Jack's Reviews > Trading in Danger

This is one of those books that I always meant to read, back when I was prone to browsing the shelves of the local bookstores for "physical" books. Of course, those days are largely gone now, digital media being much more affordable AND far more convenient with work, wife, and kids. But I never wrote it down as a "buy this" title, and forgot all about it as other books caught my fancy.

Still, I occasionally suffer from a syndrome that afflicts most males, starting in our early formative years. I don't really know if there's a professional medical term for it, so I just call it "entertainment imitationitis". If I read a book, watch a movie, or play a game that I really enjoy, I find myself wanting to immerse myself more into that particular genre. So if I read a really good horror novel, then I'm like "fire up the popcorn and let's watch some spooky movies!". The point is this...I recently started playing a Steam PC game called "Strike Suit Zero", a fast paced space combat simulator, which served to get me in the "mood" for more space combat oriented goodness. Playing computer games all night isn't really the best of options, but I am always down for snuggling with a good book in the comfort of my bed. However, I've read all the "Harrington" books by David Weber, as well as other similar stories, and was looking for something new, and maybe a little lighter as well. Several Google searches later, and Elizabeth Moon's "Trading In Danger" caught my eye as one of those "oh yeah, I wanted to read that" titles.

And...I'm mostly glad I did. It's a largely well written (for the most part) sci-fi tale with a flawed yet tough protagonist and some believable science. One of the things that really helped sell the immersion for me was the fact that none of the characters are perfect, and plenty of stuff happens that is unforeseen or even just incidental. When the characters mess up, there's consequences and fallout. When things on the ship break, they REALLY break. There's no magical workaround like in some other sci-fi tales, no matter how skilled the engineering crew might be. Things go badly for our protagonist and her crew pretty often, and they don't always manage to rise above it or make the best of it. In other words, it's very "true to life", in that we actually see the cost of fixing things, not just in human emotion and growth, but also in the actual $$$$, which so few books ever tackle. It really helps to draw us readers in and invest us in the drama, as we can all relate to being short on funds with some repair, event, bill, or other expense on the immediate horizon.

Kylara Vatta may not be the most interesting of main characters, but she managed to be engaging enough to carry the majority of the book. There are some ancillary chapters where we see events unfold from the viewpoints of other characters, but I felt them to be slightly jarring and out of place. It seemed to me that any developments in those chapters could have been woven into the narrative from Kylara's perspective, thereby minimizing the fluff. And I'm normally all about multiple viewpoints, but these were really just there for exposition that wasn't needed. I do, however, like the fact that we got to see the dark side of Kylara, and that she saw that darkness in herself as well, and she actually kinda embraced it! That happens so rarely in novels so it was a very refreshing change.

One part that I had a hard time with, aside from the sudden windfall from one of Kylara's relatives that comes completely out of left field in a WTF!? sort of way, is how she managed to get an integral component for her ship. One chapter she's short like $250,000 credits, and is SERIOUSLY frustrated by this fact, since she has absolutely NO way of getting that money. And then lo and behold, in the next chapter the ship is good to go, all is right with the world, and she's like "yeah, had to replace that part and do the paperwork, but we're all good here, la dee da, ain't no thang". I read through this section twice, and still couldn't find out where that money came from. There were a couple other little inconsistencies in the story as well, but none of them really bothered me like this one. Still, none of the issues I had were deal breakers, and I still wanted to finish the book and see how the story played out.

So...did this satisfy my space combat itch? No, not really. It's a good book, don't get me wrong, but space combat isn't the name of the game here. Of course, this IS only book one, so it's possible that future installments will have more to offer in that regard. But even though it wasn't exactly what I had initially hoped it would be, I will very likely return to this series at some point in the future, with somewhat tempered expectations.