SOJALS rating:

Mediocre (2/5)

I first read this on the 13th May 2006.

Shan Frankland is a tough and very competent police superintendent specialising in environmental hazards. She was expecting to return home and retire but now she's been dragooned into a final mission.

She's on her way to the second planet of Cavanagh's Star, a seventy-five year journey.

She knows her mission is of great importance, but mission security is such that she won't know why, or what her orders are, until she gets there.

She knows there used to be a small human colony there but she doesn't know if it still survives.

What she also doesn't yet know is that the planet is also home to aliens.

One of these will be an immortal alien warrior who has slaughtered an entire city and will slaughter her and her crew with no hesitation.

It will be a very, very dangerous first contact.

I was engrossed for the first half of this novel but lost a little of the initial excitement after that. I wanted more death and destruction, motivated by hard choices and a dash of vengeance. But that's not perhaps quite the slant that a book about environmental protection is meant to take. I can't decide yet whether the plot-line faded a little in the second half or whether Ms Traviss just tied everything up very neatly.

This is Karen Traviss's first novel and it's pretty good. I look forward to reading her next book "Crossing The Line".