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35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A thriller packed with great characters too, February 13, 2005
"Crossing the Line," is the gripping sequel to "City of Pearl." It continues the story of Shan Frankland, who's been infected with alien DNA, c'naatat, which makes her pretty hard to kill. She's become involved, well stranded more or less, on a double-planet system revolving around Cavanagh's Star. (How this came to pass is explained in "Pearl.")
This time out, Frankland finds herself engaged in an intricate quadrille with three other terrestrial species as well as a sea-dwelling one. Frankland, a former cop who had specialized in ecological crimes back in the UK, can't go home to Earth because of the life-extending and life-protecting c'naatat, which various interests want for obvious reasons, and would take her into custody. So she hooks up with the wess'har Aras, who also has been infected with it, and who's appointed himself the protector of the sea-dwellers. They, along with a human colony, occupy one of the double planets; the wess'har occupy the other.
While this might sound like standard space opera it's actually anything but, because the author is as much interested in her characters as she is in the action, which is far from a bad thing. And the characters, alien as well as human, are for the most part over the top. Among the aliens, the matriarchical wess'har, and you'll meet a few, have very alien ways of showing who's the alpha; the ussissi act as translators; the cities of the isenj (they want to make deals with the EU for tech) are crowded more than somewhat. As for the humans: we have Eddie, who becomes the journalist with the heart of gold; Rayat is a creepy spy; and then there's everyone's worst nightmare, the sociopathic Lindsay Neville, the commander of the original expedition to Cavanagh's, who's not wired well at all.
There's a political element to the tale as well: Ms. Traviss, who's British, imagines a future in which the European Union is a major player in the space race, with the other nations less enthusiastic about the idea that humans have contacted other intelligent species. Then too, the author has a rather Green outlook. Some readers are likely to agree with the author's ideas (humans, called gethes by the wess'har, are greedy warlike beasts who prey on the enviroment and then pray for forgiveness). Other readers may be put off. Nevertheless, the story never turns preachy. It concludes memorably and will leave you satisfied although surely looking forward to the next episode.
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent followup, October 25, 2004
Karen Traviss's previous title, City of Pearl, was but a prelude to Crossing the Line in many ways. That's not to say that the book doesn't stand alone--it can, I believe--but Crossing the Line takes some of the plots and themes established in the first volume and explores them further.
The line in the title is both physical and metaphorical: how far will you go to acquire for king and country? How far will you go to defend yourself and your people? These questions are what the book's plot revolves around, inspired by the loose thread left dangling at the end of City of Pearl.
Traviss manages to stay fairly agnostic in her presentation; each side in the various conflicts is given a fair shake, and for the most part no side is presented as inherently more rational or moral than another. This lends a degree of credibility even to those parties I didn't agree with, and helps to make the conflicts more believable.
As before, we are given aliens who are more than reshaped humans. This is one of Traviss's strong suits: creating understandable-yet-alien cultures and behaviors. A key part of both of her books, it is these aliens that are at the heart of the books, as they--not the reactionary humans--are really the ones driving the plots. It is they who make this book shine, and make the book stand out from the rest of the pack.
Though the ending of Crossing the Line will leave the reader waiting for the next installment, it's simply another iteration of how nothing ever ends neatly--the basic premise of the book, in a way, as Crossing the Line's plot started as cleanup on City of Pearl's hanging plot thread. I have no qualms in saying that Crossing the Line is an excellent read from an author whose work is worth seeking out.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Once you cross the line you can't return, December 13, 2005
Shan Frankland is now host to an alien symbiot that makes her both incredibly dangerous and valuable. Lindsay Neville still grieving over the loss of her baby makes some decisions tainted with revenge that will make her cross a line from which there is no return.
This is a complex novel where the humans aren't always the good guys. Where not all decisions are good, but all decisions have consequences - and as the aliens are quick to point out, its not "why" you do something that is important, but the consequences of your actions that count.
This book is a stepping stone to the events in book 3, THE WORLD BEFORE but it is a turning point from which there is no return. Earth is about to find out that decisions far out in space by a small number of humans is about to affect all of them at home and the Isenj will also not escape the consequences of their past invasion attempts.
If you like SF that makes you think about how badly humans might deal with true aliens given our attempts to deal with "animal" life on earth, these books ask some interesting questions, with some characters that are more sympathetic than others.
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