everal races form the alliance and fighting forces of the Confederation. The elvishly sexy di'Taykans; the short, talkative Katriens; the literally hard-headed Krai; the Niln and Ciptran; and of course the humans, not the least among equals. Ranked against these allies in an ongoing interstellar war are the Others, about whom little is known, except that they employ vicious soldiers known simply as "bugs."
Staff Sergeant Torin Kerr is one of the elite soldiers of the Confederation, proud of her Marine status. She'd be happy just fighting on the front lines, but unfortunately the brass have other plans for her. Having come to the attention of General Morris in a previous adventure (Valor's Choice), Torin is now nominated for a special mission. A rough-and-tumble salvage expert named Craig Ryder has discovered a gigantic drifting spaceship of unknown heritage. In exchange for any potential profits, he will lead a picked crew of Confederation soldiers to investigate the craft, which is code-named Big Yellow. Torin is picked to lead 12 Marines onboard Big Yellow to guard the accompanying scientists, after first drilling them into a cohesive squad. Unfortunately, Torin's immediate superior is a glory-hog Krai officer named Captain Travik, whose stupidity and officiousness holds more danger than the enemy. Add in some unwanted media attention in the form of a pestiferous reporter, and all bets are off for the mission's success.
Once aboard Big Yellow, the Confederation forces discover that the mysterious vessel is far from dead. Instead, Torin and squad are immediately subject to a kind of deadly intelligence testing by the enigmatic unseen inhabitants of the intruder. When a contingent of bugs, also seeking control of the prize, is added to the mix, the ordeal turns deadly. Only by surviving both bugs and manipulative testers will Torin succeed in satisfying her multiple contradictory assignments.
Characters who count
Just as H.G. Wells singlehandedly pioneered almost every form and theme which SF would follow for the first half of the 20th century, so too did Robert Heinlein lay down the blueprints for almost the entire second half of modern science fiction's lifetime. And surely one of the most seminal of Heinlein's efforts was his Starship Troopers. This one novel solidified the entire sub-genre of military SF which continues to flourish right up to the present in the work of such writers as Drake, Weber and Bujold. Now Tanya Huff, better known for her fantasy novels, weighs into this brawling arena. And although she captures several aspects of this kind of novel quite well, the overall cumulative pointlessness of her tale ultimately undercuts the good stuff.
On the positive side, Huff admittedly accomplishes a lot. First of all comes the characterization. Our lead figure, Torin Kerr, is a compelling mix of hard and soft features, witty, capable and fair. As a portrait of the kind of selfless yet self-preserving leader of grunts that any soldier would happily follow, Torin is all that one could ask. Her squad is comprised of clear-cut individuals as well. Without quite falling into the old WWII-movie stereotypes of including one city boy, one country boy, one atheist, one smartmouth, etc., Huff fashions soldiers that are a blend of the individual and the universal. As well, the scientists and the egotistical reporters convince. And the Han Solo stylings of Craig Ryder are muted by his neurotic quirks. Among all these figures, the copious dialogue flows easily and amusingly, although the continual banter and badinage even in the direst of situations grows a tad wearisome and predictable after a while.
Huff's flair for battle scenes and her clarity in visual descriptions support the action quite well. Her alien societies, while hardly innovative, are always believable. And of course the frustrating idiocy of the behind-the-lines commanders, who understand too little of what battlefield action really involves, is at the heart of the story and is conveyed well.
But Huff throws away the intriguing nature of Big Yellow (akin to the deadly labyrinth in Robert Silverberg's The Man in the Maze) by refusing ever to bring the aliens onstage or disclose their motives. Having escaped the ship as ignorant as they arrived, yet with severe losses, Torin and her squad are forced to confront the pointlessness of their mission. It would be one thing if this very futility were held up as emblematic of the nonsensical yet deadly nature of war, but it's not. Huff explicitly tries to gloss over the lack of results with some face-saving talk in the final pages of the book, making it seem as if heroism triumphed. But the reader is left feeling cheated, even assuming that any sequels will return Big Yellow to the foreground. Although this novel whips along in a succession of well-staged battles, its seeming victory is merely a return to the status quo.
