Thursday, August 25, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Fault Tolerance by Valerie Valdes

 



Fault Tolerance is the third (and for now last) book in Valerie Valdes' space opera series - which began with Chilling Effect (reviewed here) and continued with Prime Deceptions (reviewed here).  The series is often essentially a comedic version of Mass Effect, following Captain Eva Innocente and the crew of the La Sirena Negra as they get into some zany and dangerous adventures.  The first two books were tremendous fun, featuring a ton of geeky references (even other than Mass Effect), really strong characters - ones who weren't the typical white guy ones - and just dialogue and plots that have both a ton of humor as well as some serious themes mixed alongside there.  So I pre-ordered this book months in advance (helped along by a B&N sale on pre-orders).  

And Fault Tolerance delivers exactly what I wanted - tremendous fun with lots of humor, some serious situations and themes, great characters and more.  This time around the stakes are higher than ever, with the entire universe under threat, and the only solution is for Eva and her crew to find a series of giant robots (mecha) they can supposedly pilot to save the day from an evil army of what are basically Transformers.  It's really well done, and the book ends with a finale that just perfectly fits this series, so if it's the conclusion of the story of these characters, well, I'll be very satisfied (and if not, I'll be right back for book 4).  

-------------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------
Eva Innocente wanted only to find a place to relax for her crew, after their last mission took them back to the place of her worst experiences and forced them to deal with a conflict between galactic governments, a dangerous criminal group, a black ops military force, and worst of all....Eva's family.  But when that vacation is interrupted by a message of apocalyptic terror - popping up monoliths announcing "Surrender or be Exterminated" - Eva find herself called by a mysterious message to a quest that might be the only chance to save the entire Galaxy.  

It's a quest that will force the crew of La Sirena Negra to face dangerous missions like never before - missions to find and acquire a trio of strange powerful mechs, which supposedly together can stop the enemy threat from utter annihilation.  But with Eva's own beloved Vakar off on some secret Wraith mission, she finds herself dangerously on edge, with those emotions threatening to cause her to make even just a single mistake....and this time, even a single mistake could cost the Galaxy, and all those Eva cares about, everything.
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Fault Tolerance continues basically everything you usually want for this series - you have Eva, the fun and often hilarious (and frequently swearing in Spanish) heroine trying to guide her crew through a dangerous and often ridiculous quest, with psychic cats intruding here and there, and the crew all voicing their own opinions here and there along the way.  You have the geeky references you may or may not catch right from the start (There's a Smash Bros reference pretty much immediately) which are always enjoyable.  And Valdes' prose remains excellent at making this book incredibly hard to put down, as things hit the best kind of utter craziness throughout.  

This book really doesn't deal with any crew members other than Eva and Pink, as Min and Sue take a backseat this time around.  Old character Leroy returns, as does a new character along with him who is enjoyable but really a bit player, but again this is Eva's show and Eva is just so so much fun.  Her taunting and reckless way of going about her actions at times, to go along with a couple of similarly taunting antagonists, works really well as does her occasional weaknesses of thinking with her emotions instead of her head.  

And Eva's character arc goes well with a plotline featuring giant robots, giant creatures that defy logic, mechas with potentially galaxy-saving power, and a set of characters all trying to go around it all and figure out how to work it all.  Valdes surprises in quite a few ways with this novel, not devoting each of the giant mechas to solely following its heroine, and also acknowledging how Eva can in fact fuck up but still be accepted by her crew - which is of course her real family.  And then the book ends in pretty excellent form, with the book featuring a plot device bringing back ideas from the prior books in the series (and which makes a lot of sense) and then ending in a way that is just well ABSOLUTELY PERFECT and I will not even risk spoiling here.  

There's just not much to say with this one - this series is tremendously fun and enjoyable, dealing with a really fun space opera plot and characters, dealing occasionally with questions of power and leadership and command, along with governance etc. etc.  But it's never boring or serious and just I love it so so much.  Sorry, not a coherent review, but it's an accurate one I think.

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