• Full Title: Marque And Reprisal
• Author: Elizabeth Moon
• Year: 2004 (mine was a library hardback)
• Genre: Science Fiction, Adventure
• Publisher: Ballantine Books*
• ISBN 0-345-44758-1 (hardback)
• Wikipedia page (series)
• Author’s Wikipedia Page

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

 

Summary

Marque And Reprisal begins almost immediately after the end of Trading In Danger and is the second 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, Vatta encounters more sinister forces in this one.

Having received a letter of marque from her home planet’s government just before interstellar communications were disrupted, Vatta begins to outfit her ship Gary Tobai for the work of a privateer. The same unknown cabal that wreaked havoc in the Sabine system in the first book has now expanded its reach into many systems, disabling multiple ansibles and crippling the Vatta family business. Ky Vatta takes it upon herself to track down this group and put an end to it. In the process, both she and the reader learn more about the inner workings of the family, the civilization, and herself.

 

What I Liked Least About It

There was little to dislike about this book. In a couple of spots, I spotted mistakes, as if it had been hurriedly written and/or edited. For a specific example, near the end of chapter three, Ky asks about some cargo the police were holding, and then says “I’ll speak to them, after I’ve talked to Riel.” The ship is preparing for departure. Then Ky talks to Riel, settles a personnel matter, and returns to the bridge. The missing cargo isn’t mentioned again, and within minutes the spacecraft undocks from the station and leaves. Both as an author and as an editor, this discontinuity bugged me. Why have Ky say she’s going to talk to the police about that cargo, but then make it clear she doesn’t? Either add a line near the end of the chapter (“She took a minute to call police, but they wouldn’t budge”), remove the initial mention of it, or change the initial sentence to “We don’t have time for that now”). Something.

(I seem to recall another instance of this, but can’t find it now.)

Sequels can be a tricky thing. Do you reintroduce the characters and universe each time, for the readers who take up the series out-of-order? Or do you write with the assumption that the reader has just finished the previous book? Either method can be annoying to readers; it’s rare to find an author who can walk the fine line between the two — producing standalone novels in a series without boring regular readers with repetition. (This is the reason I almost never start a series unless I have a good hope of obtaining the books in order, and I will always read them in order.) Marque And Reprisal requires the previous book, in my opinion. I could tell, within a few pages, the spots where I would be lost without having recently read Trading In Danger.

 

What I Liked Most About It

In a few ways, Marque And Reprisal improves over the first book by introducing other developed characters. The previous novel introduced many believable characters, but only Ky was developed to any depth. Here, Moon makes up for that, taking a handful of people mentioned briefly in the first book and giving them their own interlocking storylines and backgrounds.

This one is more packed with action than the first book. While Trading In Danger spent many well-crafted paragraphs laying out the universe and digging into Ky’s thought processes (while still including plenty of action), this one leaves her with almost no time to think.

It also improves over Trading In Danger by eliminating redundant dialog. The first book had Ky describing the same events to multiple people. Instead of writing “So she told him what happened”, the author actually said everything again. Once or twice, this was justified by Ky changing her story depending on the audience, but a few times I insist Moon had no need to repeat the conversations. This book doesn’t repeat that mistake, or at least not as often.

Additionally, this novel continues the character arc of Ky — it was clear through the first novel that she was still finding herself, deciding who and what she wanted to be. Subtle changes accumulated with each experience. In this book, she continues to grow as she learns. People who haven’t seen her in a while are surprised by the changes, as they should be. (I imagine that if I only read the first couple of chapters of the first book, and then skipped to the last couple of chapters of this one — I would find Ky very different. But the changes are organic.) It is perhaps the most realistic growth/change of an adult character that I ever remember reading.

There are memorable lines too, like Ky’s sly remark in Chapter 18:

“He will find me tougher to kill once he’s thoroughly convinced how simple it will be.”

And I love that the book ends with Ky fending off an unwanted sexual advance. After new character Rafe — who’s been a big help in clandestine matters — has already hit on her a few times and been repeatedly told he’s not her type, he tries again. He moves closer, telling her he believes she’s been lying about not having feelings for him. Then: “Ky hooked a foot behind his leg, blocked his intended embrace, and shoved; he hit the floor hard and looked up at her, eyes wide, shocked out of his usual pose of amused superiority.” Like you, I’ve read dozens of books by men (and a few by women) in which a female character says and does exactly what Ky has done throughout the book — tell Rafe she’s not interested in a dozen different ways — only to “finally give in to her innermost desires” right at the end. It was refreshing here to have this strong female character live up to her description.

 

Conclusion

Again, this was fun. Kylara Vatta is a realistic character in a believable universe, which just happens to be conspiring against her. Because it’s a sequel, and therefore doesn’t require the groundwork the first book required, it’s difficult for me to compare the two. The main weak point here is that it requires the first book. Otherwise, this one is fantastic. If you read Trading In Danger and enjoyed it even a little, I would highly recommend going straight into Marque And Reprisal.

(Note: I later learned that this same title was used for a Poul Anderson story in the 1960s.)

 

 

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