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    Marque and Reprisal
    Marque and Reprisal
    Marque and Reprisal
    Audiobook14 hours

    Marque and Reprisal

    Written by Elizabeth Moon

    Narrated by Cynthia Holloway

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Although the exciting military career she hoped for never got off the ground, Ky Vatta ended up seeing plenty of combat when she took the helm of one of the commercial transport vessels in her family's fleet...and steered it into a full-blown war. Now the lessons she learned in that trial by fire are about to pay off-because this time, the war has come to her. Someone has launched a full-throttle offensive against Vatta Transport Ltd., Ky's father's interstellar shipping empire. In short order, most of Ky's family is killed, and subsequent attacks sever vital lines of communication, leaving Ky fighting, in every sense, to survive.

    Ky is determined to identify the ruthless mystery enemy and avenge her family's name, but she needs not only firepower but information. And she gets both in spades-from the band of stranded mercenaries she hooks up with; from her black-sheep cousin, Stella, who has been leading a secret life; and from Stella's roguish ex-lover, Rafe. Together they struggle to penetrate the tangled web of political intrigue that is wreaking havoc within InterStellar Communications, on whose effective operation their own livelihoods-and perhaps lives-depend.

    But the infighting proves to be infectious, and it isn't long before Ky's hired military muscle are turning their suspicions on the enigmatic Rafe, whose wealth of knowledge about ISC's clashing factions and startling new technologies has begun to make him smell like a rat...or a mole. With swift, violent destruction a very real possibility, the last thing Ky needs is a crew divided against itself-and she's prepared to take whatever measures are necessary to ensure that Vatta stays in business, as well as in one piece.

    What she is not prepared for is the shocking truth behind the terror-and a confrontation with murderous treachery from a source as unexpected as it is unrelenting.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateDec 8, 2008
    ISBN9781400178285
    Marque and Reprisal
    Author

    Elizabeth Moon

    Former Marine Elizabeth Moon is the author of many novels, including Echoes of Betrayal, Kings of the North, Oath of Fealty, the Deed of Paksenarrion trilogy, Victory Conditions, Command Decision, Engaging the Enemy, Marque and Reprisal, Trading in Danger, the Nebula Award winner The Speed of Dark, and Remnant Population, a Hugo Award finalist. 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.

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    Reviews for Marque and Reprisal

    4/5

    43 ratings16 reviews

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    • 4/5
      In this second book of Elizabeth Moon’s “Vatta’s War” series, things take a turn for the dark. Someone has more or less declared war on the Vatta trading company, violently destroying their company headquarters and sabotaging their ships. Almost all the senior officers of the company/family are wiped out. Kylara, our heroine, had been attempting to get back on track after the misadventures of the previous novel, but finds herself in a situation where she must see more to the defense of herself and her ship than to trade. As an undercurrent through the books so far, she has several times had to kill people in self-defense, and she has been uneasily recognizing that she enjoys the killing. She doesn’t seek it out, but is worried that it indicates something horrible about herself. She doesn’t deal with it directly, but it is an undercurrent of tension in her character throughout the novel. The set up of this universe lends itself to the grand tradition of importing 18th and 19th century sailing narratives (Hortatio Hornblower being the classic) into space. The traders operate mostly independently, since FTL communication is difficult and monopolized. It is impossible while in FTL travel, and at port one can still only communicate through monopolized ansibles. When someone attacks and sabotages these ansible platforms, everything starts going to hell. Hard currency becomes invaluable as bank accounts are frozen, and any news is days or weeks out of date. In the midst of this Kylara finds herself in possession of a Letter of Marque, authorizing her to operate as a privateer (legalized pirate) under the auspices of her home planet. However, she has no way of finding out what the political situation there may be. In fact, in an interesting twist, it causes significant problems when the mercenaries she hires as protection for her trade convoy are extremely dubious about working for anyone acting as a privateer, an interesting dilemma probably stretching back to the 13th century if not before. “Vatta’s War” operates close to, but not strictly in the military SF tradition. (For one, there is no formal military involved here, it’s all independent operators and traders.)The focus is on smaller-scale problem solving rather than on ship-to-ship combat, although that does also take place. Mostly we follow Kylara as she lines up trade, finances, defence, and the care of stray dogs. Lots of random things happen (as they do in life), sometimes causing problems and sometimes being beneficial. Although Kylara fits nicely in the mold of young but very good captains in stories throughout the ages, Moon takes pains to keep her from being unrealistically good at everything. She picks up an ex-military consultant who helps her with her defences, and a cousin who helps her figure out the company situation, plus a rogue ansible expert who helps her figure out the FTL communication situation. This focus on the character of Kylara, without making her into something unrealistic, strengthens comparisons between Moon’s book and the early books of Lois McMaster Bujold, the ones focusing on Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan (Miles’ mother). Interestingly, in a previous series some had criticized Moon for having her female characters wielding too much power in unofficial ways, bypassing the traditional official male centers of power. Here she literally blows up the traditional official male centers of power, leaving the women to pick up the pieces using both the skills that they have natively and the power they are left with. While touching on interesting questions of military ethics: privateering, mercenaries, and the problem of individual blood lust, the story is always the center of the book. Mostly this is about a young captain struggling to fulfill her obligations to her crew and her family the best she can in incredibly hard times, surmounting all the obstacles put in her way. A classic adventure narrative, smoothly written with wit enough to leaven the dark side of the heroine.
    • 4/5
      Great Sci-Fi thriller, #2 in a series...our heroine avenges family loss for the benefit of the family business, with a twist of future technology. I enjoyed the book and will read #3.
    • 4/5
      I'm really liking this series. Yes, it's a bit talky for a space adventure, but when the action happens, it's quite awesome. (No spoilers, but so that I remember - this is the one where we meet Osman.) This installment did feel like a second book - a bit more development than the first, but still setting up the rest of the series. I'll continue reading, of course.
    • 5/5
      Captain Ky Vatta thinks her worries are behind her. After all, she and her crew have escaped a conflict on Sabine and are now able to commence their trading with other planets. Things change suddenly as several assassins attempt attacks, and rumors of widespread assaults against the Vatta family are left hanging after the communications networks fall apart. Ky takes to space, unsure of what awaits her in the next port, but one things is growing clear: this is war.I continue to love this series and admire Moon's complex plot arc from novel to novel. Ky is a brilliant captain, but not Mary Sue; she wrestles with moral questions at the exhilaration she feels after killing in self-defense, and even as she makes mistakes she still manages to scrape through alive. I've already ordered the next three books from Amazon so I can keep reading and find out what happens to Ky and the rest of the Vattas.
    • 3/5
      A good (OK?) second book to the series. Major crisis & well fought by our heroine, Kylara. I was a little disappointed by the sudden surge in technology. Without spoiling the story, a crucial resource is suddenly not nearly as scarce as we'd been led to think - or the rest of the universe. It stretched my suspension of belief to the breaking point. It was an almost magical fix, something that marks less than great fiction. It was still a good story, but it lost a lot of points with me for that.Kylara's development has been rather fast too. She's killed & is coming to terms with it unevenly. Those around her are too. Again, it stretched my belief, although not as badly. Other solutions to issues were quite good, as was the portrayal of local police systems. Lots of action & suspense.
    • 3/5
      This may be the 2nd book of the series, but this is really where the plot starts. The Vatta family and their home planet are attacked by surprise by an unknown agency from space. That agency soon seems to be a group of pirates, as they attack Vatta ships in space too. Ky Vatta starts organizing a defense against them, and with the help of some friendly mercenaries. uncovers a plot within the plot. Good, but not great low-tech science fiction.
    • 4/5
      The start of Ky's independence. She is now captain of one of the few surviving Vatta vessels, although the details of the rest of the family are very sketchy. Somehow she has to start from the ignoble base of an old slow and small freighter to gather enough resources to rebuild her fmaily name, and cope with grief from her recent losses, and come to grips with the killer instinct she appears to have inherited from somewhere. And deal with the inevitable local quirks of any given station that she visits. THese are all easy reads, fast and fun.,
    • 3/5
      Volume two of the series and much better Someone has the Vatta family targeted for destruction can the survivors regroup around Ky? Will all the loose ends be tied up? Well no to the second Elizabeth Moon wants this series to run. But don't worry there is a good resolution with no sign of mid series sag. It was amusing when the she got weapons made by the same company who's agricultural equipment caused her so much trouble in the previous volume.
    • 5/5
      The second book is every bit as good as the first. Fast moving, exciting and sometimes funny. Elizabeth Moon continues makes my own attempts at space opera feel inadequate. Excellent stuff. This is the kind of science fiction I love and had been finding difficult to find. Not any more.
    • 4/5
      This is the second in the series, and I think it is better than the first. The universe has been expanded, amid the destruction of the Vatta family there is a whole load more political stuff going on that is revealed. Or more accurately it is strongly hinted at and clues dispensed, there isn't a big reveal, other than that there is a wider and more twisty world than the one that Ky Vatta had been living in before.
    • 4/5
      Vatta's War series
      1 Trading in Danger
      2 Marque and Reprisal
      3 Engaging the Enemy
      4 Command Decision
      5 Victory Conditions

      These 5 books are not so much a series as one long novel - there's one story arc, and you really need to read all five to get to the (satisfying) conclusion. (I somehow had the misapprehension that there were only 4 in the series - luckily the public library came through and got me #5 expediently!)
      Due to a misjudgement, Kylara Vatta, scion of an interstellar shipping business, gets kicked out of military academy shortly before graduation. She's pretty crushed by the end of her hopes for a military career, but there's always the family business to fall back on... or is there? Someone's apparently got it out for her family, and before Ky knows it, she's catapulted into the midst of a space war, seeking justice and vengeance against an unsavory alliance of pirates.
      These are first and foremost action-adventure books, with plenty of shoot-em-up scenes and an uncomplicated moral compass - you know who the 'bad guys' are, and although Ky is normally affected by the trauma of war (even seeking therapy at one point), she's always clearly on the side of right. The one thing I wished the story had was more exploration of the bad guys' motivations - OK, we know they're racist, and bigoted against 'modified' humans (people who've had either genetic or physical/technological augmentation), and of course they want power - but what's the story behind it all?
      However, the characters of the 'good guys' are well-drawn, and the story's definitely recommended for those who like strong female characters: there's Ky, with her military and strategic brilliance, her cousin Stella, who has the financial and business acumen to bring Vatta Enterprises back from the brink - and there's their grandmother, Grace, who is far from being the harmless old lady people might assume. (Grace might be my favorite character - it's wonderful to see an older woman portrayed with such verve.)
      As many have mentioned, there are some definite parallells here with Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan saga. I'm not sure these are *quite* as good, but if you like one, I'd guess you'll like the other.
    • 4/5
      Whew. Action and more action. Definitely has all the marks of being one of the middle books of a series - not much character development or even much world-development. But the new characters are interesting, and the new twists in the arc of the quintology (?) are interesting.

      Again the disclaimer. I don't like politics or military, mystery or adventure. But Moon just writes so well, with special insight and wit, I'm loving this and look forward to 3 of 5....
    • 2/5
      I think this book suffers from "series-itis" -- it doesn't have much sense of climax, just of "to be continued". I wish Moon was still writing stuff like Paksenarrion and Remnant Population, both of which I enjoyed far more.
    • 5/5
      5 stars for the slingshot! Awesome idea
    • 4/5
      The premise: We're going to Barnes & Noble for the SECOND book in this series: The exciting military career she hoped for never got off the ground–but Ky Vatta ended up seeing plenty of combat when she took the helm of one of the commercial transport vessels in her family’s fleet . . . and steered it into a full-blown war. Now the lessons she learned in that trial by fire are about to pay off: because this time, the war has come to her. To be exact, someone unknown has launched a full-throttle offensive against Vatta Transport Ltd., Ky’s father’s interstellar shipping empire. In short order, most of Ky’s family is killed, and subsequent attacks sever vital lines of communication, leaving Ky fighting, in every sense, to survive.Determined to identify the ruthless mystery enemy and avenge her family’s name, Ky needs not only firepower but information. And she gets both in spades–from the band of stranded mercenaries she hooks up with, from her black-sheep cousin, Stella, who’s been leading a secret life, and from Stella’s roguish ex-lover, Rafe. Together they struggle to penetrate the tangled web of political intrigue that’s wreaking havoc within InterStellar Communications, whose effective operation their own livelihoods–and perhaps lives–depend on.But the infighting proves to be infectious, and it isn’t long before Ky’s hired military muscle are turning their suspicions on the enigmatic Rafe, whose wealth ofknowledge about ISC’s clashing factions and startling new technologies has begun to make him smell like a rat . . . or a mole. With swift, violent destruction a very real possibility, the last thing Ky needs is a crew divided against itself–and she’s prepared to take whatever measures are necessary to ensure that Vatta stays in business, as well as in one piece.What she’s not prepared for is the shocking truth behind the terror– and a confrontation with murderous treachery from a source as unexpected as it is unrelenting.My RatingWorth the Cash: while I borrowed this book from a friend, I wouldn't (in hindsight) have minded spending money on it. It's a fast read despite certain parts of the story that get a little too bogged down in details, and the cast additions are really refreshing. I'm starting to become a little more emotionally engaged with what's happening, and not just because there's been a huge tragedy come upon the Vatta family either. It's because I get to see Ky interact with people OTHER than her crew, and while I'm impressed with her as a starship captain (Moon's military experience really shines through), I'm glad to see other sides of her. The side that relates to family, and the side still struggling to define who she is in this universe, and I don't mean on an existential level either: she's got to decide to stay part of Vatta, or to do something more, and that decision makes her character very interesting indeed. I'm looking forward to reading ahead in the series at this point, and that's a good thing, since there's still three books left. :)Review style: Two sections, what I liked and what I didn't. No spoilers. The full review is in my LJ, and as always, comments and discussion are most welcome.REVIEW: Elizabeth Moon's MARQUE AND REPRISALHappy Reading!
    • 3/5
      Ky Vatta's survived her first encounter with a hostile universe and thinks she's cut out for life as a trader after all but back home on Slotter Key, dark forces are at work that will see Vatta Enterprises almost destroyed and Slotter Key cut off from the rest of the universe. With the future of her family dependant on Kyla and her supposedly no-good cousin Stella, those people hostile to Vatta thought they would have an easy time implementing their nefarious plans, but Ky and Stella have their own ideas, and they have no intention of letting Vatta go down the drainpipe of history's failures. This book mainly deals with the initial effects of the attack on Vatta and Ky's realisation that Stella isn't as silly as her reputation