Customer Reviews

Judge (The Wess'har Wars)

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

 

 

This sixth and final volume of the Wess'har Wars promised a confrontation between a profligate Earth and an intergalactic species of Ecowarriors. It has turned out to be more letdown than showdown.

The series' central conflicts have focused on the ethics of life, protecting those unable to fend for themselves and reigning in those unable to control their own growth. The tough decisions begin in volume one, in which Environmental Hazards officer Shan Frankland on a mission to the planet Wess'ej has not only to turn over for execution one of her scientists for collecting bio samples in violation of local laws, but also to abort her own fetus to stop the spread of an organism conferring immortality. In later volumes, the Ecowarrior Wess'har launch a violent campaign of extermination on the plant Umeh when its inhabitants refuse Wess'har demands to reduce their population and abandon their colonies on outlying worlds. Film of the devastation is transmitted to Earth as a warning of what to expect should changes not be made in the 25 years it will take the Wess'har to get their ships into Earth orbit.

Given the setup, it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect a bit of conflict once the Wess'har make their demands on Earth - a decrease in the population to one billion and zero growth rate. You might expect a number of humans to be quite angry about such demands. You might expect a few governments to forcibly resist. But except for two planes shot down and two political assassinations, the humans roll over and accept Wess'har leadership. It's not difficult to imagine humans eventually acceding to a more powerful foe, but it is difficult to imagine us giving up so quickly. There are always fools who like to fight. But you won't find any of them in Judge.

In fact for a book set on Earth there are not too many humans in the story, except for the ones we already know from the previous five volumes. Most of the conflict takes place within the Wess'har fleet. After the Earth campaign has been settled, the last quarter of the story moves back to Wess'ej, and the series concludes with a series of farewells.

Perhaps my own expectations prevented me from appreciating what Traviss may have been trying to accomplish with this final chapter of an otherwise excellent series. As with her character Shan Frankland, who loses her childlike faith in the Wess'har, perhaps Traviss is attempting to upend her readers' expectations. If so, she's done a good job.

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This series was always something I found intriguing, although I never thought it was totally brilliant. However, it had enough intrigue and new ideas to keep me involved and interested. I liked how the author sprung twists with each installment, and constantly challenged the reader's morality and ethics with the actions of her characters. After completing the series I would say that the sixth book was the worst of the bunch, unfortunately.

I agree with some of the other reviewers that the book felt rushed. The book dragged at the beginning, but not too badly, but I kept waiting for something to happen, but, except for a few minor things, nothing really did.

After reading Ally I was very excited to see what was going to happen when the Eqbas fleet reached Earth... but I was let down.

I guess there are several ways to tie up a series like this, and any path an author chooses is going to annoy somebody, but in this case I thought this ending was unsatisfying.

I wouldn't necessarily say to avoid this book, as it does tie up the series, but this won't be your favorite of the series. In honesty, you could actually not read this book and come up with your "own" ending for the series.

Judge, the sixth and final book in the Wess'har series, is readable but otherwise disappointing. There's surprisingly little tension for a novel where the lives of billions hang in the balance.

More than anything what Judge lacks is a real villain. Mohan Rayat and Lindsay Neville, Shan Frankland's principal antagonists from earlier in the series, are left with fairly little to do. The once menacing Skavu are even less of a factor. To the extent that there's any attempt to create a villain for the story it's the FEU, but this doesn't get very far either.

So without an effective villain to throw a wrench into the works, the plot grinds its way to a conclusion pretty much as one would have expected. Very predictably, in fact, which makes for a disappointingly dull finish to the series.

As the conclusion to a six-book series, there's no point in reading this book if you haven't read the first five - the first trilogy is "City of Pearl," "Crossing the Line" and "The World Before" and the first two books of the second trilogy are "Matriarch" and "Ally." It's possible to read the first trilogy and then stop, or the first book and then stop, but it's not possible to start with the second trilogy or to skip a book in any of them, once started. Which is unfortunate, because like many other such series, the middle books can be a bit less interesting than the others. In this particular case, "Ally," the book that precedes "Judge," was annoying - most of the book was either the carrying out of plans that had been completely made in the book before that, or talking about plans that wouldn't be carried out till the next book - nothing new happened. Much of "Ally" also struck me as boringly indecisive - "Should I kill Rayat? Yes, no wait, no, no wait, yes, no wait, no..." and by several of the characters, "Should I go back to Earth with the Eqbas Vorhi mission? Yes, no wait, no, no wait, yes, no wait, no..." way too much of that.

So, at the end of "Ally" we have several human/formerly human characters decide to go to Earth, and a couple of others decide not to. And then "Judge" starts out 25 years later, with the mission arriving at Earth - nothing about what happened in between. Of course, most of the characters on the ship were in cryo - but there were characters back on Wess'ej and Bezer'ej who lived through that 25 years - and the background characters on Earth, too. So we arrive at Earth not knowing how, exactly, Australia/Pacific Rim has handled the intervening 25 years, just that it's still only Australia welcoming the ships. We meet Den Bari - and then, pretty much, only catch glimpses of him till the very end, a rather pointless epilogue.

It's not a spoiler to tell you that a couple of the military characters die in fighting, and Eddie Michellat dies in his 90's shortly after Shan gets back to Wess'ej - he was one of my favorite characters. And in a sweet touch, he gets buried in the same hilltop cairn as Black, the rat that Aras rescued back in the first book.

A lot of the thread tie-ups were expected; some weren't. There wasn't enough detail about what happened on Earth - in fact, despite the length of each volume and of the whole series, there wasn't nearly enough detail about Earth at all. A few of the endings were cop-outs, but at least they were there. My four-stars really stands for a combination of a five, for managing to finish up something as unwieldy as this series to begin with and for making us care about many of the characters, and a three, for skipping so much, and for the characters who get taken care of in only a sentence or two, and for the parts that seemed unrealistically simple.

Final analysis: I like Eddie and I like the ussissi characters better than I like Shan and Ade and Aras, whom we are supposed to care about most. The series was OK reading, skipping some parts, going lightly through others, but I wouldn't put it on a re-read list or on anyone's "must read" list. Start it when you have a big chunk of time, because since the second through sixth volumes are incomprehensible without all the previous ones, you're going to pretty much want to read them sequentially without too much time in between, or else you're going to have to do a brief re-read every time you start the next one.

I discovered this series several years ago and have enjoyed every single one of the previous books. I've re-read them all several times, which is something I rarely do. I consider Ms. Traviss a fine writer indeed, especially in world building and character development. I have completely fallen in love with Shan Frankland.

So I was scouring daily for the release of this book. When I finally got my hands on it, I dropped several other books right in the middle and dug in.

I really wish I could say I loved it. But I didn't. It felt hurried and rushed. Too many pat answers and contrivances to solve problems with the plot. As if Ms. Traviss couldn't find a compelling way to tie up loose ends, so she just started throwing stuff in to wrap up the series.

I am truly sorry to write such a mediocre review on an author I know is capable of so much. I won't say it's not worth reading, but for me it was an unsatisfactory end to an otherwise superb series of books.

This is the sixth and final (or so I would imagine) entry into the Wess'har Wars series by Karen Traviss. Obviously these books are meant to be read in order and I would strongly advise doing so -- particular as the first two ("City of Pearl" and "Crossing The Line") are easily the strongest in the series. The middle began to lag a bit, but after the way "Ally" had picked up the pace, I was eager to see how the series ended with the Eqbas finally reaching Earth to mete out justice and bring environmental balance, one way or another.

Sadly, much of the first two-thirds of this book lacked any real tension or action. It's mostly all political wrangling, debate and argument, with the fate of Earth largely playing second fiddle to what Shan, Aras and Ade are going to do about a c'naatat infected Esganikan. I felt let down, as if the author really was tired of the series herself and didn't really want to get into the details and struggle of what "culling" billions of humans would entail. Why didn't at least one nation stage a large-scale attack, even if a suicidal one? What about the potential for great religious war and argument over who could/should be the "chosen ones" to survive and be allowed to thrive? What if there had been a more concerted effort to capture Shan to get access to c'naatat? All these things could have added more suspense and action -- but I guess the author didn't want to commit to yet another book in the series to do so.

Also, the story of the bezeri was almost virtually dropped completely with very little resolution at all. I'd grown found of their part of the story in the last two books so was very disappointed by this. There was also a potential continuity error bugging me throughout, as Esganikan mentions having Lindsay's memories thanks to the c'naatat she infected herself with through Rayat -- yet Rayat and Lindsay were infected at the same time, and unless we are supposed to just assumed they shared some form of "oursan" or something while living underwater, I don't understand or I missed something on how Esganikan inherited Lindsay's memories. Rayat also mentions experiencing some of Lindsay's thoughts, which also bothered me.

What saved the book, at least in my opinion, was the final third of it. Shan, Ade and Aras return to F'Nar to put their own lives in order, say goodbye to some old friends, and determine their own futures. Parts of this are very emotional, and reminded me of how attached I had become to these characters (especially Aras, who I do feel got a bit of a short shift of attention in the later books, but here reminded me of why I found him so fascinating and endearing.) The complexities and difficulties of their relationships, their desires, and their histories are well handled and I was pleased with how it was eventually resolved (especially for Aras).

Overall, I'm both sad and somewhat relieved to be done with this series! Even when it frustrated me, I found it impossible to stop reading as I had become so invested in the characters and universe created here. Traviss gave the reader much to think about, and complex moral and ethical issues to consider. While not a perfect series, I still wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to other readers to at least give it a try -- especially, again, those first two books which were simple phenomenal science fiction.

The book's probably more about internal conflicts than anything else. It's definitely one big, long conclusion. I can't remember much about Ally, but I view that as the climax and this the wrap-up for the whole thing.

SPOILER ALERT:
Shap succeeds in removing the parasite, so Shan, Aras, and Ade all have a moral choice to make: To be mortal, or not to be mortal.

Not everyone on the brink of death gets the choice to join or not join the semi-immortal, but Eddie does.

Meanwhile, Earth's getting an ecological makeover. If you haven't followed the series so far, I don't think this book will have much meaning for you.

Karen Traviss has created a believable universe in all it's broken, dirty glory. The book would make an excellent read for a philosophy class, if you're into that sort of thing.

This is not a stand alone book, you have to have read the previous books for this one to make sense.
And the previous ones have been excellent, full of high drama and real moral quandries. I loved the character Shan Frankland, a copper who used to kick down doors and is now making hard decisions for entire alien populations.

The other books all seemed to be building to a climax on earth, where Shan will have to test her integrity to see if she can be as relentlessly fair and implacable with her home planet as she was with distant alien ones.

STOP READING NOW IF YOU DON'T WANT SOME SPOILERS..
A FEW PLOT POINTS REVEALED.

However we never really seem to get to earth. They arrive very quickly, but their interactions with citizens of earth and the reactions of the planet are minimal, more alluded to than explored. I wanted more interaction and results with the FEU (the Federal European Union, who had played a heavy hand and were cast as the enemy) and more reactions of humans as they learn that the popluation has to decrease to 10% - ie 90% of the planet must either agree to stop reproducing (the more gentle long term solution) or simply die (which the Eqbas, the aliens, had the technology and nerve to do)

But this rich potential story was not told, except in side paragraphs. Instead Shan Frankland has a few adventures and then unexpectedly hustled back to the Wess'har and then it's just more of the same. I just felt it missed the point, I wanted more time on earth. It didn't feel like a conclusion, it felt like a filler book, with another book (the climax b/n the Wess'har and the Eqbas, the two related aliens) to come.

But I don't know if I'll read that book... I'm really disappointed.

However, the first 5 books were so excellent and engaging, that I would still recommend reading them. They had great ideas, descriptions and quandries and were genuinely thoughtful.

Note: This review is meant for those who've read the previous five books in the series. If you haven't, you are are welcome to read on, of course, but I doubt you'll derive very much from what follows.

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"Judge," the sixth and last of Karen Traviss's "Wess'har Wars" series, once again surprises. As she has done before, the set-up in the previous volume, "Ally," is a misdirection for what happens here. Just when think you'll know how it's all going to turn out, just when you think you've well understood the motivations of the characters, you'll find out you're wrong. But maybe, when you've finished, you'll think that you should have seen the resolution coming.

At any rate, we pick up the tale on Earth, where the alien Eqbas have arrived in order to save the planet from environmental destruction, and Shan Frankland and her two mates, the human Ade and the Wess'har Aras--all three of whom still carry the parasite that makes them virtually immortal--have come along. Maneuvering, political and military, takes place, and eventually a solution is reached.

Then, in the novel's moving last section, the fates of the all the characters are revealed (it's the kind of ending Dickens might have opted for had sci-fi conventions been available to him), and all comes together beautifully, as Shan and her mates debate whether or not to have the parasite removed. Expect to tear up.

I was reminded, of all things, of Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony, the third movement of which ends in frenzied excitement, after which the slow eleagic finale ends on a note played by the lower strings that's practically inaudible. You don't know it's over until the conductor lowers his arms, puts his baton down on the stand, and turns around to take his bow.

Ms. Travis has pretty much done the same thing, the characters take their bows and leave the tale, and the last section, the epilogue, seems as if it were whispered in your ear.

In the final novel in Karen Traviss' Wess'har War cycle she chooses to wrap things up by staying true to the themes of the series. This means that no one links up to the alien space ship with an iMac and saves the day. Even the protagonist of the story can't save the day, or decide if it needs saved.
Instead, as with all her books, the real meat is in the characters, and how they act, what they do, and most importantly WHY they do it...or at least why they think they do it. It's hard to keep this review spoiler free, but as others have said, the story begins with the fleet's arrival at earth, but the focus stays clearly with the characters as Shan struggles with the knowledge of what's in store for earth, the alien commander struggles with the fact that thanks to infecting herself with the parasite she now has human memories (and human reactions and emotions) flooding her brain, and the main story of the earth expedition is tied up in the struggle on the ships.
We don't see much of earth, but that's because it's simply not important. The whole saga has carried the theme that humans simply are not as important as they think they are, they will not be spared when the aliens see how special they are. Instead, they are treated like any of the many races and planets that have been put into balance in the past, although the Wess'har actually do it more humanely than they had on many other planets.
As in past books, the emotion, suspense, and even action take place between the characters and in things left unsaid.
Even after six books I find it hard to decide what to feel about Shan, and several characters weigh in on Shan and the reasons behind what Shan does, and I can't help but think Ryat, the spy, is mostly right in his view of her, but in the end even the protagonist of the story isn't special, as the author seems to point out in the book's final chapter. In the grand galactic scale of things there is no one and nothing that is special or set apart or anything else except by the views of sentient beings, and that may seem like an odd theme to take away from a series with a race that views ANY living creature as special and worthy of life and existence, but if nothing is special than everything is special.
Previous reviewers and readers have wondered about the politics of the novels and whether there's a vegan agenda, a green agenda, a conservative agenda...basically, any type of agenda, and in the end the author simply holds a mirror up to the characters and lets us look long and hard. It's a series that rewards those who want to wrestle with how they feel about the characters and what they do and what their actions say about those characters, but in that we may find out things about ourselves.