The Heart of Valor ~Tanya Huff
–2007, DAW Books
–432 pages
–7/10 stars
Take a group of soldiers in Marine basic and drop them on a planet for 20 days for a live-fire military exercise. Now throw in a civilian doctor and her charge, a Major who recently came out of a regeneration tank after being nearly killed on his previous mission. Just to make it interesting make sure that one subset of your recruits is an alien race that suddenly finds itself in a pheromone induced crisis. And one more tiny little thing: The mechanized war machines on the planet have suddenly gone rogue and are out to kill, communication is down, and no ships will be returning to pick you up any time soon. If you mix all that together, what do you get?
Just another routine day for Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr.
The Heart of Valor is the third novel in Tanya Huff’s military science fiction series featuring Staff Sergeant, now Gunnery Sergeant, Torin Kerr, an Ellen Ripley style heroine with an intermittent softer side. I picked up the omnibus edition A Confederation of Valor about this time last year on a whim. This collection contains the first two novels in Huff’s Valor series. I had not read a great deal of military science fiction to that point and artist Paul Youll’s cover image for the newest Valor book propelled me into the aisles seeking out the first of this series. I started reading it the moment I got home and in a matter of days had experienced both of Staff Sergeant Torin Kerr’s rip-roaring adventures. With the return of chill weather I found myself thinking of The Heart of Valor‘s snow-covered jacket illustration and the temptation finally became too much.
In Huff’s Valor series, there is a Confederation made up of a number of races, all of whom transcended violence long before achieving the kind of space travel that allowed them to peacefully coexist. All was well and good until another race, The Others, came along and started shooting. In order to keep from being subjugated under the rule of The Others, the Confederation set out to adopt a few races who continued to be well versed in the art of war. Not surprisingly, one of those was the Human race. And one of the best and brightest of those humans is Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr.
Thus far Huff’s novels have built steadily upon one another, with character growth and revelation being seen from novel to novel. One of the things I admire about Tanya Huff’s writing is that she does not spend an inordinate amount of time info-dumping the reader to boredom about the events in the previous novels. She inserts the reader into the story with the presumption that you have read the other novels while at the same time weaving enough details from those stories into the action that it would not be an entirely fruitless exercise to read The Heart of Valor as a stand alone book. It works perfectly. Given that I tend to forget details about a book after being away from it for a while, I appreciate the cleverly interwoven kicks to the little gray cells and don’t miss the book report summary style of getting the reader up to speed. Where the person picking up this book first would suffer most is in getting a clear handle on the other two war-like races that the Confederation has recruited for the fight against The Others: the Krai and the di’Taykan. The reader has to infer a lot more than is revealed without the benefit of experiencing Torin Kerr’s previous adventures. And why would the reader not want to, they are adventures worth reading.
The Heart of Valor picks up not long after the climactic events of the last novel. When not spending time with her new paramour, Craig Ryder, Kerr finds herself shuttled from briefing to briefing, answering similar versions of the same questions over and over again in regards to her last mission. When recently de-tanked Major Svensson requests her presence to accompany him down to the recruit training planet of Crucible in order to give his new body parts a test in controlled combat, Torin jumps at the chance. Accompanied by his civilian doctor, Kerr and Major Svensson travel to Crucible, the Marine Corps’ training planet, to put a group of soldiers through their paces. Those familiar with action stories of any kind become acutely aware at this point that things are about to go wrong. And when that involves computer controlled drones with live ammunition, things will go very wrong indeed.
I mentioned in my review of the first two Valor books: “You are not going to get a wholly unique reading experience with Tanya Huff’s Valor series. Be it in book or film we’ve seen hostile, bug-like aliens and cocky marines, multiracial galaxy conglomerates and kick-ass female characters before. So what. When a story is entertaining, it is entertaining, and Tanya Huff tells a good yarn.” And that holds true for The Heart of Valor as well. Torin Kerr is an interesting and engaging protagonist and Huff writes her in such a way that the reader enjoys spending time with her. In each of Huff’s novels there is a nice controlled bit of humor to break up the intensity of the action and suspense. This sense of humor is more prevalent in The Heart of Valor, particularly involving a storyline with the di’Taykan race and their overpowering pheromones. While tongue-in-cheek sex humor is nothing new, Huff manages to make this both more subtle and comparatively innocent when examined against what we’ve come to expect from contemporary entertainment. In addition there is some mystery woven into the story regarding why the planet suddenly went rogue and also in regards to two of the senior officers in the group whose medical issues cause both concern and suspicion.
While I enjoyed the first two books in the series more, The Heart of Valor is an entertaining continuation of the life of Torin Kerr. Huff paces the story with military precision, ensuring that the action is interspersed nicely between longer moments of plot/character development that ratchet up the intensity of the suspense and mystery regarding the events unfolding on Crucible. The Valor series offers a believable female protagonist, interesting science fictional trappings, and grounds it all in the familiarity of the American military in such a way that even relative newcomers to science fiction will find themselves immersed in the story. I recommend spending some time getting to know Torin Kerr. She’s worth it.
I haven’t read any of Tanya Huff’s novels, but I’ll be looking for them now. Thanks for the fine review!
I hope you enjoy them George. I was very impressed by the slow building tension of the first book and thought the climax of the novel was fantastic. Huff fans in my book club universally say that the later novels are not as good as the first two but by that time if you like the character you still feel the desire to read them. If that is the case I hope Huff returns to form with the next one. Either way I am on board for reading books 4 and 5.
Friends who’ve read Tanya Huff have complained that she’s writing too many books too quick. Her quality control is slipping. But I will track down the first two books in this series and read them. And I’ll be awaiting reviews of books 4 and 5 when you get to them. Too bad they don’t have John Harris covers.
Yes, no kidding! Although I do like the covers for books 4 and 5. The paperback A Confederation of Valor is your best bet for getting the first two books for a reasonable price.
And I can see that, she does crank out a lot of books in a lot of different genres.
Reading the plot summary, I immediately thought of Heinlein’s TUNNEL IN THE SKY. There are many similarities: a group transported to another planet, something goes wrong, no pick up any time soon, left to their own devices… etc. No, TUNNEL isn’t military SF, which this is, and this is written for a more adult and contemporary audience, but still.
I haven’t read any Huff, though from the look and sound of this it could just as well be John Ringo or David Drake. Yes?
I’m not sure Richard, but it is entirely possible. I haven’t read Drake or Ringo. I think one of my biggest problems with both DAW and Baen Books is that their offerings all look similar. They don’t do a lot to distinguish one book/author from the next and for me it gives the impression of the work being low-rent, for lack of a better way to put it. Which is just wrong considering that Baen is the company keeping a lot of Heinlein in print and more recently Poul Anderson’s Ensign Flandry novels.
It doesn’t surprise me that the plot of this reminds you of Heinlein. It is a pretty basic plot overall anyway. What appeals to me is the character of Torin, but at the same time I would not go out on a limb and call her a particularly deep character. But she won me over in the first book. This isn’t the kind of science fiction, or fiction in general, that I would want to read on a consistent basis, but it does provide a nice break from the norm.
I have never read Tanya Huff before, but I have books by her on my TBR pile. There are just too many authors and not enough time for everything!
Isn’t that the truth! And the pile just takes on a life of its own and keeps growing.
I’m going to have to check this out. From your description it reminds me of the Sharpe Series by Bernard Cornwell and The Forever War by Joe Haldeman combined but with a female protagonist which makes this book sound even better. It’s going on my wishlist for sure!
I haven’t read The Forever War, but it certainly reminds me of Starship Troopers by Heinlein and Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series only this has a stronger authentic military structure feel to it. Hope you enjoy it. Start with the first novel, it is great.
It’s funny. I read The Forever War first, then I saw the movie Starship Troopers (before I knew it was based on a book) and I was thinking, wow, this is a rip off of The Forever War! lol So two more books to add to the to-be-read pile 🙂
I have to admit that I am not a fan of the Starship Troopers film, but the book is great. Definitely a book worth reading.
You “haven’t read THE FOREVER WAR” ????? Oh my. Well, I shouldn’t talk, I guess, I just read it a couple of years ago, after having seen it on every must-read SF list for decades, it seems. As for STARSHIP TROOPERS, it’s better than the Haldeman (my opinion, many would disagree), and the film version just sucks and has nothing to do with the novel.
No, but I only read Starship Troopers for the first time a couple of years ago. I really do need to read it as I’ve heard so much about it.
I went to see the film without realizing it was set up as some campy thing and I was hoping for a more “serious” science fiction film and was very disappointed.
I have read both and I would agree with you Richard. I liked Heinlein’s Starship Troopers book a lot more than The Forever War.
Great review, Carl. I agree that these are entertaining reads with an appealing heroine – nothing especially profound or unique, but lots of fun. The humor really helps, too.
And yeah, the early books were the best, but if you like the character, you’ll want to read them all.
I enjoyed Huff’s Victory Nelson series, too, but vampires have really been overdone lately, so they might not seem as much fun as when I read them.
I have a friend who is not particularly into vampire fiction but is making his way through Huff’s vampire books and he really likes them.
I have the next two novels sitting on my desk in front of me as I type and I will be getting to them despite the less than enthusiastic reviews because of just what you say, I like the character too much not to.
Glad you enjoyed it! I hope to get to book one on my TBR somday…most likley far in the future…but someday none the less. 🙂
I don’t know why, but for some reason I assumed you already had the first book, meaning the omnibus paperback that has both the first two books in it. Not sure why I thought that. I even thought you had read some of the first book. They say the memory is the first thing to go…
You miss read my comment. I said I need to ” get to ” book one. I do have that omnibus one books one and two. I even have read the first chapter some time last year. I just have to make my self get back to it. It’s just that I’m torn to read about 20 books all at the same time. You know the sensation.
Well, that’s good anyway. My memory isn’t going…just my eyesight! 🙂
ok I have to ask this…why, (with a new computer) do I get red x’s for everyones avatar picture except yours carl?
I get the red x’s as well deslily and I’m not sure why either for everyone’s gravatar image but yours and Carl’s which I find really weird as well. I figured it was beause I’m not a Gravatar subscriber or something.
Oh that makes me feel better Jeff, thank you! I even went to some of the sites of the different people and can see their “avatar” just fine on their own blog, so it really confuses me. As I type this the “gravatar box” has an x for my photo but it will show when I post this.. other than that the only one I see is Carls
don’t feel bad Deslily, i’m getting a blue “?” ^_^!
And really, what more do you need than a picture of Han and Chewie? Hmmm? 🙂
Not sure, haven’t ever had anyone mention it before. It might have to do with not being a Gravatar subscriber.
I’ve loved ALL of Tanya Huff’s many and varied ‘verses that i’ve read and am eagerly anticipating loving this one as well. Thanks to your glowing review after the first collected addition last year, i’ve got the 3 of them sitting patiently on my shelf waiting for me to pick them up….
If you like her other work then I certainly have high hopes that you will enjoy these as well. I’m very much looking forward to continuing on with the series.
I’ve been getting the blue question mark for a few weeks now, before that it was a generic symbol, a silhouette or something, I think. It’s NOT about being or not being a gravatar subscriber, Carl, I think somehow a “switch” got thrown in your code.
I responded to your comment on my blog but came here to wish you and Mary and your whole family a great thanksgiving day tomorrow!!
Happy Thanksgiving, Carl, to you and the family! Turkey up, man, turkey up.