Moon, Elizabeth: Trading in Danger
Trading in Danger
Writer: Elizabeth Moon
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 357
I actually finished this book a week or so ago, but I just haven't been able to make myself type up a review.
Not that it's a bad book, or that I didn't like it. There's just some books that are what they are, you read them and you're done, and you don't think much about them afterwards.
I've been making a point to buy more SF by women in the past couple of years, but the books have been collecting dust on my shelf. Since I'm taking an extra term at SHU, which means another required reading list, I decided that this term would be a perfect time to read some of those titles. The idea, for me, is to see what kinds of SF women are writing NOW, what's selling NOW, and figuring out what the appeal is, why it's popular, and what, if anything, women are adding to the genre.
Elizabeth Moon's Trading in Danger is the first book I crossed off my list. I read Moon for the first time last year, but it would be incredibly unfair to compare this book to The Speed of Dark, because they are such different books. The Speed of Dark is soft SF, social SF. It's written from the first person POV of an autistic man, and seeing the world through his eyes is absolutely fascinating, alien, and different. It's a book that takes tremendous care in development, very character driven, and takes its time with the story, which is a personal one.
Trading in Danger, on the other hand, is space opera, space adventure. It's written from the third-person limited POV of Kylara Vatta, the only daughter of a prominent merchant family who just got kicked out of the Military Academy for an honest, innocent, and stupid mistake. To avoid the media blitz, her family gives her a milk run: deliver cargo and scrap the ship, all under the watchful eye of an experienced crew. This bores her, and she soon finds a way to make some money to salvage the ship for her own, and of course, this plan leads her into trouble.
Now while it's unfair to compare these titles, I do so because it gives me a chance to get my bearings. Both are written well and cleanly. They're easy to get through. Both have solid, well-developed POV characters who are relatively sympathetic. I'm amazed at the difference between the stories and types of SF that Moon clearly has a solid handle on. Space opera/adventure and soft/social SF are two very different beasts, usually penned by two very different types of writers (in my experience, which is limited), so to say I'm impressed with Moon's ability to do both is an understatement.
But let's focus on Trading in Danger. Spoilers ahead.
What surprised me most about this book was not the book itself, but my own expectations going into it. These expectations had nothing to do with my reading of The Speed of Dark, but rather some mistaken impression I've gotten that if SF is written by a woman, there will be some kind of romantic subplot. Why I had this impression is beyond me. I've been chomping at the bit for paranormal romance lately, so part of my expectations come from that, but it's funny how I, as a woman writer of SF who reads all about other reader's reactions to romance in the genre as well as their expectations of the genre, fell into the obvious trap: if it's written by a woman, it must have romance in it.
Shame on me. Lesson learned. Trading in Danger has no romantic subplot whatsoever, though Ky's past relationships very much influence her actions and add depth to her character.
No, in this book, it's the character that's important. The story. The adventure.
But is it so bad I was wishing for a romantic subplot anyway? I had to examine this need, and I realize that without a first person POV, I rely on romantic relationships to reveal POV characters to me. I just might be a closet romance writer and not know it, but without those close relationships (hell, friendships, mentors, anything!), I have to rely on the character herself, and often characters can't understand their own actions, so other POVs, particularly those who are close to that character, are beyond helpful.
That's not to say that there are no close relationships in this book: Ky is very close to her father, but she's fearful of his opinion of her actions. Okay, fine, but it didn't grip me. Her father's POVs in this book felt like a stereotypical dad to me: he loves his daughter dearly, and since he has money, he can literally do anything to keep her happy and safe, but he has a rather naïve opinion of who she really is. He sees her as a child who needs protection, and as we read, we learn that Ky is more than capable, despite her honest, innocent mistakes.
There are also external POVs from people who interact with Ky, which gives the reader the necessary outside perspective. Interesting, but it's about this time in the book that I found myself growing antsy: Ky's far too calm and far too in control no matter what the situation is, and I found myself growing distant from her.
Which is interesting, because she starts out incredibly sympathetic. Ky helps out a friend, another cadet, who she thinks needs help. What she doesn't realize is the guy was manipulating her to create a huge media blast, and Ky gets kicked out of the Academy because of her actions. It's not fair by a long shot, and it's easy to sympathize with Ky's shock and her reactions as she's forced to call home and tell her family the truth, to write her letter of resignation, and go home. But once home, we start to see Ky less as a victim and more as a pampered girl. After all, she's the only daughter of a prominent trading family. While their plan to keep her out of trouble makes sense, the preparations for such go on too long for my taste. Ky may not want this life of trade and profit, but it's her family's trade and it's her life now, and the ease with which she took to it made me yawn. And let's not get into the scene with her mother and the fussing of clothes. No, really, let's not. It was boring.
By the end of the book, we see how the inciting incident (Ky helping someone in need who is really manipulating her) really affects the arc of the plot. She makes this mistake twice more: by agreeing to take on four stranded crew people on the planet Sabine because she's asked by the consul at Sabine (and who wouldn't, it's the right thing to do) and one of those four is a very handsome guy who decides to play hero when the ship is boarded by mercenaries, only to get himself killed, and almost getting Ky killed in the process. The third strike comes when her ship is being used for refugees from other boarded ships, and the one captain Ky expects will take over isn't the core trouble at all: it's the one who's likable, fatherly, friendly.
So what kept my interest in Ky's character is two things: 1) the fact she can't help but be drawn to seemingly friendly people and help them and 2) the fact that she learns that she enjoys killing those who deserve it.
I really wish the second was explored in more detail in this book, but it's a revelation to her, and since this is the first in a series, I suspect it'll be explored in more detail in later books.
Ky spends so much time obsessing over her choices, her mistakes, and her trust in people. Her understanding of why she does this and her understanding of who people view these mistakes are completely at odds, and I'm still not sure I can follow her logic, only to understand that in the end, I think Ky is going to grow into a much harder, colder person. The kind of person who's fit for mercenary life, an offer she got at the end of the book and I really wish she'd taken. I'd be willing to follow this series if it focused on her adventures as a mercenary and her inner conflict of turning her back on her family, but that's not the case, though the latter is still in question considering she doesn't know what she'll do when she completes her original assignment. She's got a choice of taking the Gary Tobai and striking out on her own, or returning home to her family to take the next assignment. By the end, we don't know she'll do. Instead, the book ends on a humorous note, the final resolution of the SAGA OF THE FRUITCAKES, which had a ridiculous emphasis throughout the whole book but finally has some meaning at the end. I mean, hey, a fruitcake full of diamonds, that's a good thing.
There's plenty of action, plenty of adventure, and plenty of choices to make. At the start, it seems that stuff keeps happening to Ky, that she's not making her own path despite the opportunities that come her way. It was fantastic to see this ACKNOWLEDGED in the text, when Ky realizes that if she keeps doing what she's been doing, which is to go along with whatever's happening, she's going to get herself and her crew killed. Once she becomes a more active character, the book picks up the pace.
Though it does have a tendency to drag a little when there's recaps of stuff the reader already knows, and then there's the nagging sense that there's emphasis placed on stuff that isn't important (but later turns out is, like the fruitcakes) or seems important but doesn't get resolution (like the removal of Ky's implant and her memory upload). I hope that later books explore some of these unresolved issues, because it's the unresolved stuff that holds my curiosity, but from my cursory examination of the later books, it doesn't appear to be the case. We'll see.
For a reader, male or female, who's looking for a good SF adventure yarn, this fits the bill. Bonus points for having a well-developed heroine who evolves over the course of the book, and I suspect will develop more over the course of the series. I'm not chomping at the bit to read the rest of the series though, because while this was written well with a solid character, nothing about the world really stood out to me and had me begging for more. Oh, there are little things that caught my interest, things that I think will develop over the course of the series, but I can wait to read those for when my bookshelves are a little emptier, and I'm looking to kick back with a good adventure yarn. Still, as an example of women writing space opera/adventure with female protags, this is a good one, and worth the read.
Next up: Cyteen by C.J. Cherryh