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Summary
Summary
Nebula Award-winning author Elizabeth Moon makes a triumphant return to science fiction with a thrilling series featuring Kylara Vatta, the daring hero of her acclaimed Vatta's War sequence.
After nearly a decade away, Nebula Award-winning author Elizabeth Moon makes a triumphant return to science fiction with this installment in a thrilling new series featuring the daring hero of her acclaimed Vatta's War sequence.
Summoned to the home planet of her family's business empire, space-fleet commander Kylara Vatta is told to expect a hero's welcome. But instead she is thrown into danger unlike any other she has faced and finds herself isolated, unable to communicate with the outside world, commanding a motley group of unfamiliar troops, and struggling day by day to survive in a deadly environment with sabotaged gear. Only her undeniable talent for command can give her ragtag band a fighting chance.
Yet even as Ky leads her team from one crisis to another, her family and friends refuse to give up hope, endeavoring to mount a rescue from halfway around the planet--a task that is complicated as Ky and her supporters find secrets others will kill to protect: a conspiracy infecting both government and military that threatens not only her own group's survival but her entire home planet.
Praise for Elizabeth Moon
Trading in Danger
"A mix of space opera, military science fiction and human drama, this is an exciting and often touching novel." -- RT Book Reviews
Marque and Reprisal
"Excellent plotting and characters support the utterly realistic action sequences: swift, jolting, confusing, and merciless. It's a corker!" -- Kirkus Reviews
Engaging the Enemy
"Moon has created a richly imagined universe of different cultures, replete with intriguing characters and the sense of unlimited possibility that characterizes the most appealing science fiction." -- School Library Journal
Command Decision
"One of scifi's best military space series . . . confirms Moon's place with Lois McMaster Bujold and David Weber in the top tier of turn-of-the-millennium military SF writers."--Syfy
Victory Conditions
"Rip-roaring action and intriguing science and tactics distinguish Nebula winner Moon's fifth and final Vatta's War installment. . . . A fine and fitting conclusion to Moon's grand space opera tour de force." -- Publishers Weekly
Author Notes
Elizabeth Moon was born March 7, 1945, and grew up in McAllen, Texas, graduating from McAllen High School in 1963. She has a B.A. in History from Rice University (1968) and another in Biology from the University of Texas at Austin (1975) with graduate work in Biology at the University of Texas, San Antonio.
She served in the USMC from 1968 to 1971, first at MCB Quantico and then at HQMC. She married Richard Moon, a Rice classmate and Army officer, in 1969; they moved to the small central Texas town where they still live in 1979. They have one son, born in 1983.
(Publisher Fact Sheets)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Nebula-winner Moon's popular far-future Vatta's War series (Trading in Danger) roars on after a break of nearly a decade with this extended survival-and-rescue mission. Intrepid adventurer Kylara Vatta, a precocious Space Defense Force grand admiral at 29, blasts off in a shuttle to accept a hero's welcome on the home planet of Slotter Key that she once left in disgrace-but she crashes on its least habitable icy continent. Familiar and colorful characters resurface, such as Ky's rakish lover, Rafe Dunbarger, CEO of the vast Interstellar Communications, and Ky's redoubtable great-aunt Grace Vatta, baker of clandestine fruitcakes and head of Slotter Key's planetary defense. Abounding with a new set of piratical baddies, ramped-up military slang, assorted betrayals, and echoes of Shackleton's incredible cold-weather trek, this lengthy space opera alternates among Ky in the planet's coldest regions and a spooky tunnel environment, Aunt Grace's political and economic machinations in the planetary capital, and Rafe's paramilitary derring-do, all typical though flamboyant elements of Moon's sci-fi mystery-action saga. Agent: Joshua Bilmes, JABberwocky Literary. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Ky Vatta, now an accomplished and battle-hardened admiral, is reluctantly returning to her home planet, Slatter Key. Her great aunt, recently appointed head of the planet's department of defense, has requested Ky come and oversee some complicated family business. Despite Ky's hopes that her homecoming will be understated, a larger plot of conspiracy and sabotage comes to light when Ky's shuttle veers off-course and crashes on an uninhabited island. As Ky and her crew struggle to survive, a complicated web of lies, allegiances, and espionage threatens to bring down the Vatta family and prevent Ky's rescue. Moon returns to hard sf after nearly eight years, visiting familiar characters from the Vatta's War series. Though it is intended as an alternate entry in the series, readers need not have read the previous books to enjoy this one; Moon provides enough backstory to fill in any blanks. A gripping page-turner with enough twists and turns to satisfy even the most hardened sf reader, this is a great return to the tales of the Vatta family.--Ciesla, Carolyn Copyright 2017 Booklist
Guardian Review
The End of the Day by Claire North, The Book of Bera by Suzie Wilde, From Darkest Skies by Sam Peters, The Apartment by SL Grey, Cold Welcome by Elizabeth Moon Claire North, the pseudonym of Catherine Webb, has earned a reputation for tackling serious subjects with a lightness of touch, enviable readability and an assured narrative control. The End of the Day (Orbit, [pound]16.99) is her most ambitious novel, taking on a plethora of major issues and offering hope. Charlie is the Harbinger of Death -- whose office is based, prosaically, in Milton Keynes -- and he travels the world meeting those about to be visited or merely brushed by Death, and observing events and cultures about to pass from existence. His fellow Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Pestilence, War and Famine, are normal men and women like Charlie who also jet around on business. It's a surreal, whimsical conceit that allows North to examine bigotry, global warming, humanity's propensity for violence -- and the big one, the meaning of life and death. Every one of the short 110 chapters is shaped with philosophical panache. In The Book of Bera (Unbound, [pound]16.99), Suzie Wilde heaps misfortune after catastrophe on the shoulders of her young protagonist, the eponymous Bera, and then catalogues her efforts to understand and overcome her lot. Bera is blessed -- or cursed -- with "sight", the ability to see into the future, control the forces of nature and ward off evil spirits. She lost her mother when young, and loses her best friend; her father then weds her against her will to another clan. The setting is not that of some generic feudal/pastoral fantasy, but a lovingly detailed Norse land that Wilde brings to startling life along with the minutiae of Viking culture. As Bera grows with the knowledge of her gift, she foresees disaster ahead for her new clan, and is torn between the need to save her people and the desire to avenge the slaughter of her childhood friend. The first volume of the Sea Paths series, this is an impressive debut. We have been here many times before: the detective mourning his/her partner/colleague is tasked with solving the crime of his/her death and coming to terms with his/her grief. But From Darkest Skies (Gollancz, [pound]14.99) by Sam Peters is different. After Alysha Rause is murdered on the planet Magenta, her husband, secret agent Keon Rause, travels there to investigate her death -- with a copy of his wife as an AI in his head. What follows is a complex noir thriller as Rause tracks down a serial killer in a beautifully depicted alien world and learns more about Alysha and her enigmatic "copy" than he ever thought possible. Peters' second novel is not only a gripping SF crime thriller but a moving investigation into the limitations and capabilities of artificial intelligence. After suffering a break-in at their Cape Town apartment, Mark and Stephanie decide to house-swap with a couple in Paris as a way of getting away from it all and, in Mark's case, fleeing the horrors of his past. In The Apartment (Pan, [pound]7.99), SL Grey -- the pseudonym of Sarah Lotz and Louis Greenberg -- sets up an interesting premise and introduces, little by little, elements of inevitable horror. The apartment turns out to be not quite the chic pad they'd hoped for -- it's more of a squat in a decrepit building inhabited by one other resident, a mad artist. It might even be haunted. The story is told in first-person chapters alternating between Mark and Stephanie, allowing the authors to play with narrator reliability and to examine the fracture lines in the husband and wife relationship. Despite some unconvincing character motivation, The Apartment is afast-paced, page-turning chiller that gallops towards its ambiguous climax. Elizabeth Moon's Cold Welcome (Orbit, [pound]8.99) marks the start of a new series following the gutsy and resourceful Ky Vatta, protagonist of the previous Vatta's War books. Now a victorious admiral of the interstellar Space Defence Force, she returns to her homeworld of Slotter Key expecting a hero's welcome. Instead, her shuttle is sabotaged and she and her peacekeeping force are stranded in the icy wastes of the planet's north pole. What follows is a tensely told story of survival against the odds, as Vatta battles against the natural elements, a quarry that wants her dead and a traitor in her midst. Nebula award-winning Moon excels at depicting an independent leader of men and women who is open to doubt and soul-searching. - Eric Brown.
Kirkus Review
After an extendedand impressiveexcursion into fantasy, Moon returns to science fiction, picking up her Vatta's War series (Victory Conditions, 2008, etc.) where she left off.Although no prior knowledge is assumed or required, we plunge immediately into a swirl of familial politics and interstellar intrigue. Following her victory in the recent brutal war, Ky Vatta, now the youthful Grand Admiral of the interstellar Space Defense Force, returns to her home planet, Slotter Key. But Ky's shuttle loses contact and crashes into the sea. Searches, hampered by a lack of communications, appalling weather, official foot-dragging, and a deliberate, long-term effort to conceal the region from probes, prove fruitless. Ky must take command of a motley band of soldiers who only reluctantly accept her authoritythey report to Slotter Key, not Ky's space fleetand weld them into a force capable of survival, maybe even fighting, in the extreme cold. Neither Grace Lane Vatta, Ky's great-aunt and Slotter Key's civilian Rector of Defense, nor Stella Vatta, CEO of the family business empire, believe Ky is dead. And Ky's love interest, Rafe Dunbarger, CEO of a corporation that makes ansibles (instantaneous communicators), has a secret, private method of communication, so he knows she's alive. Once again, Moon's great strength is her characters, particularly the soldiers and how they comport themselves when under great stress. Less robust, the underlying plot, or what little's discernable here, comes across as a trudging retread of previous conspiracies and treacheries. And while the life-and-death situation intrigues, the overall narrative lacks tensionKy's successfully negotiated so many similar circumstances we never seriously consider the possibility that she'll be killed or even defeated. Solidly engrossing if unspectacular fare, with greatest appeal to readers who prefer the familiar over the innovative. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Coming home to a war hero's welcome would please most people, but Adm. Kylara Vatta is returning to the planet where her parents and siblings were killed. However, plans are dashed when her shuttle is compromised and crashes into the ocean. Ky works on getting surviving passengers to land, not knowing if the attack was aimed at her or someone else, if they are being hunted, or if one of the group is the saboteur. As the crew finally makes land on a small arctic island, Ky discovers that their refuge holds some secrets of its own, secrets that a mysterious government faction will do anything to keep hidden. VERDICT Moon's fresh series launch brings back the celebrated heroine of her "Vatta's War" books, along with the Vatta family. Business and governmental exploits clash in an exciting tale of military sf that will delight fans of the genre and series alike. [See Prepub Alert, 10/31/16.]-KC © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.