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language: English
country: Canada
year: 2000
form: novel
genre(s): science fiction
series: Valor Confederation, #1
dates read: 7.8.22-9.8.22
I think if you’re going to write military sci-fi inspired by colonial wars, the bare minimum you could do would be a) not shoehorn the reader into empathizing with the colonizer analogues and b) not turn the people they were trying to colonize into inhuman and unthinkingly violent cannibalistic lizard aliens.
the other thing is, if you hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have known! I don’t know the military history of the Anglo-Zulu War! you could have just not said anything and I think your premise would have worked okay, because it’s made some substantial changes to the context in which the battle is taking place! but instead you put in a little note at the end where you just admit that this is what the book was based on and then you apparently expect me to sympathize with some British NCO who didn’t get the Victoria Cross despite his ~bravery in combat~ or whatever? fuck off!
Tanya Huff’s Valor’s Choice is, fundamentally, an engaging piece of military sci-fi. I like speculative war narratives, and I liked the way it handles multispecies relationships — not the most theoretically sophisticated exploration of it that I’ve encountered, but some thought went into it. I liked the dichotomy between the “elder races” and the humans, Taykan, and Krai; I also particularly liked that the Taykan, as “space elves”, are in fact “younger” than humans in galactic politics terms.
I hate the author’s note and what it reveals about the process of writing this book. it honestly ruins it retrospectively. I like military sci-fi. I like speculative war narratives. when you’re basing speculative war on real, historical battles, though, you have a responsibility to think about what you’re implying through your adaptation. either Huff didn’t, or she did and didn’t care. either way is a horrendous vibe.
my other main comment about the book was about the style. it felt very Early 2000s Fandom for some reason. like the whole book felt like a Livejournal post. I don’t know how better to explain it than that. I didn’t, like, hate it, but also there was something just slightly grating, on a low, background level, about the way the whole thing was written. also I did frankly have a hard time keeping track of all the characters, although once I got used to it I think the fragmented vignettes form worked well for conveying the chaos of war.
moods: adventurous, dark, grimy, tense