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Loading... For Certain Values of Family (2011)| 40 | 1 | 631,112 | 
(4.53) | None | Every silver lining has a cloud After the revolution, stability returns for most of the citizens of the European Administration. Revolution has delivered a little more freedom, if not as much as its architects hoped. Some, however, are finding that change also brings more complications and fresh dangers. For Para-investigator Val Toreth, the Investigation and Interrogation Division isn't quite the home it used to be. With a reduced investigation team, fractured relationships, and political uncertainly about the future, the last thing he needs is trouble from someone else's family, or unexpected news from his own. Keir Warrick has enough to deal with, too, as financial uncertainty threatens his virtual reality corporation. SimTech might turn out to be the least of his worries, though, as a family reconciliation turns into a fight for survival. Someone is tying up loose ends, and if Warrick digs too deep for the truth, could he become one of them? The personal becomes political and professional, as family history delivers present danger. And even a socioanalyst can learn something new about family values--for certain values of family. The seventh book in the Administration series contains the novel Family Values and two further short stories set in the near-future dystopia of New London.… (more) |
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Thank you once again to Donna and Kimberley, for putting so much hard work into getting the Administration stories in print. And extra thanks go to my ever-patient husband, who should’ve received a mention in the last book for help with the technical plotting, but didn’t. Sorry!  | |
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Warrick’s “serious conversation” voice normally gave Toreth a reflexive urge to leave the building as quickly as possible. | |
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▾References References to this work on external resources.  Wikipedia in English
None ▾Book descriptions Every silver lining has a cloud After the revolution, stability returns for most of the citizens of the European Administration. Revolution has delivered a little more freedom, if not as much as its architects hoped. Some, however, are finding that change also brings more complications and fresh dangers. For Para-investigator Val Toreth, the Investigation and Interrogation Division isn't quite the home it used to be. With a reduced investigation team, fractured relationships, and political uncertainly about the future, the last thing he needs is trouble from someone else's family, or unexpected news from his own. Keir Warrick has enough to deal with, too, as financial uncertainty threatens his virtual reality corporation. SimTech might turn out to be the least of his worries, though, as a family reconciliation turns into a fight for survival. Someone is tying up loose ends, and if Warrick digs too deep for the truth, could he become one of them? The personal becomes political and professional, as family history delivers present danger. And even a socioanalyst can learn something new about family values--for certain values of family. The seventh book in the Administration series contains the novel Family Values and two further short stories set in the near-future dystopia of New London. ▾Library descriptions No library descriptions found. ▾LibraryThing members' description
| Book description |
Every silver lining has a cloud
After the revolution, stability returns for most of the citizens of the European Administration. Revolution has delivered a little more freedom, if not as much as its architects hoped. Some, however, are finding that change also brings more complications and fresh dangers.
For Para-investigator Val Toreth, the Investigation and Interrogation Division isn't quite the home it used to be. With a reduced investigation team, fractured relationships, and political uncertainly about the future, the last thing he needs is trouble from someone else's family, or unexpected news from his own.
Keir Warrick has enough to deal with, too, as financial uncertainty threatens his virtual reality corporation. SimTech might turn out to be the least of his worries, though, as a family reconciliation turns into a fight for survival. Someone is tying up loose ends, and if Warrick digs too deep for the truth, could he become one of them?
The personal becomes political and professional, as family history delivers present danger. And even a socioanalyst can learn something new about family values--for certain values of family. | |
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Current DiscussionsNone Google Books — Loading... |
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FOR CERTAIN VALUES OF FAMILY offers more pure payoff than any other novel/novella/set of Administration stories.
For all the readers that started the series thinking: overthrow the system, this terrible authoritarian regime has got to go, here's the brave new world.
For all the readers who told themselves: I can stop feeling so conflicted about swooning over Toreth once he's not torturing people anymore. Well, does it make a difference?
For me, the answer is mixed. Yes and no.
The older I get, the more I appreciate incremental improvements. Baby steps are better than nothing. Appreciate the milestones along the way. They count. Halving the acceptable torture techniques is better than not halving the acceptable torture techniques. And if the changes don't last, well, even a reprieve is worth something.
The series has shown us in a million different ways that Toreth is not going to develop a conscience. The best we can ask for is that he finds the right handler.
Warrick, by the way, is the perfect handler. And their relationship really shifts into a new gear. More than once during FOR CERTAIN VALUES OF FAMILY, Toreth conquers his ingrained habits. He's poised to flee, his usual defensive mechanism, but instead he deals. He's offered the sort of palatable lie that allows him to maintain the pretense that his relationship with Warrick is casual, and he refuses it. We learn a little more about his childhood--because he actually speaks about his parents with his own mouth.
Book after book, we've seen Toreth draw closer and closer to Warrick. He exists in a constant state of longing and fear, need and rejection, love and carelessness. Book after book, I find myself thinking: he's changed, hasn't he?
This time, there's no question: he's changed. For the better.
It's baby steps. It's incremental. There are no guarantees. But it's progress. (