#57 Trading in Danger by Elizabeth Moon
(Note: Er... hi. I actually read this book a couple weeks ago but have not had the chance to block out an hour in my schedule to write a
review. I apologize if I don't remember things as well as I should. School has taken over my life. I'll be better next month, I swear.)
Kylara “Ky” Vatta has done the unexpected in choosing a military career over a position of power in her family's large shipping business. That is until she does someone a favor, and things go horribly wrong. After being kicked out of the military, Ky is sent home to her family. The next thing she knows, her father has set her up as Captain on a rickety old Vatta ship. Ky doesn't know if this is the life she wants to live, but she'll have little time to think about that when a planet she docks at turns into a war zone. Ky will have to depend on her military training to keep her and her crew alive.
Trading in Danger is the first book in Vatta's War. I was planning on reading the entire series this month for the Summer of Series challenge over at jawasreadtoo , but life has got in the way and I suspect that I won't have a chance to pick up the rest of the series until later. Still, I found that I enjoyed Trading in Danger. It's admittedly a flawed book, but one that I found rather engaging. After Ky is kicked out of the military the book starts off rather slow. Fortunately, the action really picks up around a hundred pages in. There are certain scenes that are incredibly gripping and exciting, and I found that I wished I had more time to sit down and enjoy the book. Ky turns out to be an interesting narrator, although she did have a bit of a spoiled princess aspect earlier in the book that didn't mesh with me. But as she continues on her journey, she develops in really interesting ways. In Trading in Danger, she comes to realize some really disturbing facts about herself, and I'm really curious to see how those will be explored in future books. The side characters can occasionally lapse into stereotypes, but I found plenty of characters were more likable, such as Ky's father.
Trading in Danger is a space opera, a genre I'm not too familiar with (besides a few Star Trek episodes here and there). One technological aspect I found really interesting was the concept of implants. Often people criticize the internet for making things too easy for us. Why learn anything when you can simply look it up on a computer? The implant takes that idea and, much like the feed in the MT Anderson novel of that name, takes it to a new level, allowing people to access information instantly with a thought. I found the concept to be somewhat disturbing, and could really relate to Ky's struggle with if she should use an implant or not.
Although it gets off to a slow start, Trading in Danger is an interesting book that takes place in a complex world that I suspect we've barely scratched the surface of. By the end of the book, the big drama has been solved, but there are tons of questions left unanswered, making me very curious about continuing this series.
Rating: four stars
Length: 357 pages
Source: paperbackswap
Challenge: This book is part of the Summer of Series Challenge
Other books I've read by this author: This is my first
xposted to temporaryworlds , bookish , and goodreads
review. I apologize if I don't remember things as well as I should. School has taken over my life. I'll be better next month, I swear.)
Kylara “Ky” Vatta has done the unexpected in choosing a military career over a position of power in her family's large shipping business. That is until she does someone a favor, and things go horribly wrong. After being kicked out of the military, Ky is sent home to her family. The next thing she knows, her father has set her up as Captain on a rickety old Vatta ship. Ky doesn't know if this is the life she wants to live, but she'll have little time to think about that when a planet she docks at turns into a war zone. Ky will have to depend on her military training to keep her and her crew alive.
Trading in Danger is the first book in Vatta's War. I was planning on reading the entire series this month for the Summer of Series challenge over at jawasreadtoo , but life has got in the way and I suspect that I won't have a chance to pick up the rest of the series until later. Still, I found that I enjoyed Trading in Danger. It's admittedly a flawed book, but one that I found rather engaging. After Ky is kicked out of the military the book starts off rather slow. Fortunately, the action really picks up around a hundred pages in. There are certain scenes that are incredibly gripping and exciting, and I found that I wished I had more time to sit down and enjoy the book. Ky turns out to be an interesting narrator, although she did have a bit of a spoiled princess aspect earlier in the book that didn't mesh with me. But as she continues on her journey, she develops in really interesting ways. In Trading in Danger, she comes to realize some really disturbing facts about herself, and I'm really curious to see how those will be explored in future books. The side characters can occasionally lapse into stereotypes, but I found plenty of characters were more likable, such as Ky's father.
Trading in Danger is a space opera, a genre I'm not too familiar with (besides a few Star Trek episodes here and there). One technological aspect I found really interesting was the concept of implants. Often people criticize the internet for making things too easy for us. Why learn anything when you can simply look it up on a computer? The implant takes that idea and, much like the feed in the MT Anderson novel of that name, takes it to a new level, allowing people to access information instantly with a thought. I found the concept to be somewhat disturbing, and could really relate to Ky's struggle with if she should use an implant or not.
Although it gets off to a slow start, Trading in Danger is an interesting book that takes place in a complex world that I suspect we've barely scratched the surface of. By the end of the book, the big drama has been solved, but there are tons of questions left unanswered, making me very curious about continuing this series.
Rating: four stars
Length: 357 pages
Source: paperbackswap
Challenge: This book is part of the Summer of Series Challenge
Other books I've read by this author: This is my first
xposted to temporaryworlds , bookish , and goodreads