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Valor's Trial: A Confederation Novel (The Conferedation Novels)

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Author: Tanya Huff
Publisher: DAW Hardcover
Category: Book

List Price: ~~$24.95~~
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Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

7 reviews
Sales Rank: 29319

Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6 x 1.6

ISBN: 0756404797
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780756404796
ASIN: 0756404797

Publication Date: June 3, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days

Also Available In:

•	Kindle Edition - Valor's Trial

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•	Cry Wolf (Alpha and Omega, Book 1)

Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
The rousing military adventure (Locus) continues with a brand new Valor novel.

Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr is a Confederation Marines marine. Shes survived more deadly encountersand kept more of her officers and enlistees alivethan anyone in the Corps. Unexpectedly pulled from battle, Torin finds herself in an underground POW camp that shouldnt exist, where her fellow marine prisoners seem to have lost all will to escape. Now, Torin must fight her way not only out of the prison but also past the growing compulsion to sit down and give upnot realizing that her escape could mean the end of the war

Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

Life and Death In the Tunnels August 15, 2008
39 out of 39 found this review helpful

Valor's Trial (2008) is the fourth combat SF novel in the Confederation series, following The Heart of Valor. In the previous volume, Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr whacked off the arm of a Marine major and stuffed it into a body bag. When it combined with the rest of the alien, Torin had a face-to-knob conversation with it. Then the rescuers appeared.

In this novel, Gunnery Sergeant Kerr is returning to Sh'quo company. Sergeant Adrian Hollice meets her in the shuttle bay and escorts her to her quarters. Hollice also learns a few things about the Big Yellow alien (or aliens).

In the next staff meeting, Captain Rose says that three Susumi portals have been detected in the vicinity of system ST7/45T2. The Navy has sent the Hardyr to investigate with all due caution. Higher level figures that the whole Ground Combat Team will be deployed when the Hardyr returns.

Meanwhile, Torin is being used as a utility player within the company. Several officers and sergeants are fairly green, so she fills in as needed. Her desk is placed conveniently close to that of the First Sergeant.

The company starts preparing for deployment. Torin's first task is to shake out personnel and supplies to bring the company up to full strength. Some teeth baring is required.

Three tendays later, the Hardyr returns from Estee -- the popular name of the fourth world in the system -- with intelligence on nearly a battalion of Others on the planet. Torin conveys her goodbyes to Craig Rider while she is packing, then starts loading Sh'quo Company onto the Hardyr. With the full GCT boarding, the main loading bay is ordered chaos.

A different kind of chaos is waiting on Estee. The Others are entrenched and have plenty of artillery. Torin is off looking for a missing squad when the whole world turns white, then black.

Craig receives word that Torin is missing and presumed dead. He doesn't believe a word of it. Then he meets Torin's father and neither man believes a word of it. Finally, Craig convinces Presit that the battlefield will be hot news, especially if the Others return to the system. So the two of them go to Estee and find thirty-eight square kilometers of glassy plain.

In this story, Torin wakes in a small cave off a tunnel. She is discovered by a private first class who stinks like someone who hasn't bathed in tendays. PFC Kyster explains his condition and briefs her on the current situation.

It seems that people -- mostly Marines -- appear in the small caves from time to time. Colonel Harnett sends out hunting parties to find the newcomers. These groups strip the dead for equipment and supplies. If the newcomers are near death, the hunting parties often help them die before stripping them.

Kyster was injured when he arrived and was left for dead by the men who found him. The leg has mostly healed and he has found a source of water. Kyster is undernourished, yet still alive. But he is starved for company.

Torin decides to do something about Colonel Harnett. She has Kyster show her the way to the central node where the pipe is located. On the way, she encounters a hunting party that has just killed a newcomer and she disposes of them.

When Torin meets Colonel Harnett, she figures that he is really a staff sergeant with a big mouth. After disposing of him and several guards, she takes charge of the survivors. Although she is very angry at the marines who helped Harnett, she hopes to keep them alive. One tries to take her out, but ends up demonstrating the waste disposal pit.

This tale tells of Torin's efforts to escape from the tunnels. She finds other groups of Marines commanded by field grade officers, but convinces them to let her look for a way out. Then she discovers the Others.

Torin has enough experience to wonder about the situation. Even after finding the Others, she suspects that there is more to the affair than is readily apparent. She isn't really surprised when the rest of the circumstances are revealed.

Highly recommended for Huff fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of military affairs, escape attempts, and a stubborn Gunnery Sergeant.

-Arthur W. Jordin

4 out of 5 stars

Good book, bad formatting July 24, 2008
0 out of 3 found this review helpful

Another good book in this series; other reviews are accurate.

This review is on the Kindle format. Some words ran together occasionally, which was disappointing but readable. What I found very irritating was the lack of delineation between scene shifts - the next scene would be merely the next paragraph.

No extra spaces, no white space, nothing to indicate that different characters were now speaking. Given the author's tendency to end a scene with a character asking a question, the next paragraph seems out of place until a character is named and you realize that the author is back to another group. This caused me to reread a paragraph or two at each scene change.

Hopefully not a flaw found in the hardback version. Subtracted one star for irritation factor.

5 out of 5 stars

Another great installment in this series. July 22, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

After reading the first three Confederation novels, I was waiting with baited breath for this one and I was not disappointed. This novel has characters, humour, action, suspense and imagination. Unlike a few books I've read recently, like Jack Campbell's "The Lost Fleet" series, this one is of decent length and you can get lost in it for hours in order to find out how it all turns out.

The story is pretty much what it says on the back of the jacket. Gunnery Sergeant Kerr is MIA, declared dead, except that she isnt. She ends up in an underground prison camp. Being a sergeant in the Marine corp, she promptly plans to escape and in the process makes discoveries that could shake the Confederation to the core and end the war with the Others.

The Good:

- great humour with plenty of digs at all species involved, including the humans.

- Torin is well written in a consistent manner.

- plenty of suspense and action

- good thick book which never has a dull moment.

The Not So Good:

- towards the end I could see an obvious similarity with a scene from The Chronicles of Riddick. Please dont let this be a sign Huff is running out of ideas.

The Bad:

- none at all!

Cant wait for the next one.

4 out of 5 stars

Very Good read July 1, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful

Interesting story but seemed to lack some of the umpf of the other books in the series the ending while an ending of sorts seems to leave the series open to more stories.

5 out of 5 stars

Great Character Evolution June 30, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

Good military sci-fi is remarkably hard to come by, once you get past the "universe threatened by bugs" stage of your reading. Ms. Huff has created a set of characters that are intelligent, complex and willing to think outside the box; a good representation of actual military professionals, in other words. While this volume stands well on its own, you'll get a lot more out of it if you go back and read the series. The heroine, Torin Kerr, is a bit larger than life but her responses and attitudes are dead-on for an NCO who understands that NCOs really run the military, that the politicians don't always tell the military what's going on and that top brass doesn't always think with its top knob. In this action, she's trapped in an alien prison and must think, as well as fight, her way out, leading not only her own marines but a group of the enemy soldiers as well. Torin's process in coming to understand the enemy military personnel is probably a little simplistic, and Ms. Huff's dependency on the deus ex machina of a sensient alien substance a bit far fetched, but this is overall an excellent read that leaves you considering what you would do in these circumstances as well as what Torin will be up to in the next novel.

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