Marque and Reprisal: Vatta's War, Book 2 (Unabridged) [Audio Download]

Captain Kylara Vatta has only recently come out of a full blown war, only to land directly into another one. Or is it a different one? Kylara finally makes her way to Lastway, the originally scheduled final stop for her commercial carrier when she receives disturbing news of attacks on her homeland and on Vatta Transport and the family. But unfortunately, the communication ansibles have been knocked out and she is playing in the dark. Her military training is what spurts her to take the offensive, and even though she does not yet know who the enemy is, she begins to prepare her commercial ship for war time defense. Yet, she struggles to balance her financial and is constantly interrupted by attempts made on her life.

And then, totally unexpectedly, her cousin, Stella shows up. The "bimbo blonde" who gave the family codes to her first lover and is generally viewed as useless by the family. Except that Kylara realizes that Stella, much like herself, has been pigeonholed by the family and underneath the bubblehead, there is a sophisticated spy who has been working for the Vatta family business for years. Stella has brought along partners, Rafe and the young Vatta cousin, Toby; and the terrible news that both of Kylara's parents and Stella's parents have perished in the attacks.

Kylara quickly makes use of her new resources and launches a serious mission that entails survival of her ship and crew, saving Vatta family members, and identifying and removing the enemy. Except that they still have no idea who the enemy is. Rafe, whose background is as obscure as Stella's, provides some clues. And Kylara gains an unexpected ally when a mercenary force offers its services to her ... for a small fee: trade and profit.

All her allies have secrets, but so does Kylara herself. Someone she knew at the academy sends her an unusual package, the contents of which could help, but also hinder, Kylara's mission. And she has yet to divulge to her friends how she feels about killing people.

In all, this second book in the series matches the first for characterization and plot. It's slow moving at the beginning, but the second half of the book picks up pace quickly, like its predecessor. Circumstances twist so that the heroine is forced in a direction that leaves few choices. Kylara is a likeable, yet not perfect, heroine. She makes mistakes, some of them deadly, but lands on her feet in the end, earning respect from her peers and readers alike.

As with all of Moon's books, this work makes for an enjoyable read.

Letters of marque and reprisal were the thin legal cover given to private armed warships allowing them to attack other vessels and not be considered pirates. Well, sometimes to not be considered pirates.

In this well-paced and well-written space opera, Moon uses a traditional plot device, placing her young heroine in danger with no backup and just barely enough resources to fight her way out of it. The pacing is fast and the plot is sound. The characterization is almost entirely static and not a particular strength of the novel, but it is plenty good enough to sustain the story.

While this is technically the second book in the series, the first one was substantially inferior and really does not have to be read in order to enjoy the current offering. And have no doubt that this is a series -- far too many plot threads are left open at the end of the novel for it to be anything else.

The setting is the deep space version of the Caribbean, where trading vessels ply the spaceways between independent planets, pirates prey on the traders, and the only military/police protection available are mercenaries and privateers. The most successful of these tradeship consortiums is Vatta Transport -- until someone attacks both the Vatta family and the Vatta company in one devestating blow. At the same time, someone has also attacked the company that holds the exclusive monopoly on faster-than-light interstellar communication. Since ISC and Vatta have longstanding ties, the two attacks are almost certainly tied together.

With the family in shambles and all communications compromised, it falls to Ky Vatta, the young hero of TRADING IN DANGER, to somehow survive, gather up her remaining family, and strike back at whoever has attacked Vatta. Along the way she picks up a few more resources and a few more allies, but also makes a few more enemies.

Marque and Reprisal is space opera in the classic 1950's vein, reminiscent of, say, Heinline juvenile novels of that vintage. Basically this is a fast paced adventure yarn that revels in its use of pulp magazine forms from that era.

In case it isn't clear, this is the second book in a new series, and this book makes no effort to be a standalone entity (although you could probably read it on its own, you shouldn't bother: TRADING IN DANGER, the first, is a perfectly good read).

Moon's a good writer and she uses all of her considerable talent to distract the reader from questioning the amazing coincidences and other events that populate the plot here. She's got the pace and breathlessness of space opera down pat and her arm-waving moves you right along, wondering where heroine Ky Vatta will end up and how she'll get there. The core story is fun. The twists and turns come briskly and are entertaining.

I found the front half of the book a bit odd. The technology, writing, and "sandbox" of the book is lifted right from the 50's, before cell phones and the Web and so forth... and that style directly aped XIXth Century sailing adventure novels. Horatio Hornblower would feel right at home striding the deck with our (somewhat two-dimensional) cast of characters. It isn't just a space opera, but a solid pastiche of what used to pass for pulp magazine adventure stories. Even the incredibly-convenient-but-wholly-improbable "open door in the alleyway" bit is entirely in keeping with the homage.

As the book progresses, things get a bit more modern in their sensibility and style and the action bits at the end feel more like 80s Hammer's Slammers than 50s Starship Troopers.

I fret for the future of this series, which seems to be building up a number of inconvenient facts and a lot of stray detail and inconsistencies, but this book and its predecessor are good solid fun. Well recommended.