Matriarch (Mass Market Paperback)

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Product Description

In thirty years, the invincible Eqbas will arrive at Earth to forcibly return the planet to what it once was—as retribution, in part, for the gethes' thoughtless near-extermination of an alien ocean-dwelling species. First, however, another world requires their attention: the crowded, ecologically ravaged planet of the swarming, insect-like isenj. Efforts to drastically reduce the isenj population have sparked a devastating civil war—which may well do the savior/destroyers' work for them. And the human visitors can only watch.

Rendered immortal and ever changeable by a parasite in her blood, ex-cop Shan Frankland isn't content merely to play Matriarch to her two similarly infected mates—one earthborn, one alien wess'har. Her fears for the future of Umeh and the ultimate fate of humankind must be set aside while she tackles an unfulfilled duty that haunts her every waking moment—a mission that must be undertaken for the sake of the future—and pursues a righteous vengeance.

About the Author

Karen Traviss is a former defense correspondent and TV and newspaper journalist. She has worked in public relations for the police and local government, and has served in the Royal Naval Auxiliary Service and the Territorial Army. The New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of City of Pearl, Crossing the Line, The World Before, Matriarch, Star Wars-Republic Commando: Hard Contact, Triple Zero, and Star Wars-Legacy of the Force: Bloodlines, she lives in Wiltshire, England.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Eos (September 26, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006088231X
• ISBN-13: 978-0060882310
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 3.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #195,576 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What goes around, comes around, January 6, 2007

By	ShriDurga (Japan) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

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.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Prepare to be surprised again, January 30, 2007

By	lb136 "lb136" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

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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.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Living as the bomb falls, December 15, 2006

By	James A Gilmer (Lansing, MI United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.