Ian Conners is a 16-year-old psychic working for Marscorp. From a young age he has been trained to use his ability to give the organization an advantage over other groups vying for control of Mars.
Ian's job is to use his visions to locate smaller organizations in order to plunder their valuables and incorporate their masses. In one of his visions he sees a young girl and decides he must learn more about her. Willing other visions of her, he has one disturbing image showing a horrible lost cause. After more visions, Ian begins to doubt his loyalties to a corrupt, dictatorial admiral controlling Marscorp.
No longer willing to be a pawn in the Admiral's dangerous game, Ian plans his escape to find and protect a girl he sees himself with in the future. His only hope is to join a new organization known as Vallar - an alliance of rebel organizations willing to fight for their survival against the ever powerful Marscorp.
Vallar is very well written in the best style of good science fiction. The characters are well developed and the dialogue is very good. After a somewhat slow start, the action began to build as the suspense and drama mounted. I would like to have seen a little more descriptive detail, particularly about the terrain and equipment used, as well as a little more about the corporations on Mars, their purpose, and the reasons why they could not return to Earth. However, these small details did not detract as I soon found myself drawn into the story. I found the protagonist to be a likable character and found myself eagerly waiting to see what would happen next. Overall, it is a good solid space opera.