The Shiva Option
(Starfire #4)

David Weber and Steve White

Riverdale: Baen, 2002. ISBN: 0-7434-7144-X. Pp. 753

Review © 2006 Branislav L. Slantchev

The sequel to In Death Ground, this one sees the conclusion of the apocalyptic war against the inscrutable Bugs. As things are wont to do with Weber, the sequel is bulkier (this one is truly hefty at over 750 pages) but the expansion is achieved through decompression of events into dozens of pages where perhaps a couple of paragraphs would have done nicely. Although a fascinating read, The Shiva Option is one long rambling narrative that reads a lot like a boring military history book with plethora of campaign descriptions, battles upon battles, all similar enough to make it virtually impossible to keep track of them all. The only salvation is to do what I do with said military history books: get out an atlas and try to follow the general course of the war on the maps. Thankfully, there are some "maps" for just that purpose in the book.

Less auspiciously, there are mistakes in them. For example, B-07 on the second map is shown with three warp points but according to the text on p. 456, there must be four. The missing one is Warp Point 1, which connects it to B-17 (formerly known as Anderson Four). The different names for the same systems is another rather frustrating choice by the authors. Although I fully understand the rationale, I am not in sympathy with the result. It's hard to follow the events as it is without having to cope with the confusion occasioned by the renaming scheme. Another gripe about the map is that the warp points are not numbered, and even though it is usually possible to reconstruct the numbering from the text, it is harder than one would think, mostly because the text seems to describe the map upside down (and no, not consistently so either). The solution is to mark and correct the maps or risk utter befuddlement.

The novel itself is a chronicle of campaigns that all follow a somewhat predictable course. The strategic goal is clear: the Allies have to destroy all five of the Bug Home Hives, which they proceed to do following roughly the same general pattern: someone stumbles across a hive system, the bugs throw everything they have in its defense, and just when it looks like they might prevail, the humans (or, less commonly Orions) come up with something that turns the tables and enables them to apply the Shiva Option.

There is surprisingly little discussion of the Shiva Option itself: the complete eradication of an entire species from the universe. On one hand, it sort of makes sense in the context of the novel because the reader knows more than the Allies (due to the rather neat digressions to show the events from what passes for a bug perspective). So we know that the Bugs cannot be reasoned with, that they are the technologically-advanced embodiment of the primal will to survive in its most destructive form. (It is never quite explained just how such a species could evolve such an advanced civilization without an ability to love or hate.) However, we also know that the Allies do not know it. In other words, the Allies have condemned an entire species on the vague gut feeling of its successful commanders. That this feeling happens to be right is no excuse. I, for one, would have loved for the authors to deal with the moral and ethical quandary the inability to communicate with the arachnids must have created for the humans. Although Weber/White may be right and it may not be possible to fight an enemy without becoming like him, the point is that the Allies do not actually know what "becoming like the bugs" really means. Although I can appreciate the authors' need to pour some derision on the invariably hapless, stupid, incompetent, and vapid liberal anti-military types, charging blindly into the "I am become Death" mode is hardly the balanced alternative.

There is a glimmer of true story-telling when the Allies finally meet with the Star Union, an amalgam of species on their last legs in their own war against the bugs. Only here do we see an all too brief reference to the morality of certain actions. No, not toward the bugs, who are beyond the pale for them as well, but toward the surviving populations on bug-enslaved (or, more correctly, bug-colonized) planets. Leaving aside the somewhat bizarre notion that members of an advanced civilization can be degraded to the status of domesticated animals within a couple of generations, here is a clear instance of the problems inherent in the Shiva Option. The only drawback is that the authors offer what boils down to a deus ex machina when the Telikans resolve to supply over half of the troops necessary for a ground assault. This minimizes human casualties sufficiently to allow for the benevolent course of action. I still wonder what the Allies would have done without the Telikans. Blockade the planets? With the bugs still feeding on the reasoning livestock?

The campaign descriptions are actually quite exciting, even if they have blurred into a haze of mayhem. On one hand, it is unnerving to read about humans/orions who are constantly surprised by the bugs' ability to innovate. On the other hand, the authors seem to have a nearly inexhaustible supply of tactical innovations themselves, and it's fascinating to see how they would employ technology in the world they have created. One of the things I really like about Weber's writings in particular is that dynamism in technology and doctrine. Rather than offer a rehash of the same battles, his protagonists tend to have to cope with a realistically fluid environment, which is what one would expect when fighting an intelligent and resourceful enemy.

Still, in the end The Shiva Option is a bit like Chinese food: rather filling while eating it, but leaving you quite hungry a few hours afterwards. A week after closing the last page of the novel, I can hardly recall specific details from the battles, and even the major campaigns against the Home Hives have jumbled into one vast melee; characters aside from Prescott, Murakuma, Koraaza, Zhaarnak, and Sanchez have blurred into the unrecognizable mass in an old faded photograph. This may be true for any real war, which leaves most of its heroes nameless, with only the brightest of commanders achieving immortality through the sacrifices of their subordinates. And yet it is a bit unsatisfying in a novel. Not to mention that with the exception of one political admiral, there are no cowards, profiteers, shirkers, or other assorted shady characters who seem to accompany every great event, giving it the unmistakably sordid human dimension so lacking in the mythologized Starfire universe.

September 1, 2006