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Victory Conditions (Vatta's War book 5) by Elizabeth Moon
01/03/2008 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
Pub: Del Rey/Ballantine Books. 398 page hardback. Price: $26.00 (US), $30.00 (CAN). ISBN: 978-0-345-49161-9. Buy Victory Conditions in the USA - or Buy Victory Conditions in the UK  check out website: www.delreybooks.com com and www.sff.net/people/Elizabeth.Moon
The fifth and last book of 'Vatta's War', 'Victory Conditions', by Elizabeth Moon wraps everything up. If anything, I thought Moon was doing a lot to squeeze everything in which made the presence of some characters like Grace and Toby Vatta very short-changed at the end. Indeed, I'm surprised Moon thought it relevant to recap events from the previous four books when there was other areas that could probably have done with being explored.
The story centres on Ky Vatta now leading the space fleet armada against the pirates and lives up to the series title. Mind you, after one attack, it is assumed and rumour spread that she died to off-set the pirates' plans and takes a while before she informs her family let alone Rafe Dunbarger the truth.
If anything, the book is divided between the battle and political skulduggery and manoeuvring. The latter mostly concerns Dunbarger and his sister, Penny, and how they resolve the loss of their company's monopoly in ansible communication devices. For much of the time, this is finely realised. Moon is a far better character writer than space battle writer. I think this is a problem for any writer really. When there are so many films and TV series able to do more than the written word, its invariably a loosing battle in many respects. If you think the space battles of 'Babylon 5' here, then you won't be far wrong in how to imagine the proceedings that Moon describes. If she used jump gates and points any more, Moon would be even closer.
In many respects, this series is more dependent on being a space adventure than doing anything profound with Science Fiction. Again, this isn't disparaging. There are a lot of readers out there who like the settings and don't necessarily want anything too challenging in their reading. If you're amongst those then you'll enjoy it. Even those who can swing in for a challenging read will probably have fun picking out what Elisabeth Moon sourced and her reading habits that built up the background.
GF Willmetts
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