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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good book, but not up to Miss Huff's previous works, July 23, 2007
This review is from: The Heart of Valor (Valor Novel) (Hardcover)
I thoroughly enjoyed the first two books of the Confederation series by Tanya Huff. After happening upon the first one seven years ago in a bookstore, I've been hooked, periodically checking to see when the next ones would come out. I therefore splurged and bought this book on it's publishing date. It's a good book, don't get me wrong, but I think it's a little formulaic now. Miss Huff has great talent- if she kept going with the character and this universe she's created, I would keep reading, it's rich and vibrant, obviously well thought out. But a different storyline than an "against all odds, barely scraping through" would be great.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Torin Kerr Returns, July 15, 2007
This review is from: The Heart of Valor (Valor Novel) (Hardcover)
The first two books in this series about a Space Marine NCO, Torin Kerr, Valor's Choice and The Better Part of Valor, were really excellent, which is why I sprang for this one in publisher's HC as soon as it came out. This one was still quite enjoyable, but not as good as the first two, imho, and if I'd known that I'd probably have waited for the PB in a year or so. Torin has been promoted from Staff Sergeant to Gunnery Sergeant and is giving a course on the Silsviss to various Marines at a training base on a space station. A Major she'd worked under in the first book, who'd been so badly injured that his life had barely been saved and he'd spent two years in a regrowth tank and had just recently been decanted, has persuaded the brass to send him with a recruit platoon to Crucible, where recruit classes are sent for a 2-week tactical problem as the last part of their basic training. But under the condition that his attending physician goes with him, and that Torin accompanies them for added protection. Then when they get there the senior DI on the mission goes into a change peculiar to his species, and he's the only one who can abort the mission--and the various drones that act as enemy on the missions, with tight restrictions on how much damage they're allowed to do, start seriously attacking the platoon. And the orbital platform that has the capability of turning them off is destroyed by a SAM. And then things start to really get interesting. Meanwhile, Torin and her sometime lover, Craig Ryder, have discovered that they are apparently the only ones who were on Big Yellow, the alien spaceship, who remember that an escape pod from that ship was picked up by the Confederation ship they were on, and while Torin is on Crucible Craig investigates that, with surprising results. It's a good story, with an interesting mystery to go along with the battle action; it's just not up to the level of the first two books (which, if you missed, are now out in an omnibus titled Confederation of Valor).
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent World-Building, August 16, 2007
This review is from: The Heart of Valor (Valor Novel) (Hardcover)
Newly-promoted Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr is one tough Marine who prefers action to talk. She's tired of the endless briefings she is forced to participate in on Ventris Station since returning from a first contact with the Silsviss. So she is delighted when the newly regenerated Major Svensson asks her to accompany him to Crucible, the Marine training planet.
Crucible is the last step in a Marine's training--a twenty-day live-fire exercise pitting human and alien Marines against robot drones. Kerr is just there to observe what is supposed be a milk run, but the drones start to act more aggressive than their programming should allow. The only Marine who can shut the exercise down is incapacitated, leaving Kerr outmanned and outgunned. Now she has to train these "baby Marines" fast. It will take all her ingenuity and significant combat skills to get them out alive.
As a tough Marine who can still let her guard down with her lover, Craig Ryder, Kerr is a compelling heroine. Ryder plays a key role in this book, as he investigates the mystery of why only Kerr, himself and a reporter can remember a significant event.
THE HEART OF VALOR is the third novel in Huff's Confederation series, with layers of back story throughout the book. This approach means that readers new to the series may struggle for a few chapters to figure out motivations of all the different constituents in this universe.
Huff does an excellent job of world building, putting the reader in the middle of the action without losing them in military jargon. Readers stay tuned: there is a revelation near the end that sets up an interesting premise for the next book in the series.
Reviewed by Deb Gross
on 08/16/2007
3.5-Books on WUAT = 4-Stars on Amazon
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