in the commercialization of animal images, such as plush toy Pandas. "... there are many kinds of human who ... [love] the abstract ideal while abusing and destroying the living object."

And finally Traviss continues to develop the big themes that make this series so compelling - the interdependence life, the insubstantiality of reality, and the ability of the mind to condition itself for good or bad - ideas that dovetailed quite nicely with recent readings on Buddhism. As Aras observes: "There is no such thing as continual improvement. Just change."

Hopefully, the final volume, Judge (April 2008), will be a change for the better.

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