"Crossing the Line," is the gripping sequel to "City of Pearl." It continues the story of Shan Frankland, who's been infected with alien DNA, c'naatat, which makes her pretty hard to kill. She's become involved, well stranded more or less, on a double-planet system revolving around Cavanagh's Star. (How this came to pass is explained in "Pearl.") This time out, Frankland finds herself engaged in an intricate quadrille with...
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CROSSING THE LINE is the latest in her Wess'har Wars universe and is the follow-up to her first book CITY OF PEARL which was published in early 2004. Though it forms the middle of a trilogy the book stands well enough on its own as we are once again introduced to characters from the first book such as Environmental Enforcement Officer Shan Frankland, a disturbingly complicated protagonist whose past gets a deeper look in...
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CROSSING THE LINE continues the compelling story of Shan Frankland and the alien soldier Aras she met at Cavanagh's Star. Tensions mount between humans and the aliens they encountered there, as various factions vie to get Aras's parasite, which renders its host unkillable and immortal. As before, Shan is wonderfully realized, a pragmatic law enforcer who finds herself increasingly estranged from the human world as she becomes...
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Deft. Bold. Confident. All descriptions that describe the main character of this series, Inspector Shan Frankland, and the growing ability of its author, Karen Traviss. Between this hard action, brilliantly complex and exquisitely detailed world of a not all that distant future, and Traviss' other new novel of a group of special forces warriors in the Star Wars universe, the bar has been raised for techno-thriller sci...
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Karen Traviss's previous title, City of Pearl, was but a prelude to Crossing the Line in many ways. That's not to say that the book doesn't stand alone--it can, I believe--but Crossing the Line takes some of the plots and themes established in the first volume and explores them further. The line in the title is both physical and metaphorical: how far will you go to acquire for king and country? How far will you go to defend...
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