Locus , January 2004 (Gary Wolfe)
A thoroughly competent and satisfyingly complex tale...(which) evokes the earlier moral fables of Le Guin...a writer worth watching.


New York Review of Science Fiction, January 2004
Intensely satisfying ...what makes City of Pearl such a good read is its unsentimentality and its clear sightedness.


BookPage, April 2004
City of Pearl is a strong first installment and marks the debut of a writer to watch.


Book Description

Three separate alien societies have claims on Cavanagh's Star. But the new arrivals -- the gethes from Earth -- now threaten the tenuous balance of a coveted world.

Environmental Hazard Enforcement officer Shan Frankland agreed to lead a mission to Cavanagh's Star, knowing that 150 years would elapse before she could finally return home. But her landing, with a small group of scientists and Marines, has not gone unnoticed by Aras, the planet's designated guardian. An eternally evolving world himself, this sad, powerful being has already obliterated millions of alien interlopers and their great cities to protect the fragile native population. Now Shan and her party -- plus the small colony of fundamentalist humans who preceded them -- could face a similar annihilation . . . or a fate far worse. Because Aras possesses a secret of the blood that would be disastrous if it fell into human hands -- if the gethes survive the impending war their coming has inadvertently hastened.


About the Author
Karen Traviss is a former defense correspondent and TV and newspaper journalist. She has worked in public relations for the government and the police and has also been an advertising copywriter and a journalism lecturer. She has served in both the Royal Naval Auxiliary Service and the Territorial Army. A graduate of the Clarion science fiction and fantasy workshop, her work has appeared in Asimov's, Realms of Fantasy, and On Spec. The author of City of Pearl, she lives in Wiltshire, England.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
City of Pearl, the debut novel by Karen Traviss, is a magnificently complex story about alien societies struggling to coexist on a remote planet similar to Earth. When a small team of marines and researchers -- led by hard-nosed Environmental Hazard Enforcement officer Shan Frankland -- comes in search of a lost human colony, their discovery is both astonishing and potentially deadly.

The planet is inhabited by an aquatic race of sentient, squidlike beings known as the bezeri. Another race, the wess'har, live on the planet's moon and are protectors of the planet's fragile ecosystem. Yet another race, the isenj, has made territorial claims on the planet and will not stop until they have colonized it. When Shan and her crew arrive, the tenuous balance is shattered when it is learned that a native parasite holds the secrets to immortality.

A fascinating blend of C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner novels (for their thorough, almost sociological study of the interaction between cultures) and Anne McCaffrey's Brain Ship novels (for their strong moral themes) -- with a touch of Harry Harrison's Deathworld trilogy (for its depticiton of strange alien flora and fauna as gruesome predators) -- City of Pearl is a not only an entertaining and utterly satisfying read, it is a thought-provoking novel that raises profound questions about the role of humanity in the universe. Paul Goat Allen

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Three separate alien societies have claims on Cavanagh's Star. But the new arrivals — the gethes from Earth — now threaten the tenuous balance of a coveted world.

Environmental Hazard Enforcement officer Shan Frankland agreed to lead a mission to Cavanagh's Star, knowing that 150 years would elapse before she could finally return home. But her landing, with a small group of scientists and Marines, has not gone unnoticed by Aras, the planet's designated guardian. An eternally evolving world himself, this sad, powerful being has already obliterated millions of alien interlopers and their great cities to protect the fragile native population. Now Shan and her party — plus the small colony of fundamentalist humans who preceded them — could face a similar annihilation . . . or a fate far worse. Because Aras possesses a secret of the blood that would be disastrous if it fell into human hands — if the gethes survive the impending war their coming has inadvertently hastened.

About the AuthorKaren Traviss is a former defense correspondent and TV and newspaper journalist. She's now a political public relations manager and has also been a press officer for the police, an advertising copywriter, and a journalism lecturer. She has served in both the Royal Navy Auxiliary Service and the Territorial Army. A graduate of the Clarion science fiction and fantasy workshop, her work has appeared in Asimov's, Realms of Fantasy, and On Spec. She lives in Wiltshire, England.

FROM THE CRITICS

Gary Wolfe - Locus January 2004

A thoroughly competent and satisfyingly complex tale of human/alien interaction on a colony planet which at times evokes the earlier moral fables of Le Guin.... and at other times the revisionist critique of expanding human empires.....and at times the union of romance with SF that we see in the work of Catherine Asaro or Lois McMaster Bujold. The fact that Traviss manages to keep these sometimes conflicting modes in balance, mostly through her strong sense of character, suggest that she's a writer worth watching, in part because she shows enough resources that she might take off in just about any direction next time out.

BookPage - April 2004

City of Pearl is a strong first installment and marks the debut of a writer to watch. Traviss takes what could have been a rote collection of characters (marines, cops, religious extremists) and slowly adds depth, complexity and color.

Russell Letson - Locus March 2004

One of the things that makes the book so interesting ...(is) the skilful working of point of view, in which we get to see characters from inside and out, to lovely and often ironic effect.... City of Pearl provides large quantities of what I read SF for: situations and characters that test our assumptions about our natures and our relationships with others and offer opportunities to wear some very different skins.

New York Review of Science Fiction - January 2004