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A Call to Arms | Rating | |
| A | |||
| Alan Dean Foster | |||
| Series | Related Books | ||
| The Damned | A Call to Arms, The False Mirror, The Spoils of War | ||
I love first contact novels. At least when they're done well. Still, in my opinion it's pretty difficult to screw them up short of going to absolutely ludicrous levels. And this doesn't, not at all.
The Weave has been at war for over a thousand years with the Amplitur and their agents, and the Weave is losing. Things have relented a little, though, enough for the alliance to send a ship or two exploring the rear border, searching for new resources and, less likely but even better, new allies. They find Earth.
Geographically unique, linguistically diverse, unaccountably warlike, humans present puzzles and possibilities unmatched in their history. Due to all the oddities, they decide against overt contact, instead meeting with a single man on vacation in Belieze. A musician and pacifist, Will Dulac tries hard to persuade the Weave not to involve Earth in their war. But we may be just too good to pass up.
The arguments and debates in the book are good, and do not detract from the drama taking place. It is a pleasure to watch the Weave's reactions to each new discovery they make about our, planet, too, although it's a little implausible they've never encountered some of them anywhere else. It's a very pro-human book, pro-human series in fact, that acknowledges both our best and our worst, and says sometimes it's hard to define which is which.
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