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| Cover art by Barclay Shaw |
| THE SPOILS OF WAR Alan Dean Foster New York: Del Rey Books, December 1993 | Rating: 5.0 High |
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| ISBN-13 978-0-345-37576-6 | ||||
| ISBN-10 0-345-37576-9 | 296pp. | SC | $5.99 | |
Lalelelang of Mahmahar had a dream. In her chosen career of historian, itself a choice frowned on by her mother in the matriarchal Wais culture, she wanted to visit the war zones where allies of her species, in a confederation called the Weave, contested the advance of the Amplitur. She wanted to experience combat firsthand. She even wanted to meet the Weave's newest and most effective allies, those rough-and-ready Humans, face to face. These desires were unprecedented — nay, almost unimaginable — among the birdlike, physically and emotionally fragile Wais.
Lalelelang's mother and many others tried to dissuade her. But she was determined. She had studied Humans for many years, all the while practising mental exercises to bolster her spirit, and developing an arsenal of anxiety-relieving medicines. Finally her application was approved, and she was on her way off-world.
She wound up at a world called Tiofa, where Weave forces fought with Mazvec and Crigolit, Amplitur client races, for control of the planet. She tasted combat, all right, following a human squad into the field, getting separated during an enemy offensive and surprised by a Mazvec trooper. But before he could gun her down, a human commando put him down. The sheer intensity of the experience overtaxed her medicines, leaving her temporarily catatonic.
Recovered, she plunged right back into the fray. Her next posting was to Chemadii. There she met Colonel Nevan Straat-ien, who was to change her life and become her ally in a greater struggle than the thousand-year war between the Amplitur and the Weave. Colonel Straat-ien, it developed, was among the most prominent descendants of humans captured and experimented on by the Amplitur. They had, as a result, acquired certain formidable abilities — abilities that bred true and which they were still, cautiously, exploring. It is this element, the presence of some surprising plot twists, and the fact that the war is more than a simple shoot-em-up, which make this novel so enjoyable1 and induce me to give it my highest rating.
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