Posted by ubergeeke on August 14th, 2008 in blogpost 2 Comments »
The last two books in Elizabeth Moon’s Vatta’s War series, “Command Decision” and “Victory Conditions”, finally bring Kylara Vatta to her final confrontation with the pirate Gammis Turek and his nefarious fleet of spaceships. Both books are currently available in hardback from Ballantine Books from the usual suspects. I’ve enjoyed the first three books in this series - “Trading In Danger”, “Marque and Reprisal”, and “Engaging The Enemy” - so I was excited to read these.
Here’s the problem: “Command Decision” doesn’t get interesting until halfway through the book. While “Victory Conditions” is the definite endgame, “Command” is the unsettled middle of the match, when pieces get moved around but one can’t yet see their purpose. In “Command”, we learn more about all the supporting characters: Grace Vatta, back on the Vatta homeworld of Slotter Key, is maneuvering through the aftermath of the fatal attacks on the Vatta family; Stella Vatta, on Cascadia with Toby, is trying to rebuild the family business; Rafe, back on his home planet Nexus, is tracking down his family and searching for the truth of ISC’s sudden interplanetary communication ineffectiveness. All of these supporting characters are given far more presence and weight in this novel than in any other others, but it took me a while to figure out that this was careful staging for the final novel.
“Victory Conditions,” on the other hand, is exactly what I expected from Moon, with one exception. The action is constant and the book is a quick page-turner. In fact, the pacing in this book is envious - each vignette is balanced with action and anticipation, and I wish more authors wrote this well. Moon writes action in a way that doesn’t focus overmuch on speculative technology, while still introducing spacey gadgets that are plausible. All the major loose ends in the plot are addressed, and Moon even ends the book with small enough strings dangling that she could write another series if she chose.
Ky Vatta herself is most believable in these books: her emotional outlook and the actions she takes in different situations are true to the character Moon created in the first three novels, even with her elevated status in “Victory”. That said, she isn’t't always predictable, which is a good trait for any character to have.
The surprising ending? Romance. In several of Moon’s other books - the novels that make up “The Deed of Paksenarrion”, “Remnant Population”, the first few books of *this* series - Moon seems to be making a huge point by staying away from her character’s sex drives. She doesn’t venture into space porn here, either, but she does hint at a little romance between characters, which wasn’t necessarily unwelcome, but definitely different. I enjoyed the twist, but did raise my eyebrows more than once at the uncharacteristic mush.
In total, all five books in this series are worth reading, but some - as could be expected - flow better than others.
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