A Confederation of Valor - Tanya Huff

A Confederation of Valor

Tanya Huff

DAW, Feb 3 2015, $16.00

ISBN: 9780756410414

“Valor's Choice.”  150 years ago, the Others attacked the nonviolent Confederation.  None of the Confederation species could fight back as killing sentient beings goes against their nature.  Instead they welcome three semi-feral species (Humans, Taykan and the Krai) to join them as their protectors.  In the present on the Confederation vessel Berganitan, Sh'quo Company Sergeant Torin Kerr leads a unit guarding a multi-species diplomatic delegation heading to negotiations with the warrior Silsviss.  However, on the Silsviss planet, a transport is shot down over a Silsviss Wilderness Preserve where deadly native teen adolescent males fight for survival against each other and intruders.  To rescue the beleaguered Dornagian diplomats, Kerr leads a counterattack, but instead of retreat from the superior force the local horde charges at the off-worlders relentlessly.

 “The Better Part of Valor.”  Sergeant Kerr is proud to be a marine fighting the Others, a race that covets Confederation territory while refusing to negotiate. General Morris assigns her a top-secret mission to investigate a spaceship that is neither Confederation nor Other in a far corner of the galaxy. When Kerr boards the alien ship, she learns the hard way that it is sentient and doesn't like anyone inside it. Trapped on board the ship with a group of the Others, Torin must escape or die. 

These reprints from 2000 and 2002 respectively of the first two Valor military science fictions are exciting thrillers with a courageous intelligent heroine keeping the plots centered and moving forward. The key remains the genuineness of the various three-dimensional species.

Harriet Klausner