The Better Part of Valor

Poor Staff Sargent Torin Kerr. Once again, she's at the dubious mercy of General Morris, who seems to think that he's giving her an easy job. Only, he's saddled her with an incompetent officer, a bunch of civilian scientists, and a human salvage specialist, along with a platoon or Marines she doesn't even know before the start of the mission. And let's not forget the pushy reporter who can't quite figure out how to speak Federate. Her job is to go out and explore a large, yellow, unknown, alien spaceship.

Torin remains BAMF af. She tells her Marines what is going to happen and they just believe that it's going to happen that way because she's the Staff and she knows all and can force the universe to conform to her will. I'm pretty sure show more that she actually can, too. She remains as responsible as always and basically just pulls everyone through on sheer grit and determination.

I want to be Torin when I grow up because she's just so awesome. She's so determined, and she's going to make everything work out the way that she wants, because she's unwilling to even entertain any other option. Totally awesome. show less

Book 2 of Valor series with Staff Sergeant Torin Kerr. "A Marine staff sergeant is assigned to protect a scientific expedition exploring a massive abandoned alien spacecraft (Big Yellow). As strange events and the enemy (the Others threaten the mission), Torin must keep the team alive while uncovering the ship's dangerous secrets." Still love Torin Kerr and her handling of her people, the civilians, and twits above her in the command chain. Was excited about the premise but it felt like the alien ship was too high-powered, almost like magic. Liked the end and evolving interaction with the Others though. Skimmed, and was bored by, all of the fighter pilot point-of-views. A little too anachronistic. A little too smug with jokes and show more reminders about the race that likes to have sex all the time. show less

When a Salvager finds a giant yellow space ship, the Confederation rushes to investigate. But so do the Others, the Confederation's main enemy. And the damn ship? It's got a mind of its own and it doesn't make a damn bit of sense.

Enjoyable military sci fi with great characterization and a plot that keeps surprising.

Even though I read this about a month ago, taking a very long time to review, I enjoyed the hell out of this book. In fact, I went into a serious reading frenzy. Taking a chance, I had bought the first four novels in this series (two of them in the omnibus edition, giving me a two for the price of one deal). I'm usually not really into military fiction, it's just not really my usual reading interests. However, I've found myself almost obsessed with this particular series. It must have something to do with the strong female figure, in charge even as she's subordinate to her superior officers combined with Tanya Huff's unique sense of humor, writing style and the way she writes her dialogue. In about three weeks I had read all four of my show more Valor novels, and it only took me that long because I had a few other obligations and grandchildren. As of now, there's only one more book in the series waiting for me to buy...This series - Confederation series - It is far, far into the future. So far, in fact that there are many planets that have been colonised, terraformed, or discovered - all in different phases of advancement. It is so far advanced, that a lot of terms and phrases we take for granted don't make any sense because of technical advance, such as "rubber-stamp it". Nobody seems to know what an actual rubber stamp is, or what it was used for. One of the characters in the first two novels is full of these type of sayings. One of the fun quirks of Huff's writing. There are also entire universes (I might have the wrong term) at war with each other. The Marines are still the marines, but they do a lot of space travel, of course, to get back and forth. The Navy is the branch that runs the space ships - kind of like the navy has water ships now, just a different venue. The Navy and the Marines have, naturally, a kind of rivalry going on - I'm sure they do now in fact. In the first book - Valor's Choice, Torin Kerr, a Staff Sargeant in the Marines was part of a diplomatic mission gone wrong. One of her final actions involved punching the general - it needed to be done- but she also made a comment referring to parentage. Apparently he has remembered this. In The Better Part of Valor, the General orders her away from her regular platoon into an investigation of an apparently abandoned huge spaceship. Either he's punishing her for her previous actions, or he's using her skills - trusting that she's the best person for the job, since they are going into an unknown situation. Never know with a general. Seems a salvage operator (space style salvage operators - keeping open space clean by recycling broken and destroyed spaceship pieces and detritus) left suzumi space (similar to FTL travel) finding this large vessel just floating. Scans revealed no life forms. A scientific team is going to take a look at it, study it with the marines in attendance for safety. Torin is assigned a group of marines who have all been hand selected from a wide variety of other platoons. Their's is a top-secret mission to keep scientists safe while they try to find out what exactly this huge bright yellow ship is. Because it doesn't even scan as any metal or plastic that they've ever come across before. Unfortunately, complications arise almost immediately.From the moment they enter the ship, strange things begin to happen. First an explosion occurs, caused by the scientists deciding to drill into the wall. It kills almost all the scientists. Then Torin and the salvage operator fall through the floor - slowly.After this, they have to find their way to a new port, since the shuttle they came on and the airlock were destroyed in the initial blast. Their way seems to be complicated and yet when they most need it the most, they get a break in the form of a shortened passageway, or a sudden room. Creepily, the compartments and passageways start to feel familiar - they seem to have been taken right from their memories. Torin and the salvage operator finally get together with the remnants of their crew and they all, including a reporter who has invited herself along the expedition, continue to try to make their way to another airlock, without the aid of any outside communications - they've been left without contact and with few supplies. It soon becomes apparent that there is another almost similar group going through the same thing - the confederation's eniemies called "the others".Something mysterious is going on. The twists and turns they went through along with the story of what was going on in the ship that they came on, the discovery of the enemies on the other side of the huge abandoned ship. It all added up to one hell of a novel. I found it a very engaging and entertaining novel. As usual wlith a Tanya Huff novel, I found all the characters fascinating - the irritating characters as well as the characters that were doing their best to get through their situation. There was a great variety of personalities. I enjoyed the dialogue between the characters very much. Loved it.As soon as I finished The Better Part of Valor, I was grabbing The Heart Of Valor, #3 off my shelf. I am really looking forward to reading the fifth in the series and hope that Tany Huff has plans for more. show less

I guess it's almost a sub-genre of mil-sf: exploring an unknown derelict 'alien' ship. Torin's on call again as 2star General Morris' personal diplomatic Marine: A salvage operator has found a drifting ship and a mixed race bunch fo scientists need to examine it, but only with a military escort. It's all kept under the radar, so a scratch team of individuals is assembled under Staff Sargent Torin's command. Well there's a capatin and Lt and so, on but to Torin they don't really count, they're Her Marines. Then the scientists are joined by the press who managed to get word of it before they all depart.

The first incident knocks the captain unconcious leaving Torin in charge as she prefers it. The rest is as expected, they meet obstacles, show more she over comes them. The Ship plays Silly Buggers for no explained reason and it all ends has happily as most Marines can expect. There's plenty of fun banter and innuendo to keep morale up along the way.

A few cut-outs to other points of view never really works as a story-telling device, but does allow the flight jockeys to show off their skills.

Fun, Silly and Mil-SF all the way. show less

This second book in Tanya Huff's Confederation series has only three (I think) of the same characters as the first book (once you get past the introductory chapter), but it has all of the same wit, action, and good writing as the first. I enjoyed this one at least as much as the first, and I can't wait to continue with the series! Especially with that teaser thrown in as the very last sentence...

Quite a good military SF story, would probably be enjoyed by fans of David Weber, will trial it on husband.

Staff Sergeant Torin Kerr has been put into a squad with an inept commander to investigate an unknown spacecraft. Interesting and very cool.