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Matriarch

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Matriarch is the fourth volume in British author Karen Traviss' Wess'har series. If you haven't yet read the previous novels, you might like to start at the beginning with City of Pearl. If you do, I'm sure you'll be back here to order this volume.

Matriarch picks up right where The World Before left off, with the the Eqbas, the technologically superior wess'har from the titular home world, preparing to ecologically rebalance the overpopulated and resource starved world of Umeh, inhabited by the spider-like isenj. Reporter Eddie Michallat's on-the-scene reports of the devastation provide the squabbling nations of Earth a warning of what the Eqbas have in mind for humans.

As with previous volumes, the writing's tight and the morals conflicted, making for another spectacular chapter to what has to be the most engaging ongoing science fiction series in the English language. A better one-word title for this book, though, might have been Harvest. Or perhaps Karma. I suppose Matriarch was chosen for the two lead characters, but it does nothing to capture the essence of the story, which is all about consequence, much of it ironic, about how your choices, your principles, even your dreams and desires come back to you in ways you could not have imaged.

Esganikan, the matriarch of the Eqbas, gets what she most needs to justify wess'har intervention on Umeh, an official isenj government invitation to rebalance the planet's exhausted ecology. Getting involved proves easy, but the price in lives from a fratricidal civil war tests Esganikan's commitment to her principles.

Lindsay Neville and Rayat Mohan swim in a world of water and guilt, living among the bezeri, the aquactic species now nearly extinct as a result of radiation from a nuclear bomb the pair unleashed on the world of Bezer'ej. The two work with the handful of remaining bezeri to help recover and catalog artifacts and records of bezeri culture, living in the oceans, slowly becoming, as a result of the alien c'naatat, gill-breathing, translucent fish who learn that those to whom they pay penitence are themselves morally defiled.

Shan Frankland, meanwhile, frets over her two mates, human Ade and wess'har Aras, and how she might make all three of them feel more like a family. This is perhaps the slowest part of the novel, a good-sized middle section where nothing much happens but talk about unfulfilled expectations. It takes a while to get there, but the finale of this particular sub-plot is a stunning act of moral consistency, something along the lines of Shan executing one of her scientists for collecting specimens (as depicted in City of Pearl). It's likely to be a scene well remembered once this series comes to a close at the end of 2007.

But for now, we can look forward to Ally and the Eqbas arrival on Earth, coming in April 2007.

In "Matriarch," fourth of the saga of Shan Frankland, things take another surprising turn. The Eqbas take time out from their planned arrival on Earth to--they hope--straighten out the Isenj, who have so overpopulated their world that the very idea of a tree becomes a novelty. This causes some conflict between the two wess'har factions. Meanwhile, Shan learns that Rayat and Neville not only live, but are also infected with c'naatat, the stuff that immortality is made of (for those unfamiliar with the series, Shan is too), and she is not happy. Indeed she becomes increasingly obsessed with the problem: she doesn't want c'naatat to become widespread.

In turn, the spy Mohan Rayat and the former commander Lindsay Neville (who previously displayed all the signs of sociopathology) discover something interesting about the Bezer'ej, the seagoing species to whom they have been forced to provide aid, as a result of Rayat's attempt to destroy them (he's mostly succeeded). In an amazing sequence, as they lose their human characteristics they become in some sense more human. Journalist Eddie Michelat continues to file his reports back to Earth, whose nations have reached the brink of war over the impending arrival of the Eqbas. (Ms. Traviss, who is British, has a very Eurocentric view. Like Ken MacCleod and Elizabeth Bear, Ms. Traviss imagines a world in which the U.S. is no longer a major player.)

Ms. Travis's work continues to astonish, impress, and amaze. Obviously, readers should start with the first book in the series, "City of Pearl," and work their way north to this one. If they do, they will be well-rewarded. Each book tells a story complete in itself, while also leaving the reader waiting for the next volume to appear. As she has amply demonstrated before, as well as here, the author has a sure touch and seems to know exactly where she's taking this series.

The title of my review sums up the sense of dread that inhabits this novel. In the forth segment of her Wess'har Wars series Karen Traviss does, as one reviewer put it, gives us a pause in the break-neck speed with which other books in the series seemed to move, but instead of this pause simply being filler we have chapter after chapter of growing dread, as if the moral implications of previous actions have finally sunk home to certain characters. Much like in real life where a pause allows one to collect one's thoughts, Matriarch's sense of a pause (and this is a pause filled with an invasion, a suicide, mutilation of self, a genocidal eco-warrior race that may or may not be allies, revelations of past genocides, the transmutation of a species, and more, to the point that I really wish most books had these sorts of "pauses") allows the sense of dread to grow as the Equibas reveals hidden allies and an invasion takes place and the human characters get a chilling glimpse of what is in store for Earth.
Shan, Aras, and Ade all have to come to terms with the sins of their past, and in some cases, their present, and future.
It may be true that this novel doesn't move with the speed of some of the past novels, but there are still plenty of revelations, attrocities, wars, and moral quandries to keep readers flipping the pages and wondering who, if anyone, has a high ground to stand upon in the series, and raises the question of who the reader identifies with and why, and whether they should be comfortable with that identification.

I read the first two books of this series, but couldn't take it by the third. Couldn't finish it. The first one starts off interesting with hard science concepts and ideas, then de-evolves into something meandering and pointless. The other books get progressively worse. Think Jane Austen in space - nothing happens, everybody is a moron, and the entire plot is driven by pointless emotions and hand-wringing.

If you read the author's essay in "Star Wars on Trial" it is easy to see why this happens. She basically talks about starting out as a hard sci-fi writer, but then proudly describes her abandonment of that genre, deeming it inferior. The whole point why I got interested in the first book is that it had some interesting ideas grounded in reality - not because of the melodramatic whining it turned into.

Matriarch is the 4th in Traviss' standalone series featuring Shan Frankland and the wess'har, Aras. The books in order are City of Pearl, Crossing the Line, the World Before, and Matriarch. Read them in order. These books are set in a rich plot of space, light years away from earth. Humankind's blunders are catching up with them, and the Eqbas are off to settle the score for the universe. In 30 years, the Eqbas will knock on Earth's door and fix the problem by restoring the planet to what once was in retribution for the almost extermination of the Bezeri by cobalt-laced nuke on Cavanagh's Star. The Eqbas make a side trip to fix the ecologically challenged planet inhabited by the Isenj before heading off to Earth. Now, some of the Isenj don't want to be fixed, and a civil war breaks out. Eddie, the BBChan reporter tries to convince Earth that the Eqbas are serious.

Meanwhile, the familial peace between Shan, Aras, and Abe threatens to shatter when she discovers that Rayat and Neville are still alive and kicking, not to mention infected )by the boys) with the aggressive parasite c'naatat. The same parasite that is capable of allowing a host to survive under water, gunshots to the head, suffocation, etc.

I love these books, the characters are vivid, complex and well developed. The aliens are curious and interesting. The story lines are planned and woven to flow well together and separately. This particular book focuses more on the interaction and development of the characters instead of advancing the action of the overall series. The title Matriarch, pretty much explains it all since Shan steps firmly on the path of becoming the martirch of her c'naatat infected family.

Parts of this book are not for the weak at heart but it is a great read.

Traviss is supposed to wrap the series up in two more books and I don't know how it can stay true to itself, and have anything like a happy ending, but it's still one of the best SF series running right now. This series has some unique takes on responsibility, both cultural and individual, ecology, immortality, genocide, honor, faith, hope, love, family and destiny. The characters, even the less sympathetic ones are strong, engaging and original.

The main POV character, ex-cop Shan Frankland, is so principled she's sometimes hard to like, but I'm half in love with, her salt-of-the-earth everyman ex-Marine husband and with the BBC reporter embedded with the failed interstellar scientific/military mission who develops a soul, and a conscious, when be is forced to be "news" not just filter events for the masses.

If you want to read the series you need to start with City of Pearl, none of the books are stand alone, but it is a great series and worth going back to the start to read.

The Eqbas invade Isenj and Lindsay and Rayat adjust to life among the Bezari pretty much sums up the contents of this book. Its basically a bridge story and a preview of the invasion of Earth that will probably be in the next book.

I have to say that this is my least favourite book in this series. Not a great deal seems to happen. There's a lot of agony over moral rights and wrongs and some character development but as a story it seems to lack focus in a way. This book should only be read if you have read the other books in this series, otherwise the story won't make any sense, but for me this was a stepping stone story to the climax which is yet to come and its probably not a novel I'd read twice.

I have liked the Karen Traviss books entirely. We have read all of her Star Wars books and she has impressed me. The wess'har series has been pretty cool and has some interesting plot lines but this one left me feeling pretty hollow. In here, Shan Frankland gets pregnant, almost as a result of her feeling "maternal" towards certain people and falls in love with another human . Since her child is now an unwilling host for the cnaat'at, she aborts the baby girl, in order to control the spread of the parasite. It left me hollow because I was just getting to liking her and feeling that she wasn't maybe the rock hard woman she began as. Granted, she's a fictional character so there's no actual behavior to condone or censure, but it removed her as the hero in my eyes. It certainly makes her harder to enjoy and root for.
Fortunately, these novel aren't written for kids (though her Republic Commando were a big hit with my kids and I), so one can't really say that it presents a bad role model. The abortion is certainly in line with her character, but it was disappointing to see her "crossing the line".
It will probably be the last Wess'har novel I read. I need an hero not an anti-hero.

I've been avidly reading -- or more like devouring -- the Wess'har War series the past few weeks. And perhaps some of my let-down over this fourth entry in the series comes from reading them in such rapid succession as it makes the faults and flaws in the writing stand out more clearly.

I found myself getting increasingly annoyed by Traviss' repeated summarization of events which had occurred in past books, and repeated explanations of terms, character traits, alien physiology and behavior which had been well-described multiple times already. (Examples: we don't need a lengthy explanation every time a wess'har tilts his or her head to know what it means by this point, or an explanation of what oursan is, or why Aras "urrrrrs", or a laundry list all of the times the c'naatat has brought Shan back from death, etc.) The first hundred and fifty pages of "Matriarch" especially read as bogged down to me by all of this, leading me to wonder whether Traviss felt this was necessary for readers who had gone months since the last installment to bring them back up to speed, or whether she was just padding the word count. Perhaps some tighter editing could have helped.

There is and there isn't a lot that happens in this book. Mostly it focuses on how the Eqbas deal with the Isenj and the implications it has for Earth down the line, Eddie contemplating and debating his involvement in reporting vs. creating news, and Shan adapting to her life shared with Aras and Ade. It's interesting but lacks some of the punch and intensity of storytelling that drew me in to the first books. I actually found myself much more intrigued by the "b-plot" of Lindsey and Rayat adapting to their life/punishment underwater with the bezeri, which at had more of the sense of wonder, discovery and world-building that made "City of Pearl" so great.

So I finished the book and was still ready to jump right into the next installment, "Ally", but that said I do hope the action starts to pick up and that the writing is tighter in the next volume.

I found this series (6 books in all) to be very entertaining. They are well written with good character development. The story line is very original. I actually have read all of the books twice now and probably will read them again. I just wish Ms Traviss would continue this series or write another one. I have also read most of the Star Wars books she has written and in my opinion, Ms Traviss is an excellent author.