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First Salik War #2
The V'Dan
A thrilling new perspective of the world created in Theirs Not to Reason Why series. It’s two hundred years earlier—the age of the First Salik War. And the battle against humanity has been engaged.
The V’Dan always believed they were the chosen race, destined to make a mark on the galaxy. For the last few centuries, they interacted peacefully with other sentient species—save for the Salik. Cold, amphibious, and vicious, the Salik were set on one goal: to conquer every race within their grasp.
Now that the Salik’s ruthless war has begun, the fate of the galaxy is in the hands of two strange companions: Li’eth, a prince under siege and his rescuer, Jacaranda MacKenzie. A beautiful ambassador from the Motherworld, Jackie possesses more than the holy powers of a goddess. She brings a secret weapon—a strange, wondrous, and dangerous new technology that could be her and Li’eth’s last and only hope to save their people from extinction..
The V’Dan always believed they were the chosen race, destined to make a mark on the galaxy. For the last few centuries, they interacted peacefully with other sentient species—save for the Salik. Cold, amphibious, and vicious, the Salik were set on one goal: to conquer every race within their grasp.
Now that the Salik’s ruthless war has begun, the fate of the galaxy is in the hands of two strange companions: Li’eth, a prince under siege and his rescuer, Jacaranda MacKenzie. A beautiful ambassador from the Motherworld, Jackie possesses more than the holy powers of a goddess. She brings a secret weapon—a strange, wondrous, and dangerous new technology that could be her and Li’eth’s last and only hope to save their people from extinction..
Paperback
First published December 29, 2015
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About the author
Jean Johnson
51 books820 followersBerkley/Jove Authors Bio
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
(1)romance author, science fiction author
Jean Johnson currently lives in the Pacific Northwest, has played in the SCA for 25 years, sings a lot, and argues with her cat about territorial rights to her office chair. She loves hearing from her readers, and has a distinct sense of humor. Right now she's living in a home with zone heating & decent plumbing, but hopes to some day put turrets and ramparts on it so that it looks like a castle.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
(1)romance author, science fiction author
Jean Johnson currently lives in the Pacific Northwest, has played in the SCA for 25 years, sings a lot, and argues with her cat about territorial rights to her office chair. She loves hearing from her readers, and has a distinct sense of humor. Right now she's living in a home with zone heating & decent plumbing, but hopes to some day put turrets and ramparts on it so that it looks like a castle.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews
January 21, 2024
It took me some time to review The V'Dan after reading it. I have to admit I was somewhat baffled by it as I finished it. Nevertheless, I enjoyed The V'Dan even if less than the first book in the The First Salik War series; and not as much as the Theirs Not to Reason Why series books by Jean Johnson.
It's plot is not about adventures, but about diplomacy and the people that orchestrate it. Jackie might be viewed by some as self-righteous. I don't agree and concur with Jean Johnson, the respect (or the lack of) of the whole Terrans was too important an issue to be compromise. Even if it turned out putting Jackie and Li'eth's life in jeopardy towards the end. And that's is when Jackie grows as a character and the the story gets more compelling.
I don't mind cliffhangers and might like it in my readings depending on the circumstances. The problem here is that the following book is only expected to be out by the end of the year. I would postpone reading it if I could. Too late! That explains my 2.5 rating. Nonetheless, The V'Dan was a good and entertainment read.
It's plot is not about adventures, but about diplomacy and the people that orchestrate it. Jackie might be viewed by some as self-righteous. I don't agree and concur with Jean Johnson, the respect (or the lack of) of the whole Terrans was too important an issue to be compromise. Even if it turned out putting Jackie and Li'eth's life in jeopardy towards the end. And that's is when Jackie grows as a character and the the story gets more compelling.
I don't mind cliffhangers and might like it in my readings depending on the circumstances. The problem here is that the following book is only expected to be out by the end of the year. I would postpone reading it if I could. Too late! That explains my 2.5 rating. Nonetheless, The V'Dan was a good and entertainment read.
January 5, 2016
I love the idea of a first contact series, and Johnson has created some likeable and interesting characters and species. However, this second book, even more than the first, suffers from some significant shortcomings.
As with her book A Soldier's Duty, Johnson adds a lot of superfluous detail that adds little or nothing to the story. Details of ship and station lay-outs, colors, etc., that play no part in the actual storyline add padding that actually distracts and detracts from the plot. I find actions and interactions between characters to be far more interesting than belabored descriptions of surroundings, and I found myself skimming a lot of the extraneous details.
The thing I found most frustrating and unbelievable, however, was the extreme importance the story placed on the Jungen skin marks in V'Dan for how they saw people. In the last book, the lack of a single stripe among many on Li'eth's face supposedly kept his fellow V'Dan from recognizing him or even suspecting him as being the very well-known Imperial Prince, even though it was common knowledge that all Imperial family members spent some time in the military. Because the Jungen supposedly appeared on V'Dan around the time of puberty, they would have remained children for most of their teen years with the stripes/marks in place. So asserting that V'Dan used the Jungen alone to determine adulthood, ignoring all other physical signs of maturity even when pointed out to them made No. Damn. Sense. Considering that this was the pivotal point which drove nearly all the conflict in the story, it made the book far less enjoyable and believable for me. In addition, the repeated emphasis that Earth had abandoned its skin color prejudices long before got annoyingly preachy after the dozenth or so iteration.
Will I read the next book in the series? Probably, since there finally was some actual action at the end of this book. Will it be near the top of my TBR pile? Nope. Not a chance.
As with her book A Soldier's Duty, Johnson adds a lot of superfluous detail that adds little or nothing to the story. Details of ship and station lay-outs, colors, etc., that play no part in the actual storyline add padding that actually distracts and detracts from the plot. I find actions and interactions between characters to be far more interesting than belabored descriptions of surroundings, and I found myself skimming a lot of the extraneous details.
The thing I found most frustrating and unbelievable, however, was the extreme importance the story placed on the Jungen skin marks in V'Dan for how they saw people. In the last book, the lack of a single stripe among many on Li'eth's face supposedly kept his fellow V'Dan from recognizing him or even suspecting him as being the very well-known Imperial Prince, even though it was common knowledge that all Imperial family members spent some time in the military. Because the Jungen supposedly appeared on V'Dan around the time of puberty, they would have remained children for most of their teen years with the stripes/marks in place. So asserting that V'Dan used the Jungen alone to determine adulthood, ignoring all other physical signs of maturity even when pointed out to them made No. Damn. Sense. Considering that this was the pivotal point which drove nearly all the conflict in the story, it made the book far less enjoyable and believable for me. In addition, the repeated emphasis that Earth had abandoned its skin color prejudices long before got annoyingly preachy after the dozenth or so iteration.
Will I read the next book in the series? Probably, since there finally was some actual action at the end of this book. Will it be near the top of my TBR pile? Nope. Not a chance.
December 31, 2015
Originally published at The Book Pushers
I grabbed The V’Dan because I love Jean Johnson’s writing. I have enjoyed all of her books, including her fanfiction, and her military SF series Theirs Not to Reason Why is one of my all-time favorites. If you like character-driven military SF, start with A Soldier's Duty.
But The V’Dan is the second book in her prequel series to Theirs Not, The First Salik War. I raved over the first book in this series, The Terrans, over at Reading Reality. I expected to love The V’Dan just as much. Instead, I leave the story a bit frustrated.
First, for the record, while it is not necessary to read any or all of Theirs Not to Reason Why before tackling The First Salik War, I think it is necessary to read The Terrans before reading The V’Dan. It’s not just that most of the setup is in The Terrans, but also that The V’Dan is of necessity a middle book, and I don’t think the reader will know enough or care enough about the characters to enjoy this one without the first book.
I said that The V’Dan is a middle book. For those not familiar, the traditional narrative arc in most stories is a rise to the end of the first third of the story, a fall to the end of the second third, and a rise to the conclusion, catharsis, happy ending at the end of the final third.
In a trilogy, the second book always sits squarely in that fall to the trough of the second third. Things get darker and darker, and then darkest just before they turn completely black in a seeming ending or failure.
Think of The Two Towers of The Lord of the Rings, or The Empire Strikes Back of the classic Star Wars trilogy. They both end in dark places for important narrative reasons, but it hurts when the story leaves the characters in the lurch like that.
The story in The V’Dan is also much, much more a political story than it is an action story. In The Terrans, the Terran United Planets ship Aloha 9 rescues the survivors of a V’Dan crew from becoming dinner for the Saliks. After the spectacular rescue, the Terrans bring the V’Dan back to Earth. It’s not that they don’t want to return the V’Dan to their home, it’s that they need the resources of Earth to find it first.
Along the way, the V’Dan are introduced to the Earth of the 23rd century, a place that has learned some hard truths on the road to peace and prosperity, but looks like a future and a political system that would be marvelous to live in. There are a lot of commentaries on the way we do things in the 21st century, and I found them all the be both sharply pointed and extremely cogent.
However, the other things that are discovered during the V’Dan’s brief visit to Earth are quite interesting. The V’Dan are us. 10,000 years ago an ancestor they call “The Immortal” scooped their ancestors off of our Earth and seeded them on V’Dan. While there have been 10,000 years of genetic and cultural drift, we are definitely their progenitors.
But about that drift…one of the big changes is the V’Dan response to the extreme number of histamine producers in their atmosphere. They developed a virus that basically prevents the whole planet from dying of anaphylactic shock just from breathing. We don’t have that virus because we don’t need it. But the virus produces a pattern of colored markings on the skin of the V’Dan, and these “jungen” marks appear at puberty. The V’Dan have extreme cultural taboos and prejudices about what the jungen-less can and cannot do or be, because those laws are designed to protect children.
The Terran humans are jungen-less, but they are manifestly not children. And when the Terrans bring the V’Dan survivors back to V’Dan to set up diplomatic relations and trade technology, the V’Dans as a society are completely unable to cope.
So most of the story here is about the degradation of relations proceeding apace as the V’Dan degrade the Terrans at every single turn. It is like water wearing away at stone. Every interaction produces at least one nasty exchange where the V’Dan refuse to treat the Terrans not merely as equals, but just as ordinary adults. The Terran embassy can’t buy food because the merchants don’t believe that a “child” should be handling that much money. The Terrans can’t buy liquor either, but the restriction on food purchases was the one that got me.
The way that the Terrans continue to act as responsible adults in the face of increasing disrespect is thoughtful and mature, but they also don’t back down. Nor should they. While they could as individuals make their lives easier with some makeup or tattoos, that would constitute giving in to the V’Dan cultural prejudice that has no basis in fact, something that Terra has finally gotten past in the last century. They don’t want to go back to cater to someone else’s blind prejudice.
What in the end drove me bananas, is that as much as the cultural divide was well documented and well portrayed in all of its fits and starts and one step forward two steps back jerky momentum, something failed for me in the dismount.
I expected that relations would fail in the end. While there is hope, it was clear that there is going to need to be a break, a crisis and a reassessment for the V’Dan to get their heads out of their prejudiced assholes.
This is where we get to the villain of the piece. Well, sort of. The Terran Ambassador, Jackie Mackenzie, and the V’Dan Crown Prince Li’eth have a gestalt partnership. Their minds are intertwined, and if they don’t stay together, they will both die. The existence of this relationship seems to drive Li’eth’s older sister, the Crown Princess and designated Heir, out of her tiny mind beyond all reason.
The overall villains of this series are unquestionably the Salik. They plan to eat us all. While they are repugnant, they make sense from their own perspective, and we know what that perspective is from information provided in The Terrans.
The V’Dan need Terran technology to fight the Salik. While the V’Dan have the ability to generate artificial gravity in their ships, they are still using FTL technology for propulsion and something that seems even slower for communication. They also still use fossil fuels for energy in all applications including space flight. And their hulls are like tissue paper.
The Terrans have developed OTL (other-than-light) travel, which is much faster than FTL. The Terrans have close to instantaneous communications capability. They have a substance that is impossible for sensors to read through for space ship hulls, and they have developed hydroenergy for propulsion and for hydro-bombs.
In other words, the V’Dan need us to help them fight their war way more than we need them. The Empress, Li’eth’s mother, sees that. She has constant problems with her own perceptions of the Terrans as jungen-less children, but she fights that prejudice for the good of her people. She does her best to let her head rule her actions, and it mostly works. It’s not that the prejudice is not there, but that she knows she must work past it.
At the end of the story, the Salik attack and the Empress is critically injured. The Crown Princess is now Regent, and her first action is to throw a temper-tantrum. She both demands that the Terrans give the V’Dan all their technology and demands that they act as properly subservient children and do whatever the V’Dan want with no rights for themselves. The scene is long, and it is necessary. If this were acted, the Crown Princess would be doing a lot of scenery chewing.
The end result is predictable at that point. The Terran Ambassador closes the Embassy and takes ALL of the Terran technology with her. And instead of scenery-chewing, what we see on Jackie’s side is a stand up and cheer moment. She does the right thing at the right time for the right reasons, even though that decision may result in her death. And she knows it.
Where I got hung up is the Crown Princess, her over-the-top reaction and then her complete lack of understanding that the result was the logical consequence of her own behavior.
Why did this bother me so much? The Heirship is not strictly hereditary on V’Dan. The Heir is chosen from the family, but it is the best qualified who is chosen, not automatically the oldest. So it doesn’t have to be her and it can be changed at a moment’s notice and she knows it. Also, she has been trained to be the Heir for 20+ years. She should know better than to put her temper and prejudices before the needs of her people. And that statement is not about her feelings, because we feel what we feel. But she is supposed to have been trained to make sure that her actions benefit her people, and at this junction, they are the farthest away from that principle as they could possibly be. The Crown Princess is an adult in her late 30s or possibly early 40s. The childishness of her temper tantrum would have worked if she actually were a child, but in an adult it made no sense to this reader.
There may be reasons for how she behaved. It is certainly possibly that one of the many factions influenced her behavior through mind control. Or she’s been angling to knock her mother off the throne and take over for years. But we never see enough of her behavior or her mind to know what is driving her. Unlike the Salik, who are totally repugnant but make sense, I at least lost the sense that she had a clue about what her behavior should be, which seemed wrong for the position she had been entrusted with.
There is a lot going on in The V’Dan. In many ways, it is a quiet story until the end. We see relations deteriorate, but we also see a lot of relations. We get to see much, much more of Ambassador Jackie MacKenzie in action both as a psi and as a gifted ambassador, and the woman is absolutely awesome. She is a terrific character, and I can’t wait to see what she does next. I would read this series just to follow Jackie’s adventures.
As much as the ending of The V’Dan drove me crazy, I really, really can’t wait to see what happens in the next book, tentatively titled The Blockade. It looks like things may get darker yet before they finally turn towards the light.
I have whole spaceships full of mixed feeling about this book. I read it in a day, eventually giving in and just sitting down to finish. I say this in spite of how much trouble it was for me to read. This is the first time in quite a while that I’ve been forced to read print. Print which in this case was tiny and tightly spaced. As a Baby Boomer, one of the things that may force us Baby Boomers into ebooks is the ability to infinitely adjust the font. It is much easier to make the font bigger than to make one’s arms either longer or shorter, or to find the brightest light in the universe to read tiny type.
But I felt compelled to finish this. The way that Jackie tries and tries and tries to make the relationship with the V’Dan work. The frustrations and actual physical and mental discomfort that Jackie and Li’eth experience in order to slow the pace of their Gestalt pairing so that his people can grow accustomed to their relationship. The ultimate failure of that attempt is heartbreaking and costs too many lives to no purpose. The beginnings of relationships that Jackie develops with the other races, and how those relationships in the end assist her is marvelous.
But I experienced villain failure at the end, so I reluctantly give The V’Dan a B+. As much as I love the world the author has created, and as involved as I was with the story, for me, it just didn’t stick the dismount.
I grabbed The V’Dan because I love Jean Johnson’s writing. I have enjoyed all of her books, including her fanfiction, and her military SF series Theirs Not to Reason Why is one of my all-time favorites. If you like character-driven military SF, start with A Soldier's Duty.
But The V’Dan is the second book in her prequel series to Theirs Not, The First Salik War. I raved over the first book in this series, The Terrans, over at Reading Reality. I expected to love The V’Dan just as much. Instead, I leave the story a bit frustrated.
First, for the record, while it is not necessary to read any or all of Theirs Not to Reason Why before tackling The First Salik War, I think it is necessary to read The Terrans before reading The V’Dan. It’s not just that most of the setup is in The Terrans, but also that The V’Dan is of necessity a middle book, and I don’t think the reader will know enough or care enough about the characters to enjoy this one without the first book.
I said that The V’Dan is a middle book. For those not familiar, the traditional narrative arc in most stories is a rise to the end of the first third of the story, a fall to the end of the second third, and a rise to the conclusion, catharsis, happy ending at the end of the final third.
In a trilogy, the second book always sits squarely in that fall to the trough of the second third. Things get darker and darker, and then darkest just before they turn completely black in a seeming ending or failure.
Think of The Two Towers of The Lord of the Rings, or The Empire Strikes Back of the classic Star Wars trilogy. They both end in dark places for important narrative reasons, but it hurts when the story leaves the characters in the lurch like that.
The story in The V’Dan is also much, much more a political story than it is an action story. In The Terrans, the Terran United Planets ship Aloha 9 rescues the survivors of a V’Dan crew from becoming dinner for the Saliks. After the spectacular rescue, the Terrans bring the V’Dan back to Earth. It’s not that they don’t want to return the V’Dan to their home, it’s that they need the resources of Earth to find it first.
Along the way, the V’Dan are introduced to the Earth of the 23rd century, a place that has learned some hard truths on the road to peace and prosperity, but looks like a future and a political system that would be marvelous to live in. There are a lot of commentaries on the way we do things in the 21st century, and I found them all the be both sharply pointed and extremely cogent.
However, the other things that are discovered during the V’Dan’s brief visit to Earth are quite interesting. The V’Dan are us. 10,000 years ago an ancestor they call “The Immortal” scooped their ancestors off of our Earth and seeded them on V’Dan. While there have been 10,000 years of genetic and cultural drift, we are definitely their progenitors.
But about that drift…one of the big changes is the V’Dan response to the extreme number of histamine producers in their atmosphere. They developed a virus that basically prevents the whole planet from dying of anaphylactic shock just from breathing. We don’t have that virus because we don’t need it. But the virus produces a pattern of colored markings on the skin of the V’Dan, and these “jungen” marks appear at puberty. The V’Dan have extreme cultural taboos and prejudices about what the jungen-less can and cannot do or be, because those laws are designed to protect children.
The Terran humans are jungen-less, but they are manifestly not children. And when the Terrans bring the V’Dan survivors back to V’Dan to set up diplomatic relations and trade technology, the V’Dans as a society are completely unable to cope.
So most of the story here is about the degradation of relations proceeding apace as the V’Dan degrade the Terrans at every single turn. It is like water wearing away at stone. Every interaction produces at least one nasty exchange where the V’Dan refuse to treat the Terrans not merely as equals, but just as ordinary adults. The Terran embassy can’t buy food because the merchants don’t believe that a “child” should be handling that much money. The Terrans can’t buy liquor either, but the restriction on food purchases was the one that got me.
The way that the Terrans continue to act as responsible adults in the face of increasing disrespect is thoughtful and mature, but they also don’t back down. Nor should they. While they could as individuals make their lives easier with some makeup or tattoos, that would constitute giving in to the V’Dan cultural prejudice that has no basis in fact, something that Terra has finally gotten past in the last century. They don’t want to go back to cater to someone else’s blind prejudice.
What in the end drove me bananas, is that as much as the cultural divide was well documented and well portrayed in all of its fits and starts and one step forward two steps back jerky momentum, something failed for me in the dismount.
I expected that relations would fail in the end. While there is hope, it was clear that there is going to need to be a break, a crisis and a reassessment for the V’Dan to get their heads out of their prejudiced assholes.
This is where we get to the villain of the piece. Well, sort of. The Terran Ambassador, Jackie Mackenzie, and the V’Dan Crown Prince Li’eth have a gestalt partnership. Their minds are intertwined, and if they don’t stay together, they will both die. The existence of this relationship seems to drive Li’eth’s older sister, the Crown Princess and designated Heir, out of her tiny mind beyond all reason.
The overall villains of this series are unquestionably the Salik. They plan to eat us all. While they are repugnant, they make sense from their own perspective, and we know what that perspective is from information provided in The Terrans.
The V’Dan need Terran technology to fight the Salik. While the V’Dan have the ability to generate artificial gravity in their ships, they are still using FTL technology for propulsion and something that seems even slower for communication. They also still use fossil fuels for energy in all applications including space flight. And their hulls are like tissue paper.
The Terrans have developed OTL (other-than-light) travel, which is much faster than FTL. The Terrans have close to instantaneous communications capability. They have a substance that is impossible for sensors to read through for space ship hulls, and they have developed hydroenergy for propulsion and for hydro-bombs.
In other words, the V’Dan need us to help them fight their war way more than we need them. The Empress, Li’eth’s mother, sees that. She has constant problems with her own perceptions of the Terrans as jungen-less children, but she fights that prejudice for the good of her people. She does her best to let her head rule her actions, and it mostly works. It’s not that the prejudice is not there, but that she knows she must work past it.
At the end of the story, the Salik attack and the Empress is critically injured. The Crown Princess is now Regent, and her first action is to throw a temper-tantrum. She both demands that the Terrans give the V’Dan all their technology and demands that they act as properly subservient children and do whatever the V’Dan want with no rights for themselves. The scene is long, and it is necessary. If this were acted, the Crown Princess would be doing a lot of scenery chewing.
The end result is predictable at that point. The Terran Ambassador closes the Embassy and takes ALL of the Terran technology with her. And instead of scenery-chewing, what we see on Jackie’s side is a stand up and cheer moment. She does the right thing at the right time for the right reasons, even though that decision may result in her death. And she knows it.
Where I got hung up is the Crown Princess, her over-the-top reaction and then her complete lack of understanding that the result was the logical consequence of her own behavior.
Why did this bother me so much? The Heirship is not strictly hereditary on V’Dan. The Heir is chosen from the family, but it is the best qualified who is chosen, not automatically the oldest. So it doesn’t have to be her and it can be changed at a moment’s notice and she knows it. Also, she has been trained to be the Heir for 20+ years. She should know better than to put her temper and prejudices before the needs of her people. And that statement is not about her feelings, because we feel what we feel. But she is supposed to have been trained to make sure that her actions benefit her people, and at this junction, they are the farthest away from that principle as they could possibly be. The Crown Princess is an adult in her late 30s or possibly early 40s. The childishness of her temper tantrum would have worked if she actually were a child, but in an adult it made no sense to this reader.
There may be reasons for how she behaved. It is certainly possibly that one of the many factions influenced her behavior through mind control. Or she’s been angling to knock her mother off the throne and take over for years. But we never see enough of her behavior or her mind to know what is driving her. Unlike the Salik, who are totally repugnant but make sense, I at least lost the sense that she had a clue about what her behavior should be, which seemed wrong for the position she had been entrusted with.
There is a lot going on in The V’Dan. In many ways, it is a quiet story until the end. We see relations deteriorate, but we also see a lot of relations. We get to see much, much more of Ambassador Jackie MacKenzie in action both as a psi and as a gifted ambassador, and the woman is absolutely awesome. She is a terrific character, and I can’t wait to see what she does next. I would read this series just to follow Jackie’s adventures.
As much as the ending of The V’Dan drove me crazy, I really, really can’t wait to see what happens in the next book, tentatively titled The Blockade. It looks like things may get darker yet before they finally turn towards the light.
I have whole spaceships full of mixed feeling about this book. I read it in a day, eventually giving in and just sitting down to finish. I say this in spite of how much trouble it was for me to read. This is the first time in quite a while that I’ve been forced to read print. Print which in this case was tiny and tightly spaced. As a Baby Boomer, one of the things that may force us Baby Boomers into ebooks is the ability to infinitely adjust the font. It is much easier to make the font bigger than to make one’s arms either longer or shorter, or to find the brightest light in the universe to read tiny type.
But I felt compelled to finish this. The way that Jackie tries and tries and tries to make the relationship with the V’Dan work. The frustrations and actual physical and mental discomfort that Jackie and Li’eth experience in order to slow the pace of their Gestalt pairing so that his people can grow accustomed to their relationship. The ultimate failure of that attempt is heartbreaking and costs too many lives to no purpose. The beginnings of relationships that Jackie develops with the other races, and how those relationships in the end assist her is marvelous.
But I experienced villain failure at the end, so I reluctantly give The V’Dan a B+. As much as I love the world the author has created, and as involved as I was with the story, for me, it just didn’t stick the dismount.
January 22, 2016
After I fell in love with The Terrans (see exactly how much in my review), I expected to adore V’Dan. Unfortunately, everything I ignored in The Terrans was emphasized in its sequel, and everything I loved so much took a back seat to the main elements (those things I ignored).
V’Dan continues the story of the interaction between two human civilizations: the Terrans, or the futuristic us, and the V’Dan, a civilization that grew up in a distant universe after they left Earth millennia ago in a time of disaster. This time, the group of mixed V’Dan and Terrans, the individuals who made first contact, have traveled from the Terran homeworld to the V’Dan homeworld, where they embark on diplomatic, political, and interpersonal ventures.
The first contact trope is one of my favorites – two cultures, two peoples, two individuals, all bringing their own worldviews, histories, and experiences to a situation where they have to expand their knowledge to include entirely different ontologies (that’s the fancy word for worldviews). They have to overcome barriers of communication – language and body language order to make the connection or achieve the mutual goal (in this case, war against the species that eats other sentient species alive, the Salik). They have to overcome political tensions, interpersonal tensions, and more.
Unfortunately, this book emphasized the little conflicts, instead of exploring the big ones. With all of the potential conflicts that could have erupted between two civilizations of the same species who have been separated for millennia, the only one that disrupts their interactions is a racial prejudice. The kind that encourages contempt and hatred for people who don’t look alike. The V’Dan fixate on the humans’ lack of jungen, or body tattoos that are only one marker of adulthood in V’Dan society, believing all the adult humans are juvenile. Throughout the entire book, the main character chastises, reprimands, and yells at people from all the different sentient species being preyed on by the Salik, who disrespect the Terrans. The first time, the second time, all right, I understand it could be upsetting, and diplomatic relations are delicate things. But really, this is the only source of conflict, and it is even the reason behind the struggle the main characters have to express their mental/emotional/romantic bond.
It got old and preachy. Fast.
Further, the diplomatic relations piece, the worldbuilding took too much away from any sort of action – romantic or violent. The majority of the book is spent navigating the choppy diplomatic waters with the main characters (and reading passage after passage about disrespect and the evils of racial prejudice). The descriptions are so detailed that they stopped having the effect they were supposed to have, and I started tuning them out instead of imagining them. Honestly, I got bored. The war with the Salik never really materializes, the differences in technologies are never explored, the romance is an afterthought.
I’m sorry to say that these two things ruined the book, and the series, for me.
V’Dan continues the story of the interaction between two human civilizations: the Terrans, or the futuristic us, and the V’Dan, a civilization that grew up in a distant universe after they left Earth millennia ago in a time of disaster. This time, the group of mixed V’Dan and Terrans, the individuals who made first contact, have traveled from the Terran homeworld to the V’Dan homeworld, where they embark on diplomatic, political, and interpersonal ventures.
The first contact trope is one of my favorites – two cultures, two peoples, two individuals, all bringing their own worldviews, histories, and experiences to a situation where they have to expand their knowledge to include entirely different ontologies (that’s the fancy word for worldviews). They have to overcome barriers of communication – language and body language order to make the connection or achieve the mutual goal (in this case, war against the species that eats other sentient species alive, the Salik). They have to overcome political tensions, interpersonal tensions, and more.
Unfortunately, this book emphasized the little conflicts, instead of exploring the big ones. With all of the potential conflicts that could have erupted between two civilizations of the same species who have been separated for millennia, the only one that disrupts their interactions is a racial prejudice. The kind that encourages contempt and hatred for people who don’t look alike. The V’Dan fixate on the humans’ lack of jungen, or body tattoos that are only one marker of adulthood in V’Dan society, believing all the adult humans are juvenile. Throughout the entire book, the main character chastises, reprimands, and yells at people from all the different sentient species being preyed on by the Salik, who disrespect the Terrans. The first time, the second time, all right, I understand it could be upsetting, and diplomatic relations are delicate things. But really, this is the only source of conflict, and it is even the reason behind the struggle the main characters have to express their mental/emotional/romantic bond.
It got old and preachy. Fast.
Further, the diplomatic relations piece, the worldbuilding took too much away from any sort of action – romantic or violent. The majority of the book is spent navigating the choppy diplomatic waters with the main characters (and reading passage after passage about disrespect and the evils of racial prejudice). The descriptions are so detailed that they stopped having the effect they were supposed to have, and I started tuning them out instead of imagining them. Honestly, I got bored. The war with the Salik never really materializes, the differences in technologies are never explored, the romance is an afterthought.
I’m sorry to say that these two things ruined the book, and the series, for me.
July 31, 2016
I'm going to start off by saying that I'll probably keep reading the series. However, it is largely because I enjoyed the other series in the same universe as this book and getting more content that adds further detail to this universe interests me.
The book itself and this series diverges from the other series a little too much. The other series is more military sci-fi. There's actual combat and the characters use their psychic abilities. In this one... not so much..
So far, it seems to focus more on sociopolitical stuff. Differences between cultures, societies, and systems of government. Less focus on military and more on politicians etc. Which in and of itself isn't bad. I enjoy that kind of thing too.
It's just that the basis for the conflict and friction between the Terrans and the V'Dan (jungen marks and if you have them or not) feels a little forced. The Jungen marks form around puberty for the V'Dan. No Jungen = juvenile. Since Terrans Don't have Jungen and Are human, this causes problems(I guess?). It just feels like it shouldn't be a problem or one that is surmounted quickly rather than having a whole book focus on it. Since, you know, they've been an intergalactic civilization for centuries? tolerate other different cultures? comprehend alien thought processes?
Not only that but the Terrans deal with it by issuing ultimatums and lecturing the V'Dans on "skin based prejudice". It just comes off as a little pretentious and makes the diplomats look prima donna-ish.
Since there's less action and less tension than the previous series it feels a bit like the author is trying to manufacture it using a dramatic approach to handling this issue.
There were some other plot points that were kind of obvious and it repeatedly references things in the previous series. Which felt a little too much like the book trying to rest on the laurels of the author's previous success.
The startrek prequel series "Enterprise" did this as sort of an in-joke. The startrek series has something called "the prime directive". In the series the captain and crew get into a jam and have to make hard choices. Afterwards the captain says something like "maybe one day in the future they can come up with some rules to handle something like this, some sort of 'prime directive'".
The book itself and this series diverges from the other series a little too much. The other series is more military sci-fi. There's actual combat and the characters use their psychic abilities. In this one... not so much..
So far, it seems to focus more on sociopolitical stuff. Differences between cultures, societies, and systems of government. Less focus on military and more on politicians etc. Which in and of itself isn't bad. I enjoy that kind of thing too.
It's just that the basis for the conflict and friction between the Terrans and the V'Dan (jungen marks and if you have them or not) feels a little forced. The Jungen marks form around puberty for the V'Dan. No Jungen = juvenile. Since Terrans Don't have Jungen and Are human, this causes problems(I guess?). It just feels like it shouldn't be a problem or one that is surmounted quickly rather than having a whole book focus on it. Since, you know, they've been an intergalactic civilization for centuries? tolerate other different cultures? comprehend alien thought processes?
Not only that but the Terrans deal with it by issuing ultimatums and lecturing the V'Dans on "skin based prejudice". It just comes off as a little pretentious and makes the diplomats look prima donna-ish.
Since there's less action and less tension than the previous series it feels a bit like the author is trying to manufacture it using a dramatic approach to handling this issue.
There were some other plot points that were kind of obvious and it repeatedly references things in the previous series. Which felt a little too much like the book trying to rest on the laurels of the author's previous success.
The startrek prequel series "Enterprise" did this as sort of an in-joke. The startrek series has something called "the prime directive". In the series the captain and crew get into a jam and have to make hard choices. Afterwards the captain says something like "maybe one day in the future they can come up with some rules to handle something like this, some sort of 'prime directive'".
January 19, 2016
I feel like there wasn't a lot of story movement, yet a lot happened in this one. I did get tired, much like the Terrans did, of how they were treated by the V'Dan. It was the same argument over and over, the same chastisement over and over, with the punishments slightly accelerating with each infraction. I loved Jackie's challenge to the Empress, really thought that would do the trick. I feel like the last brutal call the Terran's made at the end was the right one. You can only turn the other cheek so long before you need to slap back and do so in a way that will make a big impact!
January 18, 2016
Basically reiteration is the bane of this whole book, and anything worth happening happens in the last 10% of it. This writing style of going through of what is being said over and over again drove me up the wall. Which is why it took me that long to read it. Disappointed. However, I'll still read Blockade as I like Li'eth. *sigh* I've got a headache now.
January 6, 2016
*Source* Publisher
*Genre* Science Fiction
*Rating* 3.0
*My Thoughts*
The V'Dan is the second installment in Jean Johnson's First Salik War series. This series actually takes place 200 years before the Theirs Not to Reason Why series. In order to understand the intricacies and political shenanigans that take place in this story, you must read the first book called The Terrans. You have to understand that like all middle books, if you miss the first story, you miss the characters who were previously introduced, the reason why you should care about them, and the setting that Johnson has created.
*Full Review Posted @ Gizmos Reviews 01/06/2016*
http://gizmosreviews.blogspot.com/201...
Publisher: Ace (December 29, 2015)
*Genre* Science Fiction
*Rating* 3.0
*My Thoughts*
The V'Dan is the second installment in Jean Johnson's First Salik War series. This series actually takes place 200 years before the Theirs Not to Reason Why series. In order to understand the intricacies and political shenanigans that take place in this story, you must read the first book called The Terrans. You have to understand that like all middle books, if you miss the first story, you miss the characters who were previously introduced, the reason why you should care about them, and the setting that Johnson has created.
*Full Review Posted @ Gizmos Reviews 01/06/2016*
http://gizmosreviews.blogspot.com/201...
Publisher: Ace (December 29, 2015)
July 28, 2016
I was both prepared, and entirely unprepared for this book.
The series is called, “The First Salik War”, but despite that title, the Salik (aliens whose preferred form of nourishment is live humans), have had exactly two small scenes across the two books.
Which seems crazy. On the surface, one would expect “The First Salik War” books to be military space fare, but instead, as of so far, these books are very much political fiction.
Based on this, as military space fiction, these books are sorely lacking, but as political fiction, these books are quite good.
The entirety of The V’Dan is occupied with the challenges and political minefield establishment of a human embassy on the V’Dan homeworld.
Like in The Terrans, The V’Dan is prone to LONG soliloquy-like passages that can get overbearing, and while I do like these books, I honestly think these two first books in this series could have been easily been a single really superb book.
To be truthful, once I got the gist of any particular monster-passage, I skimmed through quite a bit, which made getting through the book much more tolerable. There really is a fantastic story here, but it’s also a very uncomfortable story.
***WARNING MILD SPOILERS FOR THE TERRANS AND THE V’DAN BOOKS AHEAD***
To explain why, I need to do a bit more set up on what’s happened across these two books.
In The Terrans, humans on a spaceship from Earth encounter a hostile alien race (the Salik). As mentioned above, the Salik like to eat live humans.
On encountering the Salik, the humans discover that the Salik are holding prisoners on their ship, and decide to rescue them. On doing so, the humans discover that the prisoners being held by the Salik are also humans. Alien humans (V’Dan).
The V’Dan are actually humans from earth, but have not lived on earth for 10,000 years. They were transplanted to their homeworld (V’Dan) by someone known as The Immortal.
So we have a branch of humanity that split from earthbound humans 10,000 years ago, and evolved as humans and as a society on a totally separate planet.
On V’Dan, the political system is a monarchy, with a social caste system, and as part of their separate evolution, when going through puberty, the V’Dan develop markings on their bodies that look like tattoos. They call the markings Jungen.
Because these markings develop during puberty, the V’Dan consider anyone without the Jungen marks to be a child, and because Earth based humans (Terrans) look exactly like the V’Dan, except without markings, the V’Dan default to treating the humans like children.
This is the principal conflict in both The Terrans and The V’Dan, and this is what makes these books uncomfortable to read.
The Terrans, who we as the readers are meant to identify with, are constantly being treated like you might treat a two year old child, and understandably, the humans don’t like being treated like children.
The main protagonist in The Terrans and The V’Dan is Jackie MacKenzie, who is also the Terran Ambassador to the V’Dan, and every time a V’Dan treats a Terran like a child, Jackie goes into what I think of as “Condescending Adult Mode”, berating and scolding the V’Dan individual (and the V’Dan society at large) for judging people based on how they look instead of based on their actions.
An important point here is that the society back on Earth has “matured” past the point of racism, treating all people of color equally. In general, the human political system and society is portrayed as being highly evolved.
Okay, so why is all of this uncomfortable? Because we have one set of humans (the V’Dan), treating another set of different looking humans (the Terrans) as “inferior”, and when being treated as inferior, the Terran humans react very strongly. Never violently, but always very strongly. Without compromise and with very little sympathy for the V’Dan point of view.
I don’t know if this is the author’s intent, but as a white person reading this book, I felt very uncomfortable with the way the Terrans reacted every time they were treated like children.
Every time the Terrans got all pissed off about being treated like children, I thought, “Jeez, lighten up a bit.” and, “You’ve got to lighten up, you can’t expect them to change on a dime.”
But every time I had that reaction, in the back of my head, something felt wrong.
Maybe I’m a bit obtuse, but it took me until nearly the end of The V’Dan to put it together.
See, we’re not just dealing with the Salik, the Terrans and the V’Dan. We also have a number of other alien races that the V’Dan have already established alliances with and none of those aliens are humanoid, and the V’Dan have no problem treating these different looking aliens like adults.
But when the V’Dan see humans that are essentially a different color than they are, they treat them as inferior.
When I finally pictured the V’Dan as white people, and the Terrans as black people, and thought about it in the context the world of 2016, I found my discomfort.
Right here I want to type, “I am not racist.”
The problem is, while I don’t believe I am racist, and I definitely strive not to be racist, I’m also very likely blind to the hundreds of years of institutional biases that exist in me and in our society.
Like the bias I had when reading these books that the “minority” group was overreacting to the repeated acts of mistreatment/oppression based solely on how they looked.
That was really uncomfortable.
Again, I don’t know if Jean Johnson intended this in her writing, but for me it was timely. One last note. The ending of The V’Dan is a bit predictable, but also, is wholly satisfying, especially in this context. I still think Johnson could have trimmed a lot of fat out of both The Terrans and The V’Dan, but despite that, I’m looking forward to book three of The Salik War.
The series is called, “The First Salik War”, but despite that title, the Salik (aliens whose preferred form of nourishment is live humans), have had exactly two small scenes across the two books.
Which seems crazy. On the surface, one would expect “The First Salik War” books to be military space fare, but instead, as of so far, these books are very much political fiction.
Based on this, as military space fiction, these books are sorely lacking, but as political fiction, these books are quite good.
The entirety of The V’Dan is occupied with the challenges and political minefield establishment of a human embassy on the V’Dan homeworld.
Like in The Terrans, The V’Dan is prone to LONG soliloquy-like passages that can get overbearing, and while I do like these books, I honestly think these two first books in this series could have been easily been a single really superb book.
To be truthful, once I got the gist of any particular monster-passage, I skimmed through quite a bit, which made getting through the book much more tolerable. There really is a fantastic story here, but it’s also a very uncomfortable story.
***WARNING MILD SPOILERS FOR THE TERRANS AND THE V’DAN BOOKS AHEAD***
To explain why, I need to do a bit more set up on what’s happened across these two books.
In The Terrans, humans on a spaceship from Earth encounter a hostile alien race (the Salik). As mentioned above, the Salik like to eat live humans.
On encountering the Salik, the humans discover that the Salik are holding prisoners on their ship, and decide to rescue them. On doing so, the humans discover that the prisoners being held by the Salik are also humans. Alien humans (V’Dan).
The V’Dan are actually humans from earth, but have not lived on earth for 10,000 years. They were transplanted to their homeworld (V’Dan) by someone known as The Immortal.
So we have a branch of humanity that split from earthbound humans 10,000 years ago, and evolved as humans and as a society on a totally separate planet.
On V’Dan, the political system is a monarchy, with a social caste system, and as part of their separate evolution, when going through puberty, the V’Dan develop markings on their bodies that look like tattoos. They call the markings Jungen.
Because these markings develop during puberty, the V’Dan consider anyone without the Jungen marks to be a child, and because Earth based humans (Terrans) look exactly like the V’Dan, except without markings, the V’Dan default to treating the humans like children.
This is the principal conflict in both The Terrans and The V’Dan, and this is what makes these books uncomfortable to read.
The Terrans, who we as the readers are meant to identify with, are constantly being treated like you might treat a two year old child, and understandably, the humans don’t like being treated like children.
The main protagonist in The Terrans and The V’Dan is Jackie MacKenzie, who is also the Terran Ambassador to the V’Dan, and every time a V’Dan treats a Terran like a child, Jackie goes into what I think of as “Condescending Adult Mode”, berating and scolding the V’Dan individual (and the V’Dan society at large) for judging people based on how they look instead of based on their actions.
An important point here is that the society back on Earth has “matured” past the point of racism, treating all people of color equally. In general, the human political system and society is portrayed as being highly evolved.
Okay, so why is all of this uncomfortable? Because we have one set of humans (the V’Dan), treating another set of different looking humans (the Terrans) as “inferior”, and when being treated as inferior, the Terran humans react very strongly. Never violently, but always very strongly. Without compromise and with very little sympathy for the V’Dan point of view.
I don’t know if this is the author’s intent, but as a white person reading this book, I felt very uncomfortable with the way the Terrans reacted every time they were treated like children.
Every time the Terrans got all pissed off about being treated like children, I thought, “Jeez, lighten up a bit.” and, “You’ve got to lighten up, you can’t expect them to change on a dime.”
But every time I had that reaction, in the back of my head, something felt wrong.
Maybe I’m a bit obtuse, but it took me until nearly the end of The V’Dan to put it together.
See, we’re not just dealing with the Salik, the Terrans and the V’Dan. We also have a number of other alien races that the V’Dan have already established alliances with and none of those aliens are humanoid, and the V’Dan have no problem treating these different looking aliens like adults.
But when the V’Dan see humans that are essentially a different color than they are, they treat them as inferior.
When I finally pictured the V’Dan as white people, and the Terrans as black people, and thought about it in the context the world of 2016, I found my discomfort.
Right here I want to type, “I am not racist.”
The problem is, while I don’t believe I am racist, and I definitely strive not to be racist, I’m also very likely blind to the hundreds of years of institutional biases that exist in me and in our society.
Like the bias I had when reading these books that the “minority” group was overreacting to the repeated acts of mistreatment/oppression based solely on how they looked.
That was really uncomfortable.
Again, I don’t know if Jean Johnson intended this in her writing, but for me it was timely. One last note. The ending of The V’Dan is a bit predictable, but also, is wholly satisfying, especially in this context. I still think Johnson could have trimmed a lot of fat out of both The Terrans and The V’Dan, but despite that, I’m looking forward to book three of The Salik War.
March 27, 2016
The follow up to the first book is a bit of a let down. The action really happens near the end. We are now in the V'Dan world where Jackie is the Grand High Ambassador from Earth. Li’eth is returned to his world with new allies and a possible way to defend against the Salik. Unfortunately, the V'Dan are asshole racists. This is a dry book about diplomacy and xenophobia. I fell asleep three times trying to read this book. It is a needed book because it sets up of the big showdown at the end. Am I intrigued? Yes. I still want to know what happens. Am I bored out of my mind for this book, yes, unfortunately.
There isn't enough action for me. The majority of the book is meeting new aliens who are all judgmental skin deep assholes. The Terrans are treated like juveniles because they don't a bloody mark on their face. They keep trying to play nice and it doesn't work. Brad the asshole from the first book is on the mission and he is played a fool. What a loser. Li’eth should know better but he doesn't. The ending leaves the reader with a cliffhanger type ending. I am glad Jackie finally pulled the trigger and stood up for the Terrans. I just wish they were a little smarter about it. Really to make a point, more people need to die. Sadly I think it needs to be Li’eth. I like him, but until he dies, I don't think the dumb asses from his home planet will understand. This does mean Jackie will need to die too. I like her, but sacrificing two for the greater good of all is acceptable. Can't wait to read the third book to see what happens. Not sure how Ms. Johnson will be able to write herself out of this corner.
There isn't enough action for me. The majority of the book is meeting new aliens who are all judgmental skin deep assholes. The Terrans are treated like juveniles because they don't a bloody mark on their face. They keep trying to play nice and it doesn't work. Brad the asshole from the first book is on the mission and he is played a fool. What a loser. Li’eth should know better but he doesn't. The ending leaves the reader with a cliffhanger type ending. I am glad Jackie finally pulled the trigger and stood up for the Terrans. I just wish they were a little smarter about it. Really to make a point, more people need to die. Sadly I think it needs to be Li’eth. I like him, but until he dies, I don't think the dumb asses from his home planet will understand. This does mean Jackie will need to die too. I like her, but sacrificing two for the greater good of all is acceptable. Can't wait to read the third book to see what happens. Not sure how Ms. Johnson will be able to write herself out of this corner.
July 6, 2016
Following on the First book about first contact is a second book about diplomacy-almost completely devoid of diplomacy. The Terrans in this book are so condescending and holier-than-thou that I had a hard time getting through the book. In There's is Not To Reason Why the main character was arrogant and blunt because she was on a well defined mission-it worked for the story. The main characters in this book were a lot more pretentious than they should have been as diplomats in a new culture. They spent most of the book complaining how the V'Dan don't respect the differences in the culture by ignoring the fact that there were cultural reasons for those differences. They expected the V'Dan to immediately change their culture to fit the Terrans because reasons. They were never diplomatic about it, which is surprising as they were diplomats. While the animosity was very forced I found the constant "we are better than you because we got past racism" off-putting. Reviews say it gets better the last few chapters, so we will see if I make it.
After finishing, nothing more happened to change my review. Will I read the third one? Yes, because I like the world Ms. Johnson has crafted in "Theirs is not to Reason Why". I am early awaiting the sequels to that series and hope they are better than the prequels .
After finishing, nothing more happened to change my review. Will I read the third one? Yes, because I like the world Ms. Johnson has crafted in "Theirs is not to Reason Why". I am early awaiting the sequels to that series and hope they are better than the prequels .
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June 18, 2016These introductory books are slow for me. The detailed descriptions getting to know the cultures do drag, especially considering how little I was good with in the original series. Someday, these pre-quells will suit better. However, in casual conversation, she drops in the solution to the Time Paradox about killing your ancestor, and even though I'd heard it a million times on Dr. Who, it hit me fresh and with impact. That was nice. So I continue.
However, by the end of the book I am just glad that it is done. The hoped for action was minimal. Potential spoiler alert, in that what I hope for next, is that one by one the Alliance members leave their obligations to the V'Dan and make separate treaties with the Terrans for their tech. Until, piece by piece the Alliance is rebuilt under Terran dominance and it is the V'Dan petitioning for admission, and we know under what conditions. Then go kick some ass. If I have to endlessly hear about the differences in coffee and clothes and furniture and ...... I'll scream.
However, by the end of the book I am just glad that it is done. The hoped for action was minimal. Potential spoiler alert, in that what I hope for next, is that one by one the Alliance members leave their obligations to the V'Dan and make separate treaties with the Terrans for their tech. Until, piece by piece the Alliance is rebuilt under Terran dominance and it is the V'Dan petitioning for admission, and we know under what conditions. Then go kick some ass. If I have to endlessly hear about the differences in coffee and clothes and furniture and ...... I'll scream.
March 9, 2016
I loved Jean Johnson's Theirs Not To Reason Why series and liked the first book in the new series, The Terrans, so it pains me to say that I did not like The V'Dan at all.
I knew going in that this book was not military SF, and instead would focus more on first contact and diplomacy, but I didn't expect the difference to earlier books to be so stark. For about 90% of the book, the plot is just meandering with no sense of urgency, no real stakes, no dramatic tension. It is almost entirely worldbuilding, and the minutiae of V'Dan culture, politics and diplomacy are just not interesting enough to hold my attention. I found myself putting the book away every 5-10 pages and it took me weeks to finish.
It was only in the last two chapters that the pace picked up, which gives me hope for the next book in the series, but this novel was a disappointment.
I knew going in that this book was not military SF, and instead would focus more on first contact and diplomacy, but I didn't expect the difference to earlier books to be so stark. For about 90% of the book, the plot is just meandering with no sense of urgency, no real stakes, no dramatic tension. It is almost entirely worldbuilding, and the minutiae of V'Dan culture, politics and diplomacy are just not interesting enough to hold my attention. I found myself putting the book away every 5-10 pages and it took me weeks to finish.
It was only in the last two chapters that the pace picked up, which gives me hope for the next book in the series, but this novel was a disappointment.
January 15, 2016
Aliens! Psychic powers! Game theory! I really enjoyed this book, so much so that I actually wanted to write a review. First off, I had never read any of the books by this author, so I greatly appreciated the recap at the start of the book which allowed me to read this installment with only a minimum of confusion. However, I also want to say that the blurb is a little misleading; the blurb makes this sound heavy on action and romance, when really it is about diplomacy and the romance was already established in the previous book (some sexual references and cuddling, but most everything happened off-screen, if that's an issue for you). If you are looking for dramatic explosions and action sequences, this probably isn't the best fit for you because that is only a small portion of the story, but if you like court intrigue or political science, pick this one up.
May 13, 2019
Continuing Jackie's diplomatic story as she and her mate Li'reth attempt to form an alliance with the V'dans. Very engaging and detail oriented, the majority of the story is about the V'Dans not respecting the Terrans, treating them as juveniles because they do not have jungen markings and the severe consequences of not letting go of their prejudices.
Lots of struggles and several diplomatic incidents. Li'eth and Jackie's bond continue to strengthen as they go through these struggles. There is so much texture and depth the author makes you feel very immersed in their world. This is a to be continued story so you'll want to have the next book, 'The Blockade,' close at hand so you can continue the story. Love this series, love the attention to detail.
More of my reviews can be found at https://wyldheartreads.wordpress.com/
Lots of struggles and several diplomatic incidents. Li'eth and Jackie's bond continue to strengthen as they go through these struggles. There is so much texture and depth the author makes you feel very immersed in their world. This is a to be continued story so you'll want to have the next book, 'The Blockade,' close at hand so you can continue the story. Love this series, love the attention to detail.
More of my reviews can be found at https://wyldheartreads.wordpress.com/
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 24, 2016
This is the book showing how the Terrans and V'Dan begin their negotiations, the misunderstandings and cultural differences, the surprises they all find and the adjustments that must be made. It's the story of the first Terran Embassy on V'Dan, of the technology that each can trade, and the risks and rewards each face.
It's also the story of Jackie and Li'eth as they cautiously explore their rare Gestalt bond.
It's also the story of Jackie and Li'eth as they cautiously explore their rare Gestalt bond.
June 29, 2016
The 2nd in a trilogy was painful, but also an interesting take on the complexity of setting up an alliance between two groups of the
Same species but with very different cultures. Lovely reminder of the utter stupidity of discrimination.
Jackie is a fantastic, intelligent, tough as nails, empathetic, sweet, funny and terrific character.
Same species but with very different cultures. Lovely reminder of the utter stupidity of discrimination.
Jackie is a fantastic, intelligent, tough as nails, empathetic, sweet, funny and terrific character.
May 8, 2017
This author doesn't seem to understand how diplomacy works. Or depth of character. Or clash of cultures.
August 2, 2017
I rather enjoyed this book, but I must admit that it is not very good. The author gets too hung up on protocol descriptions. And clothing descriptions. And speeches. Those are arguably the worst. Yes, I understand the whole lack-of-jungen thing is a big deal, but the repeated speeches about how unacceptable the V'dan behaviour is can easily get on your nerves. Plus, it is seriously unbelievable in some places. I understand prejudice can be insidious, but the V'dan have been hit over the head with the error of their viewpoint. I am sure this does not always change the way they see things, but at the very least they know that those viewpoints are unacceptable, so to air them in a critical moment when giving medical aid to someone who has been attacked seems a bit much. Particularly when said medical worker blames the victim for being attacked. I don't believe a well-trained professional would have said anything of the kind if the victim had been a true juvenile., so that should translate to not saying it here either.
Despite all that, I liked reading this book. I guess I enjoy methodical descriptions and some self-righteousness at times... And one really good point is that both the Terran and the V'dan society are truly without misogyny. With the major cliffhanger at the end, I immediately continued in book 3.
Despite all that, I liked reading this book. I guess I enjoy methodical descriptions and some self-righteousness at times... And one really good point is that both the Terran and the V'dan society are truly without misogyny. With the major cliffhanger at the end, I immediately continued in book 3.
March 25, 2018
Yikes! What a fast-paced action-filled book!
First contact is ever so much harder when you are in fact the same Human species BUT your cultural expectations are so different! [The V'Dan people had somehow left Earth for their new world thousands of years ago but they do recognize that they did not evolve on their new planet V'Dan.]
Ever heard of "white privilege"? Ask anyone who is not Caucasian/part of the "majority" culture and you will quickly receive an earful!
Especially when the arrogant V'Dan folks won't even recognize that there is a problem as they go their merry way dis-respecting the new folks [who happen to be our protagonists from Earth]!
Ms. Johnson does such a good job portraying Humans, especially when there happen to be jerks on both sides! Yes, Humans are not perfect but their flaws sure make stories much more interesting!
First contact is ever so much harder when you are in fact the same Human species BUT your cultural expectations are so different! [The V'Dan people had somehow left Earth for their new world thousands of years ago but they do recognize that they did not evolve on their new planet V'Dan.]
Ever heard of "white privilege"? Ask anyone who is not Caucasian/part of the "majority" culture and you will quickly receive an earful!
Especially when the arrogant V'Dan folks won't even recognize that there is a problem as they go their merry way dis-respecting the new folks [who happen to be our protagonists from Earth]!
Ms. Johnson does such a good job portraying Humans, especially when there happen to be jerks on both sides! Yes, Humans are not perfect but their flaws sure make stories much more interesting!
January 18, 2018
From first contact to embassy to war.....
The detail in this world is amazing and the thought given to how a simple thing can mean so much when relating to an alien species or an alliance of alien species is so amazingly depicted that you can’t help but feel what is happening in this book. You are a part of the proceedings from page one to the end...and now this fascinated reader is off to the next book in the series!
The detail in this world is amazing and the thought given to how a simple thing can mean so much when relating to an alien species or an alliance of alien species is so amazingly depicted that you can’t help but feel what is happening in this book. You are a part of the proceedings from page one to the end...and now this fascinated reader is off to the next book in the series!
November 19, 2021
Grand Ambassador of the Terran Motherworld, Jacaranda Makenzie, has arrived with her Gestalt partner, Prince, and Captain of the V’Dan space force, Li’eth, to his home world to introduce his people to their human cousins the Terrans. Jackie brings with her technology that will help the V’Dan fight and possibly win a war against the Salik, a non-human species who is terrorizing the universe. She and Li’eth as Gestalt partners need to be close to each other as their powers grow. Prophesied to bring peace to the universe there is a lot riding on their success in uniting their two races.
It’s been a couple of years since I read the first novel in this series, Terrans, where we were introduced to Jackie and Li’eth but in a Terran setting. Li’eth was welcomed onto their planet and treated honorably. When Jackie and her crew escort Li’eth to V’Dan, the similarities between their own people are only separated by a discoloration on the skin of the V’Dan’s called jungen, which all V’Dan receive when they reach puberty. Terrans don’t have these marks, and because of that the V’Dan’s treat them as children disrespecting their people. As their leader, Jackie is faced with a cultural and racial insensitivity that her people have not seen in over 100 years.
This book, written prior to the Black Lives Matter movement uses the V’Dan’s skin discoloration to make some interesting parallels to the struggles we’ve faced to eliminate degradation due to skin color. It was interesting to read a science-fiction novel that chose that subject (among others) to take a stand and I relished every time Jackie as Grand Ambassador struck down this insensitivity and prejudice. I wish it were that easy today.
The V’Dan as a lot of sci-fi is, can be very technology heavy and there were pages that I skimmed to the plot to move forward a bit quicker but when the story called for action the plot moved along quite quickly. In addition to the technology-laden paragraphs there were a lot of politic-speak between the different alien races who were in an Alliance together. That too, made for slow points but ultimately picked up when Jackie got to kick-butt and smack down some furry or many-eyed creature for viewing her as a child. I admit, I did get a kick out of those moments.
I really enjoyed the more psychic moments in the book. Li’eth and Jackie were a solid pairing and I liked their hidden conversations, spoken mind to mind as they could talk freely where no one could hear them and those conversations gave insights into the actions going on around them. Theirs was not the only emotional connections but certainly as the main character theirs was the most prevalent.
If you like sci-fi and don’t mind techo-jargon then you may enjoy this series. I immediately picked up the third and last book in the series because I liked this book so much and would recommend it to anyone who thinks they may like a story that while a little older, runs parallel to the story lines of today. Granted, I do hope there aren’t some tentacled species out there hoping to inhabit our planet, breed humans so that they can eat us, so there is that. 🙂 ❤️❤️❤️❤️
It’s been a couple of years since I read the first novel in this series, Terrans, where we were introduced to Jackie and Li’eth but in a Terran setting. Li’eth was welcomed onto their planet and treated honorably. When Jackie and her crew escort Li’eth to V’Dan, the similarities between their own people are only separated by a discoloration on the skin of the V’Dan’s called jungen, which all V’Dan receive when they reach puberty. Terrans don’t have these marks, and because of that the V’Dan’s treat them as children disrespecting their people. As their leader, Jackie is faced with a cultural and racial insensitivity that her people have not seen in over 100 years.
This book, written prior to the Black Lives Matter movement uses the V’Dan’s skin discoloration to make some interesting parallels to the struggles we’ve faced to eliminate degradation due to skin color. It was interesting to read a science-fiction novel that chose that subject (among others) to take a stand and I relished every time Jackie as Grand Ambassador struck down this insensitivity and prejudice. I wish it were that easy today.
The V’Dan as a lot of sci-fi is, can be very technology heavy and there were pages that I skimmed to the plot to move forward a bit quicker but when the story called for action the plot moved along quite quickly. In addition to the technology-laden paragraphs there were a lot of politic-speak between the different alien races who were in an Alliance together. That too, made for slow points but ultimately picked up when Jackie got to kick-butt and smack down some furry or many-eyed creature for viewing her as a child. I admit, I did get a kick out of those moments.
I really enjoyed the more psychic moments in the book. Li’eth and Jackie were a solid pairing and I liked their hidden conversations, spoken mind to mind as they could talk freely where no one could hear them and those conversations gave insights into the actions going on around them. Theirs was not the only emotional connections but certainly as the main character theirs was the most prevalent.
If you like sci-fi and don’t mind techo-jargon then you may enjoy this series. I immediately picked up the third and last book in the series because I liked this book so much and would recommend it to anyone who thinks they may like a story that while a little older, runs parallel to the story lines of today. Granted, I do hope there aren’t some tentacled species out there hoping to inhabit our planet, breed humans so that they can eat us, so there is that. 🙂 ❤️❤️❤️❤️
June 28, 2019
Very good 2nd novel! The first contact story continues, as well as the cultural struggles, and more of the PSI theory is expanded on. There is a lot of exhaustive detail in this world building. I am looking forward to the final book and (hopefully) more on the precognitive angle.
June 8, 2023
Book 2 of 3
The Terrians establish a Embassy on V'Dan and the link between the Prince and Ambassador grows stronger. There's miscommunication, danger, betrayal and the Salik leading to a very high climax. But you'll need the next book in the series.
The Terrians establish a Embassy on V'Dan and the link between the Prince and Ambassador grows stronger. There's miscommunication, danger, betrayal and the Salik leading to a very high climax. But you'll need the next book in the series.
November 13, 2018
Not as good as the first one. The whole thing with the v’dans not being able to see if the Terrans are adults is just ridiculous.
October 27, 2020
Reread. First contact SF with a long-lost colony, and a culture clash comes to a head. ...But the constant repetition of the culture clash issue becomes tiresome. Def. bk 2 in series.
April 8, 2021
This novel was an overall disappointment.
March 4, 2025
more politics than war, but expected
4.25 stars
4.25 stars
January 6, 2016
This book is more about politics and social interaction than most of the other books in the First Salik War as well as Theirs Not to Reason Why series of books from this author. As such it falls a bit outside of my comfort zone which is why I was surprised at how much I actually liked this book.
Jackandra MacKenzie is sent to the V’Dan homeworld in the capacity of both military commander and ambassador for Earth with the mission to negociate a treaty between V’Dan and Earth. The mission is complicated by the fact that the V’Dan are stuck in a very traditional mind-set and, in particular, views the people from Earth as children due to the absence of the markings that all V’Dan gets when they come into puberty.
Although there are some action, especially towards the end, the majority of the book revolves around the negotiations, the social interactions and the political games. I would normally not have liked a book with so much focus on these parts but I have to say that I quite liked this one.
The mixture of the social and political parts with the psychic abilities of Jackandra, the Gestalt between Jackandra and Li’eth and perhaps the fact that, for once, it is not Earth politicians that behaves arrogantly and screws things up made for a very enjoyable read as far as I am concerned. Well there is one exception to what I just wrote. One Earth human manages to screw things up due to his arrogance and bigotry but he does get what he deserves afterwards.
Although the Earthlings are technologically inferior in many aspects they do excel in some areas, especially their psychic abilities, and the V’Dan are in for a few surprises along the way. Unfortunately, as I wrote above, they have a very traditional (arrogant) mind-set and insists on viewing and treating the Eartlings as inferior which makes Jackandra’s task quite difficult. Jackandra is not the person that takes any shit though and puts the V’Dan in their proper place on more than one occasion.
Unfortunately the Salik have their own (lunch) agenda which it can be safely stated is not exactly including the well being of neither the V’Dan nor the Earthlings. They manage to throw quite a bit if gravel into the machinery towards the end causing the more short sighted, bigoted and downright stupid V’Dan to, temporarily I hope, screw things up even more. It is safe to say that the book ends in a bit of a cliff-hanger and in a dire situation for the continued relations between V’Dan and Earth.
The book is well written with quite enjoyable characters in the same style as the first book as well as the books in the Theirs Not to Reason Why series. This means that, in addition to the negotiations and action, there are some mysteries, ancient prophecies and people that have been hanging around for hundreds (thousands?) of years to spice things up.
I am quite looking forward to the next book in the series.
Jackandra MacKenzie is sent to the V’Dan homeworld in the capacity of both military commander and ambassador for Earth with the mission to negociate a treaty between V’Dan and Earth. The mission is complicated by the fact that the V’Dan are stuck in a very traditional mind-set and, in particular, views the people from Earth as children due to the absence of the markings that all V’Dan gets when they come into puberty.
Although there are some action, especially towards the end, the majority of the book revolves around the negotiations, the social interactions and the political games. I would normally not have liked a book with so much focus on these parts but I have to say that I quite liked this one.
The mixture of the social and political parts with the psychic abilities of Jackandra, the Gestalt between Jackandra and Li’eth and perhaps the fact that, for once, it is not Earth politicians that behaves arrogantly and screws things up made for a very enjoyable read as far as I am concerned. Well there is one exception to what I just wrote. One Earth human manages to screw things up due to his arrogance and bigotry but he does get what he deserves afterwards.
Although the Earthlings are technologically inferior in many aspects they do excel in some areas, especially their psychic abilities, and the V’Dan are in for a few surprises along the way. Unfortunately, as I wrote above, they have a very traditional (arrogant) mind-set and insists on viewing and treating the Eartlings as inferior which makes Jackandra’s task quite difficult. Jackandra is not the person that takes any shit though and puts the V’Dan in their proper place on more than one occasion.
Unfortunately the Salik have their own (lunch) agenda which it can be safely stated is not exactly including the well being of neither the V’Dan nor the Earthlings. They manage to throw quite a bit if gravel into the machinery towards the end causing the more short sighted, bigoted and downright stupid V’Dan to, temporarily I hope, screw things up even more. It is safe to say that the book ends in a bit of a cliff-hanger and in a dire situation for the continued relations between V’Dan and Earth.
The book is well written with quite enjoyable characters in the same style as the first book as well as the books in the Theirs Not to Reason Why series. This means that, in addition to the negotiations and action, there are some mysteries, ancient prophecies and people that have been hanging around for hundreds (thousands?) of years to spice things up.
I am quite looking forward to the next book in the series.
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