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annathepiperThe Better Part of Valor is the second book in Tanya Huff's foray into military SF, the Confederation series. I've been liking these well enough; the heroine, Staff Sergeant Torin Kerr, is tough and fun and rather aptly described in editorial reviews of this novel as akin to Ripley in the Alien flicks. Huff's generally light hand with characterization is present here, as well as a pretty decent albeit not terribly unusual selection of alien species. The good parts about her collection of non-human characters come in with their interactions with humans and each other--as is generally the case for all of Huff's characters.
This time around we have Torin on tap to lead a recon mission into a newly discovered alien ship, with the complications of a pompous media hero as her commanding officer, an enemy vessel showing up with plans of its own--and a handsome civilian salvage operator, the man responsible for the discovery of the alien vessel, showing quite a bit of interest in her. Things go splody, higher-level officers go grr at one another, and Craig Ryder is rakishly charming; I liked that he was clearly Australian, yet Torin could not identify his accent. Little touches like that, signs of our own culture that are obvious yet in her timeframe no longer nearly so much, help flesh out Huff's universe as one that could conceivably be in our future.
Also, I was deeply amused that she had a very minor character very clearly named after Julie Czerneda. Hee. ^_^
All in all, a fun read. Some issues with stuff that got by in copyediting--there was one bit where Torin comes up with a nickname for the alien vessel and it is promptly used in an immediately following scene over on the main ship, without her communicating the nickname back--but these were only minor and didn't take away from the story. Three stars.
This time around we have Torin on tap to lead a recon mission into a newly discovered alien ship, with the complications of a pompous media hero as her commanding officer, an enemy vessel showing up with plans of its own--and a handsome civilian salvage operator, the man responsible for the discovery of the alien vessel, showing quite a bit of interest in her. Things go splody, higher-level officers go grr at one another, and Craig Ryder is rakishly charming; I liked that he was clearly Australian, yet Torin could not identify his accent. Little touches like that, signs of our own culture that are obvious yet in her timeframe no longer nearly so much, help flesh out Huff's universe as one that could conceivably be in our future.
Also, I was deeply amused that she had a very minor character very clearly named after Julie Czerneda. Hee. ^_^
All in all, a fun read. Some issues with stuff that got by in copyediting--there was one bit where Torin comes up with a nickname for the alien vessel and it is promptly used in an immediately following scene over on the main ship, without her communicating the nickname back--but these were only minor and didn't take away from the story. Three stars.