Trading in Danger

IN A NUTSHELL
A fun, overcoming-the-odds adventure that twists the Military Sci Fi trope in interesting ways, has an engaging young woman as the lead character, is fast-paced, exciting, and has skilful world-building and reasonably well-rounded characters. It kept me turning the pages and left me eager for more.

I hadn’t meant to read ‘Trading In Danger’. I was just going to read the Kindle sample so that I could decide whether I wanted to buy it. It got its hooks into me at once, and not only did I read the whole thing, but I bought the rest of the five-book series.

This is the kind of exhilarating but thought-provoking Space Opera that I love. I loved that it twisted the Military SF tropes by having our rising-star space cadet show more dismissed from the academy in the opening scenes. This isn’t what is supposed to happen to a competent, talented, dedicated heroine, especially when her name is Vatta, and the series is called Vatta’s War.

Then it turned out that Ky Vatta is an heiress to a major space shipping company, and she’s been given the captaincy of a ship with instructions to take it on a last milk run before having it scrapped. That didn’t sound very exciting, so I was already waiting for Ky to do something different and for things to go wrong. She did, and they did, and suddenly I was in an exciting struggle with an inexperienced captain and a civilian crew, finding themselves in a war zone. There was sabotage, explosions, mercenaries, rogue ships, mutinies and no means of communicating with home.

Ky’s inexperience helped with the world-building as old hands explained things to her. Her military training gave her the background to grasp what was going on and explain it to others. In the end though, it was her character that got her through. Ky is placed in a situation where she has to make rapid life-or-death decisions with limited data and almost no resources. She doesn’t get everything right, but she discovers something important about herself: she feels alive under pressure, combat thrills her and killing the bad guys not only causes her qualms but gives her moments of euphoria. She’s a little ashamed to discover that, as the daughter of a merchant house with a reputation for honesty and a commitment to trade and profit, she is a natural warrior and killer.

I enjoyed the fast pace of the plot. I admired how real the technology and the trading environment seemed (think C. J Cherryh’s ‘Chanur’ series, but with enough twists to make it distinctive). The problems that Ky faced were engaging and complicated, and I enjoyed watching her solve them. I also liked the way each problem solved revealed a bigger, more dangerous picture that I was eager to know more about.

It was a very satisfying start to an exciting and entertaining series. show less

Originally posted at FanLit.
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/reviews/trading-in-danger/

“Of course we didn’t do autopsies. We know exactly what killed them — I killed them!”

Kylara Vatta, daughter of the head of the most prestigious shipping empire in the universe, didn’t want to follow in her family’s footsteps — trading is boring and Ky wants adventure and her own life outside of her family’s control. So she opted for a military career. But with only a few months left in the officer’s academy, she was set-up, betrayed, kicked out, and publicly shamed. When she returns home in disgrace, Vatta Transport is happy to have her back in the fold. Her first assignment is to captain a derelict spaceship straight to the show more junkyard, but Ky has Vatta blood in her veins and can’t pass up an advantageous business opportunity that arises unexpectedly. When this leads her into various forms of danger, and when scammers and mutineers think they can take advantage of the young and inexperienced captain, Ky finds that her time spent in the military academy wasn’t wasted after all.

Trading in Danger is the first installment of Elizabeth Moon’s VATTA’S WAR military science fiction epic. I don’t think this series will appeal to everybody, but it happened to hit a sweet spot for me. I like Kylara Vatta, an intelligent ethical rules-bound military officer with a soft heart who, due to her new circumstances, is beginning to discover that she has a rebellious streak, not to mention a disconcerting appreciation for quickly solving problems with violence. Ky is a little passive and occasionally bewildered in this installment, but this is her first adventure. I’m assuming that Moon plans to show us some growth in this area as Ky begins to adapt to her new lifestyle. Kylara’s crew and family members are also likeable — especially elderly Aunt Grace who bakes unappetizing but invaluable fruitcakes.

The plot is engaging, unpredictable and mostly quick-moving though some of the dialog gets repetitive as Ky explains what’s going on to multiple characters who show up at different times. I enjoyed the focus on transportation, though this may be a personal thing. My husband runs a small freight logistics company, so there’s a lot of talk about contracts, cargo, carriers and consignees in my little world, and I was fascinated by how this might scale up to apply to an entire universe. Surprisingly, this was one of my favorite aspects of the story but, again, that’s just me. (It would be such an awful pun to say “your mileage may vary” so I won’t.)

Trading in Danger is “soft” science fiction, or “space opera” — it’s a little fluffy, focusing on drama and political intrigue, not physics. There’s talk about FTL drives and ansibles (there’s a nod to Ursula K. LeGuin), but no explanation of how they work. I love physics but have to admit that I get bored by long dry theoretical or technical discussions of astrophysics and quantum mechanics. Trading in Danger is a quick and easy read for when you’re in the mood for some non-challenging science fiction. It ends on an intriguing note — Ky has some difficult choices to make about her relationship to her family business. Should she stay with Vatta or go rogue? Whatever, I’m still on board and ready for the ride.

I’m listening to VATTA’S WAR in audio format. These were produced in 2008 by Tantor Audio and are read by Cynthia Holloway who does a nice job. I like her voice and she inflects the narrative perfectly (though she always mispronounces the word “peripheral”). I recommend the audio version. show less

I came to this from a first chapter included at the end of the kindle edition of Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. This is a different sort of space opera from Ancillary Justice, but the opening chapter was so gripping that I immediately ordered a copy so that I could read the rest of it.

The universe it is set in is sort of recognisable as a fast forward on our current one. The initial setting is in a naval academy that would be recognisable to anyone with military experience (and the author served in the USMC, no doubt she drew on that). That's just the starting point for the story though, and most of the action takes place on board an interstellar freighter.

The story is told mostly by the main character (Ky Vatta), although there are show more a couple of short switches of viewpoint to her father. This limited omniscience drives the story well, although the only character that is well developed is Ky herself. That said, she is a very interesting character, she knows she has flaws and tries hard to come to terms with them. The pace of the story is very good, and it kept me reading to find out what happened next, even getting to the end of the chapter wasn't enough to stop and I found myself reading it when I was walking along the train platform at the end of my commute!

In outline, Ky is kicked out of the local naval academy for helping the wrong guy. Her family run their own merchant shipping line and they send her off with an experienced crew in a ship destined for the breakers yard at the end of the trip. She succumbs to the Vatta instinct for 'trade and profit' and decides to make a side trip to fill a need for agricultural supplies at her first port of call. This takes her to another system. On the way in her ship's hyperspace drive fails, and while she's trying to scrape up funding for both the repairs and the tractor parts a war starts.

From there it becomes a very interesting sequence of events in dealing with the crisis and its fallout. Ky's ship ends up being used to intern the captains and senior officers of the other ships in the system, largely because it has no working hyperspace engine. This causes another set of interesting twists and turns in the story. Throughout the background to this we see a few glimpses of other things happening in other parts of the universe, which cleverly expands the background and lets the reader join some of the dots before Ky does it.

Overall an enjoyable and compelling read. show less

Great fun! A good introduction to a new series. Not quite space opera, but maybe space soap opera or a space musical. Doesn't take itself too seriously but still manages to work in some good characters and interesting universe, well thought out with a good grasp of the practical issues of space, and not too much exposition to do so.

Ky Vatta is kicked out of the local military academy in disgrace - more as a scapegoat than her own mistakes, and much to the relief of her trading family, as she can now join the family business as was expected. Her first mission is a quiet milk run, to get her used to command, and out of the limelight. An aging freighter has one last trade journey to do, before being scraped as too expensive to repair. Ky show more and her experienced crew just have to shepherd it across a few months of travel, and a couple of ftl transitions. Ky is proud to be trusted with captaincy, dismayed by her dismissal, unsure of her parent's love, and wanting to do a good job. En route the opportunity arises to make some extra profit, perhaps enough to refit the ship, and with the backing of the crew she diverts from their expected course - an action not unexpected by her family - Unfortunately the system she diverts to has become embroiled in a local war, and before she knows it, she's adrift with a failing spaceship in a system occupied by mercenaries, but at least she can trust her shipmates.

There's a lovely hat-tip to Clarke with the interstellar communication devices being known as 'ansibles'. The universe is sensible, with a balance of trading families, small worlds, etc. and the characters work well, Ky is exuberant where needed, remorseful but not melancholic and determined to do her best. There is only a little focus on the technology with components of engines and signals being important to the plot - mostly and sensibly contained as 'sealed units' that aren't interfered with by normal spacers. A few choice conversations balance the romance of Ky's active space life with the more routine experiences of normal trading or downworld life.

It's not all brilliant - the side plot of the fruitcakes is just silly, I've never yet encountered an inedible fruit cake, and more importantly they could so easily have been disposed of. The POV switches away from Ky just occasionally enough to be annoying. There is little need to jump to either the mercenary or Ky's family, as Ky's encounters with them would have been sufficient to convey that information. It may be a subtle hint for the future episodes of the series. The ending is prolonged with the action concluded fairly rapidly, and quite some time spent tying the various loose ends together. It is good that they were all securely tied, and yet leaving sufficient scope for more books.

Well worth reading, and I'm looking forward to the sequels. show less

Elizabeth Moon is a journeyman writer whose fiction is always entertaining and readable. Her Trading in Danger combines elements we have seen elsewhere, but she handles them deftly. The ansible, a concept and a term borrowed from Ursula K. Le Guin, is so often borrowed by other writers it is almost as ubiquitous as Asimov’s three laws. When they fail, it is like the Internet going down. The military space academy with its strict honor code is also a familiar trope. So is the expelled protagonist. Bujold’s Miles Vorkosigan is bumped for broken bones. Moon’s Kylara is booted out when she becomes a public relations problem for the commandant. An untested heroine who rises to the challenge when faced with war and mutiny is a character show more type that stretches from Horatio Hornblower to Honor Harrington. These familiar devices are not necessarily flaws in science fiction, any more than a Renaissance painter would be disparaged for painting one more Madonna and Child. Trading in Danger combines a space navy story with an interstellar trade story and makes all the pieces fit together. Rereading it was a pleasure. As Kylara would say, “Trade and Profit.” 4 stars. show less

Oh goodness. I can't believe how much I enjoyed this. I don't like military and political intrigue, even if it does take place in outer space. Nor do I like adventure series, even if the main character is female. I couldn't get past the first bit of the first book of Honor Harrington, for example. But honestly, Moon has a way of making every character so rich, and every situation so authentic, that even though this doesn't end on a cliffhanger and I could stop, I'm not going to.

I am glad I own the complete set and hope to keep it together and send it off to one of you as soon as I'm done. ;)

Kylara Vatta is nice, perhaps too nice. Her top status at the Academy is sacrificed for public relations reasons after her efforts to help a fellow student fall awry. Her family's powerful connections and vast trading conglomerate come in useful, and within a week Ky finds herself as the captain of an old rust bucket, headed to the far reaches of space. What should have been a simple milk run becomes something much more dangerous when Ky takes on an additional contract, leaving them stranded near planets on the brink of civil war. Ky may be young, but she's not stupid - or as gullible as people assume. It's going to take all of her military training to get her and her crew out alive.

I haven't read much in the space opera genre, but wow. show more This book completely swept me away. Ky is a believable and imperfect heroine, surviving by her wits in a situation that gets worse by the minute. The tension at parts was absolutely unbearable. I've enjoyed Moon's Paksenarrion fantasy books and her Speed of Dark, and I'm very glad I have a wonderful new series to fall in love with. I'm starting the next book, Marque and Reprisal, this very day. show less