Trading in Danger (Vatta's War Series #1) » (Reprint)

"New York Times" best-selling author and former Marine, Elizabeth Moon has written many novels, including the Paksenarrion fantasy trilogy (available from Baen as "The Deed of Paksenarrion" and also as separate books), the Heris Serrano space adventure series (the first three novels of which have been combined as "Heris Serrano"), and "Remnant Population", which was a Hugo Award finalist. For Del Rey, she has written "Command Decision, Engaging the Enemy, Marque and Reprisal, Trading in Danger", and the Nebula Award winner "The Speed of Dark". After earning a degree in history from Rice University, Moon went on to obtain a degree in biology from the University of Texas, Austin. She lives in Florence, Texas with her husband and son.

The first of the acclaimed Vatta's War books, the exciting military science fiction series that features a swashbuckling spaceship-captain heroine who mixes commerce with combat.

Publishers Weekly

Noted for her strong heroines and interstellar naval adventures, Moon (Against the Odds) stumbles in the first of a new series featuring Kylara Vatta, whose "generous impulses" often get her into trouble. Ky, a favored daughter of a wealthy, interstellar shipping family, gets thrown ignominiously out of the Space Academy because she aided a fellow cadet who used her gullibility to dishonor the service. In consolation, her father gives her an antiquated cargo ship, the Glennys Jones, to command. He assumes she'll find a way to make enough profit to keep from having to junk the old tub. But after Ky figures out an angle on buying and selling some tractors, she inadvertently ends up running afoul of an interplanetary civil war. Following another generous impulse, Ky takes some stranded crewmen aboard. They return the favor by nearly getting her killed when mercenaries board her ship. Everyone, from her ship's seasoned crew to random strangers, annoyingly remarks on 21-year-old Kylara's youth and "exceptional" poise. With unusually slow pacing for a space adventure (lacking either the drama or the romance of opera), Moon presents several tableaux that are summarily dropped-such as polo that never gets played, a ship's model with secret instructions that Kylara refuses to decipher and an absentee boyfriend-any of which might have added some spice to this bland adventure. (Oct. 1) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.