Karen Traviss, the author of Star Wars Republic Commando: Hard Contact, first wrote City of Pearl, the first of her Wess'har Wars series (although only two have been published to date).

This book starts in our year 2198 somewhere a long way from Earth and introduces us to Aras, a Wess'har who we later discover is not an ordinary example of his species, as he watches the first signs of human arrival in his area.

It then jumps to the year 2299 on a Mars Orbital station and introduces us to Shan Frankland, and Environmental Hazards Enforcement Officer as she is about to conduct an inspection on behalf of the European Union.

Before completing this inspection Shan is given a new job, which then takes us a further 75 years into the future as she arrives on the distant planet where the book began, Bezer'ej, along with a team of Marines, a payload of corporate scientists and a BBChan journalist. Their arrival is not entirely uneventful, but they eventually meet up with the descendants of the humans who had established a Christian colony. They also meet Aras.

The book takes us on to the story of how it is that Aras has been there for centuries, shows us the native sentient population of the planet, the Bezer, as well as a couple of other alien species and develops the story of Shan Frankland's interractions with her team, the colony and the aliens.

Along the way many issues are raised - environmental responsibility and just how far is it reasonable to go to restore the environment, corporate responsibility, corporate sponsorship of government, abortion and application of native law just to name a few. However the author does this is a subtle way, without preaching and generally without judgement.

It is entirely possible to read the book without thinking deeply about these issues if you wish, though - you can just sit back and enjoy the extremely well told story. The narrative is very fast paced but fabulously descriptive, the characters are well drawn with the central characters being ones that I am certainly keen to follow in future books.

The book is excellent and I highly recommend it to everyone - just don't expect the cover to fit the description on the City of Pearl in the book: for some reason it is nothing like what we eventually see.

I can't wait to get the second book in the series Crossing the Line but sadly I have to wait as I've had to buy it online - I haven't been able to get a copy in local bookstores.

And the third book, The World Before, is apparently due out in November, with another three books in the series planned for next year according to the author's website.


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