★★★ (of 5)

• Full Title: Engaging The Enemy
• Author: Elizabeth Moon
• Year: 2006 (mine was a library hardback)
• Genre: Science Fiction, Adventure
• Publisher: Ballantine Books*
• ISBN 0-345-44756-5 (hardback)
• Wikipedia page (series)
• Author’s Wikipedia Page

(* The publisher was also listed as Del Rey, and elsewhere in the book, Random House.)

 

Summary

Engaging The Enemy begins almost immediately after the end of Marque And Reprisal and is the third book of the Vatta’s War series. It continues to follow the adventures of disgraced spaceforce cadet turned interstellar trader Kylara Vatta. Having barely escaped annihilation in the first book and dabbled in privateering in the second, Vatta continues to struggle against sinister forces in this one.

Still trying to piece together the conspiracy against the Vatta family (and against several interstellar governments), this time Ky has help from family members Stella Vatta and her Aunt Grace, not to mention able crewmembers picked up over time and travel. She encounters suspicion over her letter of marque, the fact she now captains a former pirate’s ship, and some of her former decisions. Still, she manages to take down yet another enemy of her family and her civilization.

 

What I Liked Least About It

As a standalone book, I don’t think I would rank this one very well, because it entirely depends on the previous two books. But as a sequel it works well. Just make sure you read the other two books first.

It starts slowly and isn’t nearly as action-packed as the second installment. Engaging The Enemy in this way more closely resembles the first book of the series, Trading In Danger.

Continuing a trend from the previous books, the author often prints entire conversations in which the characters recount pretty much what just happened in the narrative. It felt increasingly weird to (1) be told the story as it happens and then (2) listen to characters — usually Ky Vatta — retell it in dialog. I would understand this if it had been some time since the events, because we all need occasional reminders, but sometimes this happens right after the events in question.

Here, as in the previous book, I also felt uncomfortable with just how much Ky reveals to complete strangers. It doesn’t seem to be a statement on her youth or naiveté, because the other characters don’t find it odd, and some of them do it too. They’ll meet complete strangers and just begin telling personal business, often things I would consider private — such as which bank I use for private accounts or which family member I’m jealous of.

And, until the very end, at least, the title itself seemed inapplicable. Though much of the book discusses engaging the enemy, and the characters spend much of their time planning for it, there is little actual enemy engagement until the final chapters.

 

What I Liked Most About It

Engaging The Enemy uses some of the newly developed characters from Marque And Reprisal in important ways, and introduces a few more. This fills out the universe a little and gets us out of Ky’s head more. While I thought Ky’s character arc paused in this book, compared to her quick development in the others, I noticed other characters growing or changing.

More worlds are introduced in this novel, including one where extreme rudeness is punishable by execution and another where dogs are in short supply and they’ll pay a month’s salary just for an artificial insemination from an outside breed.

I wasn’t expecting a huge twist, because the previous books didn’t feature them, but about two-thirds of the way through there’s a pretty significant one involving a courtroom genetics test (no spoilers!) and the identity of a major character. It was the kind of “reveal” that had me talking aloud to the book. The misdirection leading up to it was very well done.

 

Conclusion

Once more, this was a fun diversion — the reason I read fiction in the first place. Kylara Vatta is a realistic character in a believable universe, and she has responded well to the twists life throws at her. Like the second book, this third one requires (in my opinion) knowledge of the previous two. This book contains more waiting and less action than the first two, but is still an important part of the overall story.

If you read Trading In Danger and/or Marque And Reprisal and enjoyed them even a little, I think you’d like this one too.

(Personal note: I also just learned that author Moon and her husband apparently live about 20 minutes away from my current home. I typically don’t research authors’ personal lives because it rarely affects my enjoyment of their books, but also because they rarely live anywhere near me. I was pleased to learn that this author, at least, knows of life in my neck of the woods.)

 

 

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