6 January, 2004
Contact Imminent, Kristine Smith (437 pp, MMPB, 2003)
This is the fourth book in the Jani Kilian series. Here, Kilian is sent as an envoy (on behalf of her mentor, Tsecha) to an idomeni colony to settle a dispute between two idomeni leaders. Upon arriving, she discovers that the situation is much more complicated than a simple power-struggle. The root of the dispute is an enclave of genetically-engineered human-idomeni hybrids, like Kilian herself. This raises a lot of issues for her, since she had long believed that she was alone in the universe. Jani gets sucked into the hybrids' bid for independence from the idomeni hierarchy.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, a group of human terrorists plots an assault on the idomeni enclave. Jani's boy-toy Lucien Pascal is on the case, trying to uncover the plot before it's too late. Moreover, Tsecha finally pushes the idomeni leaders too far, and is to be sent back to the homeworld for trial and probable execution.
I really liked the previous book (Law of Survival), and had high hopes for this one. I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would, but that is not Smith's fault--I wanted it to be a different book than what it is. One of the things I like about this series is the setting, the human-alien politics angle in particular. Law of Survival explored this aspect in greater depth than the first two books, and I was anticipating more of this in Book 4. It is definitely there, but it takes a back seat to Jani's personal life. The focus of the book is on how she reacts to the existence of more hybrids like herself, and on her reconciliation with the love of her life, Doctor John Shroud. It doesn't help that I find the relationship between those two to be rather creepy (he's the one who originally made her into a hybrid, without her permission), and I don't really care for Shroud in general.
I've always liked the secondary characters in this series better than I do the heroine herself, and that trend continued here. Colonel Niall Pierce, another interesting character, gets more play in this book than he has in others, so that was nice to see. Tsecha, in spite of his problems, barely appears at all, unfortunately. I still find Pascal to be a fascinating character, and I find myself wishing that Smith would write a novel about him, rather than about Kilian. Too bad for me; according to Smith's online journal, she's working on another Jani novel. But, the ending of book 4 pretty much promises that Pascal, Pierce, and Tsecha will appear in the next installment, so I'm not too sad.
Finally, a peeve about the cover art. The hot chick on the cover is certainly meant to be Jani Kilian herself. But, it is an established fact that Jani is dark-skinned. Was it really necessary to white-ify her in order to sell the book? Sheesh.
