Marque and Reprisal

Marque and Reprisal follows up the first book pretty directly. Ky may have thought that having dealt with mutineers and pirates, everything would be back to normal, but she barely has time to land her cargo before a shadowy interstellar conspiracy attacks her family. Most of the family's leadership, including Ky's father/the CEO are killed in the attack, and in the wake Ky is cut off, her cargoes uninsurable, lines of credit frozen, and herself and her ship under attack by assassins and saboteurs. Ky's mission is to survive, figure out who the enemy is, and strike back.

To help out with this, Moon introduces disgraced cousin Stella Vatta, who has redeemed herself as a courier and spy, and insterstellar man of mystery Rafe, a spy working show more for the Interstellar Communication monopoly. It seems that a conspiracy is eating at the heart of ISC around mobile ansibles which might break their monopoly on FTL communication. And the Vattas are either targets of opportunity, or part of a plan of revenge orchestrated by a truly vile blacksheep of the family.

Ky winds up in an the equivalent of an interstellar knife fight, using deception and EMP mines to take out her enemies (oh, and killing several of they in hand-to-hand space suit combat). And with a new ship, and a mysterious letter of Marque from a patron in the Slotter's Key military.

I'm torn, because so much of this series is solid, but so much important stuff is just... hanging there. The grand interstellar conspiracy and mechanics of FTL communication are so vague that it seems like literally anything could happen. For every problem Ky solves through her own resourcefulness, there are three where the solution is handed to her on a platter. And for a setting which is trying to evoke some kind of Age of Sail-esque mercantile adventurism, so much of it just plods. show less

The second book in the Vatta's War series sees Ky dealing with treachery. She's survived a war but now she has to deal with direct attacks on her family which leaves her parents and uncle among the many Vatta dead.

Ky has to use her underpowered and old ship to take the war to the enemy - once she identifies who the enemy is. Luckily, her aunt Gracie survived and sent Ky's cousin Stella to her with her father's implant which contains proprietary files and the command codes she'll need it she hopes to restore the Vatta shipping empire.

Ky also rescues and young cousin who was the only survivor when the Vatta ship upon which he was apprenticing is blown up at dock.

Stella's arrival also brings Rafe who is a shady character Stella worked show more with once as an undercover operative for Vatta. Turns out Rafe is also undercover for ISC which has a monopoly on interstellar communications which is also being attacked in this conspiracy.

When Ky and her ship encounter another relative - Osman Vatta, they soon learn that his grudge against the family and his role as a pirate may have something to do with the reason Vatta was targetted. Osman is determined to capture Ky's ship and seize her implant for its Vatta information. Ky isn't going to let that happen even if she has to go active as a privateer according to the Marque that was sent her from Slotter's Key.

This fast-paced space opera was packed with action. Ky is a great character who is learning a lot about herself as she tries to survive and find her family's enemies. show less

In this second book of Elizabeth Moon’s “Vatta’s War” series, things take a turn for the dark. Someone has more or less declared war on the Vatta trading company, violently destroying their company headquarters and sabotaging their ships. Almost all the senior officers of the company/family are wiped out. Kylara, our heroine, had been attempting to get back on track after the misadventures of the previous novel, but finds herself in a situation where she must see more to the defense of herself and her ship than to trade. As an undercurrent through the books so far, she has several times had to kill people in self-defense, and she has been uneasily recognizing that she enjoys the killing. She doesn’t seek it out, but is worried show more that it indicates something horrible about herself. She doesn’t deal with it directly, but it is an undercurrent of tension in her character throughout the novel.

The set up of this universe lends itself to the grand tradition of importing 18th and 19th century sailing narratives (Hortatio Hornblower being the classic) into space. The traders operate mostly independently, since FTL communication is difficult and monopolized. It is impossible while in FTL travel, and at port one can still only communicate through monopolized ansibles. When someone attacks and sabotages these ansible platforms, everything starts going to hell. Hard currency becomes invaluable as bank accounts are frozen, and any news is days or weeks out of date. In the midst of this Kylara finds herself in possession of a Letter of Marque, authorizing her to operate as a privateer (legalized pirate) under the auspices of her home planet. However, she has no way of finding out what the political situation there may be. In fact, in an interesting twist, it causes significant problems when the mercenaries she hires as protection for her trade convoy are extremely dubious about working for anyone acting as a privateer, an interesting dilemma probably stretching back to the 13th century if not before.

“Vatta’s War” operates close to, but not strictly in the military SF tradition. (For one, there is no formal military involved here, it’s all independent operators and traders.)The focus is on smaller-scale problem solving rather than on ship-to-ship combat, although that does also take place. Mostly we follow Kylara as she lines up trade, finances, defence, and the care of stray dogs. Lots of random things happen (as they do in life), sometimes causing problems and sometimes being beneficial. Although Kylara fits nicely in the mold of young but very good captains in stories throughout the ages, Moon takes pains to keep her from being unrealistically good at everything. She picks up an ex-military consultant who helps her with her defences, and a cousin who helps her figure out the company situation, plus a rogue ansible expert who helps her figure out the FTL communication situation. This focus on the character of Kylara, without making her into something unrealistic, strengthens comparisons between Moon’s book and the early books of Lois McMaster Bujold, the ones focusing on Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan (Miles’ mother). Interestingly, in a previous series some had criticized Moon for having her female characters wielding too much power in unofficial ways, bypassing the traditional official male centers of power. Here she literally blows up the traditional official male centers of power, leaving the women to pick up the pieces using both the skills that they have natively and the power they are left with.

While touching on interesting questions of military ethics: privateering, mercenaries, and the problem of individual blood lust, the story is always the center of the book. Mostly this is about a young captain struggling to fulfill her obligations to her crew and her family the best she can in incredibly hard times, surmounting all the obstacles put in her way. A classic adventure narrative, smoothly written with wit enough to leaven the dark side of the heroine. show less

A good (OK?) second book to the series. Major crisis & well fought by our heroine, Kylara. I was a little disappointed by the sudden surge in technology. Without spoiling the story, a crucial resource is suddenly not nearly as scarce as we'd been led to think - or the rest of the universe. It stretched my suspension of belief to the breaking point. It was an almost magical fix, something that marks less than great fiction. It was still a good story, but it lost a lot of points with me for that.Kylara's development has been rather fast too. She's killed & is coming to terms with it unevenly. Those around her are too. Again, it stretched my belief, although not as badly. Other solutions to issues were quite good, as was the portrayal of show more local police systems. Lots of action & suspense. show less

Captain Ky Vatta thinks her worries are behind her. After all, she and her crew have escaped a conflict on Sabine and are now able to commence their trading with other planets. Things change suddenly as several assassins attempt attacks, and rumors of widespread assaults against the Vatta family are left hanging after the communications networks fall apart. Ky takes to space, unsure of what awaits her in the next port, but one things is growing clear: this is war.

I continue to love this series and admire Moon's complex plot arc from novel to novel. Ky is a brilliant captain, but not Mary Sue; she wrestles with moral questions at the exhilaration she feels after killing in self-defense, and even as she makes mistakes she still manages to show more scrape through alive. I've already ordered the next three books from Amazon so I can keep reading and find out what happens to Ky and the rest of the Vattas. show less

3.5 stars Originally posted at FanLit.
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/reviews/marque-and-reprisal/

After being kicked out of the officer�??s academy, getting dumped by her fianc??, and taking a position as a captain in her fatherƒ??s shipping empire, Kylara Vatta is not living the life she planned. She barely escaped the events in Trading in Danger and was considering severing ties with Vatta Transport until tragedy struck. An unknown enemy has declared war on Vatta Transportation, bombed their buildings and killed most of the family. But Ky has no time to grieve. The enemy is after her, too, and she has no idea what to do or, more importantly, who to trust. As she learns in this installment, Marque and Reprisal, even family members show more can be enemies. (I so wanted to use the phrase ƒ??traitor traderƒ? there, but I spared you.)

Marque and Reprisal picks up right where Trading in Danger left off and those who were pleased with the first installment of VATTAƒ??S WAR will likely be pleased with this one. Ky desperately needs some allies which gives Elizabeth Moon the opportunity to freshen up the story with several new characters: Stella Vatta, Kyƒ??s sexy blonde cousin with the bad reputation who turns out to be smarter than most people would guess; Rafe, Stellaƒ??s ex-lover who has deep secrets of his own; Toby Vatta, a 14 year old cousin whoƒ??s now an orphan; Martin, Kyƒ??s newly hired bodyguard; An entire fleet of interstellar mercenaries; Jim, a young stowaway; and a puppy.

Ky and the crew deal with a series of misfortunes which keeps the story moving quickly. As Ky learns that the real world doesnƒ??t follow her ethical code, sheƒ??s just beginning to adapt, though sheƒ??s not quite sure where the line she doesnƒ??t want to cross is or whether perhaps sheƒ??s already crossed it. Thereƒ??s plenty of death and destruction in this story so far and itƒ??s clear that Ky has a lot of fighting left to do, both physical and emotional, to recuperate from the mess sheƒ??s in, to get revenge on her familyƒ??s unknown enemies, and to rebuild Vatta Enterprises.

The greatest strength of this series is that itƒ??s emotionally compelling, unpredictable, and often exciting (the climactic fight scene in Marque and Reprisal is awesome). There are some definite issues that will turn some readers off: a few long slightly technical sections where Ky and her crew are prepping the ship and getting armed, repetitive dialog as Ky goes over the plans or history with each new character, too frequent reminders that Ky is worried about her possible killer instinct, a lack of distinctive flavor for the different planets and ports we visit, a few plot devices that seem contrived (especially the little twist at the end of this book), and I suspect that Kyƒ??s unwillingness to think about her dead family has more to do with Moonƒ??s reluctance to write about it than Kyƒ??s reluctance to think about it. But even so, Iƒ??m enjoying the story well enough to forgive these flaws.

Iƒ??m listening to the audio production narrated by Cynthia Holloway. As soon as I finished Marque and Reprisal I spent one of my precious Audible credits to download the third VATTAƒ??S WAR novel, Engaging the Enemy. Iƒ??m really rooting for Kylara Vatta, but Iƒ??m kind of scared of her, too. show less

Whew. Action and more action. Definitely has all the marks of being one of the middle books of a series - not much character development or even much world-development. But the new characters are interesting, and the new twists in the arc of the quintology (?) are interesting.

Again the disclaimer. I don't like politics or military, mystery or adventure. But Moon just writes so well, with special insight and wit, I'm loving this and look forward to 3 of 5....