Victory Conditions

Vatta's War, Book 5

By: Elizabeth Moon

Narrated by: Cynthia Holloway

For Kylara Vatta, it's not just about liberating the star systems subjugated by Gammis Turek and defending the rest of the galaxy's freedom. There is also a score to be settled and payback to be meted out for the obliteration of the Vatta Transport dynasty...and the slaughter of Ky's family.

But the enemy have their own escalation efforts under way - including the placement of covert agents among the allies with whom Ky and the surviving Vattas are collaborating in the war effort. And when a spy ring linked to a wealthy businessman is exposed, a cracked pirate code reveals a galaxy-wide conspiracy fueling the proliferation of Turek's warship fleet. Matching the invaders' swelling firepower will mean marshaling an armada of battle-ready ships for Ky to lead into combat. But a violent skirmish leaves Ky reeling - and presumed dead by her enemies.

Now, as Turek readies an all-out attack on the Nexus system - a key conquest that could seal the rest of the galaxy's doom - Ky must rally to the challenge, draw upon every last reserve of her strategic skills, and reach deep if she is to tear from the ashes of tragedy her most decisive victory.

©2008 Elizabeth Moon (P)2009 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Rip-roaring action and intriguing science and tactics distinguish Nebula-winner Moon's fifth and final Vatta's War installment.... A fine and fitting conclusion to Moon's grand space opera tour de force." ( Publishers Weekly)

Story good, narration mediocre

I liked the story well enough, but the narrator had some habbits that irritated me. Short i sounds should not be pronoun ced as a long e. Such as ee mediate, or ee legal. Also, there were several places where she said she instead of he and vice versa.
I guess most folks aren't bothered by that kind of thing, and that's fine, but better post production should catch that kind of thing along with the repeated passage in one spot. Sloppy that. Good story though, so most folks should enjoy the performance.

Needs Work.

The Audable version is flat compared to the Graphic Audio version. It needs work. Lots.

This is a great series

Except for the mispronunciations, I love it. I have a listened to it five times now and every time I listen, I feel that same sense of adventure and triumph.

A Fine Victory Indeed

If you followed the Vatta's War series from the beginning you know what to expect. as the story wraps up nicely leaving just enough open to make you want a sequel. The narrator barely falters as she keeps up her inflection based character swap. The story is a little more fast paced as the story begins to come a close. as new characters are introduced some go through changes others are swept aside and more secrets are kept and revealed. a great listen.

Persistantly Frustrating

This series has been interesting enough that I have, with thoughtful intent, purchased and listened to it. The story concept is interesting and the military aspect is pretty well thought out. When combat is engaged, both space and personal, it's fun, it's creative and based on the realities of this story universe it's conceivable.

The problems, like in so much other sf writing, exist in the story telling not in the genre. Two separate issues stand out that dampen my enjoyment of the writing. All too often the amount of detail supplied to set the stage or build a character feels more like it is there just to fill the page. The flavor of the food at dinner or the ice-cream for dessert or the art on the walls or the plants in the garden when given so much focus and detail become important beyond their simple colorful existence. It feels, at the very least, like foreshadowing and yet is never mentioned again. To paraphrase a quote all writers know 'don't talk about the shotgun over the mantel unless someone is going to use it'.

My biggest issue with the writing drives me to distraction. Everyone knows that tension/conflict drives the story forward. Put the drive characters in trouble then get them out of it. Accelerating and increasing the tension as the story progress builds to the grand solution and defines the plot. In this series, (and too many others), much of the conflict is created because the otherwise often brilliant characters become amazingly stupid. Simple things any reader realizes at the time that the character would say, or remember, or do, or think; they just...don't. I find myself screaming at the characters, 'Did you forget what you just said to the other guy? What, you don't remember you have a gun in your pocket? You don't think the police might want to know that you saw the killer?"

Many of these things are more frustrating when listening to an audio book of course. When I am reading a book and the writer starts getting bogged down in detail I just scan forward picking up the important stuff and ignore the fluff. Does this pull me out of the story? Yes. But ii is so much more frustrating when listening to a book because you can't scan. You can fast forward but then you miss all the detail.

Then why do I keep listening to writing that frustrates me? Because I like the story concept and I keep hoping the writing gets better. But most of all; recognizing poor writing in detail makes me a better writer.

The last book in the series

I got hooked on this series and am unhappy it is ending. From the first book to this one we have watch Kylara Vatta grow from a cadet in military school to the Admiral of a coalition space force. The big battle against the pirate force takes place in this book. Moon did a great job with the classic battle scenes and her engaging characters made the story and battles interesting. Kylara destroys the pirate leader Gammis Turek and her cousin Sarah has put the Vatta Transport business back together and Aunt Grace controls their countries defense, all is well with the Vatta family. I want more of the series.

A great story, with below average performance

Where does Victory Conditions rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

As the final part of a series the book delivered moderately well, and comes out well above average.

What did you like best about this story?

Rounded up loose ends and got on to the point.

Would you be willing to try another one of Cynthia Holloway’s performances?

Cynthia Holloway needs to broaden her vocabulary. The amount of mispronunciations and poorly inflected words was appalling. Choosing to put the emphasis on the wrong syllable is going to happen sometimes, but how are voice performers not working with good dictionaries and pronunciation guides?

Any additional comments?

Overall a great finish to the series, but given the amount of inane filler in the 5 books overall (the kind of thing writers have to deal with when their book company decides they want a trilogy or pentalogy or whatever as opposed to the single book they were sold) the ending was a little sudden and lacking in detail.

A satisfying conclusion to the series

The fifth and final book in the Vatta’s War science fiction series.

Ky has gathered allies and is getting ready to confront the ruthless pirate captain who is behind her family’s fall. But she’s starting to understand just how large the enemy fleet is and that the pirates have undercover agents in many places. They’ve managed to get some enemy communications but they can’t interpret them. The pirate captain in threatening entire planets.

Meanwhile on Cascadia, the young engineering genius Toby has fallen hard for a local girl, but her parents aren’t happy about Toby being an outsider and belonging to an impoverished family. Stella remembers her days of being desperately in love while being very young and is trying to help. However, soon she notices things that might point towards the girl’s family being involved with the pirates. Stella is also running Vatta Enterprises.

Rafe, Rafael Dunbarger, is now the CEO of ISC (the firm that has so far had monopoly on interstellar communications). The firm is also the biggest one in the system, in fact, so huge that the government let ISC almost run the planet. But his troubles are far from over. His father is still fixated on Vatta being the bad guys and the firm is riddled with spies, embezzlers, and traitors. Also, both people inside the firm and outside it are blaming Rafe for the company’s current compromised position and are trying to replace him. Rafe is trying to deal with these people. Also, this is the first time he’s really expected to be a respectable man. He needs to act quite differently than what he’s used to during his years as undercover agent.

For the most part, this was a good read and it’s a good conclusion to the series. I particularly enjoyed Rafe’s younger sister, Penny, and her road to recovery from the kidnapping and the murder of her family which happened in the previous book, Command Decision. Aunt Grace is her own formidable self, but she isn’t seen much. Ky needs to make some very difficult choices.

Unfortunately, there were also a couple of things I didn’t really care for. We got a few new POV characters and I didn’t really care for most of them. The young romance between Toby and his girlfriend was one of them, especially since it was so obvious that her family were up to no good. Also, another new POV I didn’t care at all and felt that it was mostly a waste of time. Ky’s and Rafe’s sudden romance also rubbed me the wrong way. When they were together, a couple of books since, I didn’t get any great romantic feelings from them, almost the contrary. But longer they were apart, the more warmly they thought about each other. Also, other people accuse them of being attracted to each other and that influencing their choices which I was really tired of. It seemed like the more vehemently Ky and Rafe denied it, the more their feelings grew to each other. They also did have the perfect means to be in touch secretly but didn’t use it. That especially seemed very strange to me: if they’re in love, surely they would have used that means.

But still, I was mostly happy with the way this series ended.

A must listen

Elizabeth Moon did her usual excellent timing of the storyline. The narrator was perfect .

Mispronunciations galore, again.

I'm sure Miss Holloway is a great person. As a narrator, however, she is not great. Her inability to pronounce words correctly, or consistently, almost ruins the experience of listening to the book. She switches back and forth between "Vatta", and "Batta", "Vig-you-rus-lee" in liue of vigorously, etc..