Jason
Note: I actually read Valor's Choice in the A Confederation of Valor omnibus, but I'm counting both books in it separately since they're, you know, separate books.
I should also note that I read this as part of an effort to read as many novels written by women this month as a way to celebrate Women's History Month.
Anyways, I enjoyed Valor's Choice. It's a fun military SF novel that doesn't take itself too seriously in that there's a healthy mix of action, drama, and humor. The interplay between the characters, especially the enlisted marines, reminded me of Robert Asprin's Phule's Company and that's one of the things I enjoyed so much about that novel.
All in all, a very good novel.
Maybe it was just the audiobook and the way the people read it, but the dialogue was...not great. I don't know if that's just how Don DeLillo writes dialogue, but it was the weakest part of the story and dragged the rest of the story down.
I did like the premise, but was disappointed that it wasn't explored more. It felt like a lot of meat was left on the bone.
Minor spoilers ahead:
A book that started out strong, stumbled a bit, and ended okay. Not a bad book - indeed, it was quite enjoyable - it just hits a point where certain characters get on your nerves and it the story feels overly long, as if Michael Crichton was padding the story to meet the word count.
It was interesting to compare the book with the Steven Spielberg flick. There were differences, obviously, but it was fun to see what scenes made it into the movie. I like that in the book, John Hammond is far from being the nice, likeable character that the late great Richard Attenborough portrayed. In the novel, he's just an absolute b*stard and so blatantly out of touch with reality and the consequences of his actions (like funding the creation of dinosaurs and populating an entire island with them), that you'll almost gleefully enjoy his demise.
On the flipside, however, Crichton very obviously did not know how to write little girls. I say this because by three quarters of the way into the novel, you'll want to throw Lexi to the velociraptors yourself! In the movie, she's a fine, likeable character. In the book, she's almost a non-entity for most of the book whereupon she suddenly and inexplicably turns into an absolute brat. Seriously, there's a scene where she refuses to give her older brother (their ages are flipped around in the movie) a radio because "I found it first" and that trumps him needing to call for help. At that point, I started wishing that she'd either go back to plaintively complaining about being hungry, or that one of those aforementioned velociraptors would show up and eat her. Sounds terrible, but holy cow, she's bad.
All in all, I would still recommend this to anybody who wants to read a techno-thriller based on science run amok.
Originally read this when I was a teenager and enjoyed it. I've re-read twice since (including just this week!) and I think it still holds up as an enjoyable read. One major difference between then and now is that I'm more knowledgeable about the Star Trek franchise now, so I was able to catch more of the references and easter eggs that otherwise flew over my head when I read this way back in ‘97.
I will note that the writing does feel a bit clunky and some references I mentioned don't quite line up with the canon (the Klingon Empire, for example, didn't collapse during the events of Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country). Aside from that, I can't think of any negatives that would make this not worth reading. I would recommend this as a good starting point for anybody looking to dip their toe in the Star Trek literature.
It was a bit slow at the start, but really picked up speed about halfway through. Had twists I did not expect, which is nice. Only knock I have is that the bulk of the story is that Maigret spends a lot of time just standing or sitting around, waiting and that's only when he isn't rushing off from place to place. Nonetheless, I would recommend it.
Actually read this back when I was in high school and I still remember quite a bit of it. A lot more than I ever expected to. The one oddity of the book is that it shifts between Dwayne Johnson the person and his wrestling persona, The Rock. IIRC, the former covered more serious and important parts of his life, while the latter was basically The Rock cutting promos. Despite this, it was a highly interesting biography and one I would recommend to a fan of professional wrestling.
DNF'd. I gave it a shot and made it 35% into the audiobook, but just couldn't muster the willpower to keep going. The main character was both incompetent and unlikeable.