The Spoils of War

After hundreds of years of battle, the alien alliance known as the Weave and their human allies succeed in repelling the assaults of the Amplitur, but they face an unexpected threat from within their own ranks.

Concluding the story begun in A Call to Arms and The False Mirror , Foster chronicles a centuries-long war among alien races: the Weave versus the Amplitur and its allies. The latter wish to subsume intelligent species to the Purpose, an arguably despotic regime under Amplitur rule; the Weave, a collection of alien races, opposes this notion. The tide turns when the Weave discover the planet Earth and the savage, martially skilled human race. The humans' savagery becomes the deciding factor, and the war eventually ends with the Amplitur's surrender. Of main interest here is the way humans are perceived by aliens, as seen through the eyes of Lalelelang, a Wais scholar, who is unique among her people in displaying an interest in, and later a tolerance for being in the presence of humans. Lalelelang's scholarly intensity leads her to some remarkable discoveries of secrets held by several species, including humans. As usual, Foster's aliens are either B-movie monster types or variations on Earth animals (the Wais are in essence large birds). The novel does a good job of breaking down stereotypes about how races behave--though Foster tends to maintain a view of humans as savages. While unevenly paced, this is generally a worthwhile read.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The third in the series (after A Call to Arms and The False Mirror) in which the freedom-loving alliance known as the Weave enlists the aid of the human race to win a centuries-long interstellar war. The action is seen primarily from the perspective of the historian Lalelelang, of the birdlike Wais race. Her academic specialty is warfare, a subject that horrifies the other members of her species; she herself can contemplate it only with the help of drugs and special training. She realizes, however, that she can never understand warfare without observing actual combat. And so Lalelelang journeys to a distant world to view the progress of the war against the mind-controlling Amplitur. In the process, she earns the respect of several humans--the only intelligent race that actually enjoys combat--as well as stumbles on the secret that a number of humans are themselves able to control the minds of other species. Lalelelang convinces them that, as an academic, she will protect their secret; eventually, she also learns that the Amplitur have concocted a fiendishly clever plan for winning the war in spite of apparent defeat: preying on human dissatisfaction with their status in the postwar world to win them as allies. A workmanlike job from Foster, with his usual well-drawn alien characters plus, on a deeper level, an interesting take on the choices facing America in the post-cold war world. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

As the galactic war between the Weave and the Amplitur reaches its final stage, a young scholar fascinated with the study of the war-loving human race overcomes her own species' aversion to violence in order to acquire first-hand knowledge of her subject--and finds herself inextricably involved with the creatures who both repel and attract her. Although this conclusion to Foster's epic series of galactic war and intrigue seems both arbitrary and abrupt, it features an engaging and unlikely protagonist whose dedication and charm transcend the almost perfunctory plot. Recommended for libraries needing to fill out the series.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.