If you’ve been following my reading habits, you’ll know that I adore Karen Traviss. I ran into the second book of this series through an Early Reader program and have been hooked ever since, even to the point of contacting her to say how thrilled I was about a new series in sociological science fiction, my first ever time contacting an author who I didn’t already know.

Because of the above, I am a little saddened by Judge. While I do not need to read series in order like some, obviously from the above, one of the things I try to look for is whether the book can be used as an entry point into the author or the series. Crossing the Line left me charged up and racing out to get a copy of City of Pearl, the first in the Wess’har tales. The same cannot be said about this latest novel. The story in Judge is a winding down of the series. It ties up loose ends that I didn’t even remember as loose and left me with the sense that, whether Karen plans to write in this universe again or not, she’s largely done with this set of characters.

I’ll miss them. Shan and her unlikely family of Aras and Ade, the Wess’har who have grown up under their watchful eyes, Eddie the human reporter with a conscience, and even Rayat and Lindsay, the villains of the bunch, were fully fleshed characters who linger in the mind long after the most recent book is set back on the shelf. I’m not much of a re-reader– I have so many books to read there just isn’t time–but my youngest teen is also enamored by the series, and is going into his second or third read through at this point.

I’m clearly having difficulty divorcing Judge from the rest of the series, and this is why I say it cannot be read first or in isolation. In some ways, the story came across as snippets of closure more than a full and complete tale of its own. While quite a hefty text, I sometimes felt the story skimmed a bit as it jumped around, not enough to make me regret the read, but enough to wonder why this hadn’t been addressed more fully as two or even three complete novels. But then, better to offer closure than just drop off the map, as happens sometimes when a publisher decides a series has reached its logical conclusion. Or maybe Karen’s just ready to try her hand at something brand new. Whatever it is, I’ll be right there in line to read it. I’ve read almost all of her Star Wars books as well, a universe that held little interest for me and her books signal my only incursions.

So, my conclusions are:

1) Karen Traviss is a talented author capable of creating characters that continue to exist outside of the page and worlds that combine fascinating cultures with philosophical exploration in a way that aids the story and never stands out as the author preaching. Though I have a good guess as to where she stands on these issues, that guess is based on how adamant the characters were and who she let win in the story, so could be completely wrong.

2) Karen can maintain a complex epic spanning multiple cultures and even worlds without losing coherency or passion.

3) If you haven’t checked her out, you really should. If complex sociological SF isn’t your thing, go see what she did with those Star Wars folks. There’s even inside jokes that carry from one novel to the next.