Vatta's War Gets Deadly

Kylara Vatta's life as a trader ship captain gets more than a little "interesting" as her family is destroyed, and her own life and ship are attacked by powerful enemies. The overall plot moves forward at a quick pace as the violence against the Vattas escalates and intensifies. The interaction between Ky and Stella is not particularly healthy, and is, IMO, one of the weaker elements of this series.

The reader, Cynthia Holloway, is still by far not my favourite reader, but she does seem better in this and later books in the series. I've given the performance a 3 out of 5. It adds nothing to the series, but isn't an annoying distraction either. Overall, this book is a 4 out of 5, and with a better reader would be a 5 out of 5.

11 people found this helpful

Conspiracies and sabotage

This is my second book by Elizabeth Moon and I am getting hooked on this series. Kylara Vatta is in command of an old Vatta transport ship from book one and is trying to find other members of the Vatta family and gather them up to fight back against whoever is trying to kill them all. She finds her cousins Stella,a company spy and 14 year old Toby who is the only survivor of the transport ship he was interned on. Rafe a friend of Stella and spy for the InterStellar Communication companies also joins the crew. They are swept up in intrigue, conspiracies, sabotage and fighting for their lives. Moon provides some assassination attempts and a space battle scene. Aunt Gracie who is famous for her fruit cakes in book one and the family "ding bat" turns out the be the family spy master, she is the only one of the older generation alive now. The reader could be better. Can not wait to read the next book in the series.

4 people found this helpful

More (not always a good thing)

The second book in the story of the Vatta family is an old fashioned chase, albeit one that involves FTL trade ships, privateers in space and a conspiracy that gets very big, very fast.

There is no doubt that the author raises the stakes and widens the playing field. This includes adding more character perspectives, including the misunderstood cousin with a secret life, the aunt that is a spy master of great skill, and the rogue that’s really the heir to the CEO of the most powerful corporation in known space. This introduces my principal gripe with the series, the delivery of too many characters’ viewpoints, either contributing too much or nothing at all.
The book does begin to live up to the promise of actual combat, though it is simple gunplay for the most part. Where it deviates from that is the unconventional use of mines and the obligatory zero-g melee, which were interesting enough.
I’d hoped that the unfortunate breakup that befell the central character in the first book was the only romantic interest one would have to up with, I guess I was fooling myself.

4 people found this helpful

ok story - terrible narrator

I liked this book enough to get the next in the story. Kylara is an engaging heroine and her adventures are a fun way to not have to think to hard about a story.

The narrator on the other hand has bumped me out of the story on a number of occasions by mispronouncing words of all things - in fact this is probably down to poor editing more than the narrators fault. But there are some very simple words mispronounced, the one coming to mind is row (as in a row of objects in a line) used instead of row (as in a petty fight). Come on Audible this is not prose but it is English!!!

8 people found this helpful

Marque?

Any additional comments?

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.

2 people found this helpful

Improved Narration, not much different story

This being book 2 of the series you would expect an improvement on the writing, as often happens in series, this is partially true in this instance. the use of "he said", "she said" has diminished to a large degree to be replaced by context identifiers, however the story often has large descriptive sections where very little appears to be happening. these descriptive points are mostly useful to the overall story, but surely could be descibed in a more interesting way or in smaller chuncks.
The performance in this book is greatly improved from the first. Different characters are better seperated by voices, and the female narrator does not attempt to do voices that in the first book sounded terrible.
If you were greatly dissapointed in Book 1, I would recommend stopping while you can. if you could cope with it then continue and enjoy.

2 people found this helpful

Good Book

This book had good surprises and a strong charter development with action, Sabatage and back stabing

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She's Back!!!!!

Ky Vatta returns and she's in deeper trouble than before. Ky is growing to be a great character who through her charm and resolve earns the respect of those much older and experienced than her. When the Plot against her family proves to be bigger than she realizes. Ky teams with her Infamous cousin Stella and her Eccentric Great Aunt Gracie who both are more than they seem. Ky is getting for the fight of her life as she makes a decision to where her path will lead. And It will cost her blood in more ways than one.

2 people found this helpful

Excellent book, terribad narrator

Marque and Reprisal, the second book of the Vatta's War series, is a typically excellent effort from Elizabeth Moon. The plot is strong, the characters are believable and engaging, and the action is excellently handled. No surprises on the writing side.

But the narrator reads as if she understands only the words and not the sentences. And the plot of the book is apparently a a complete mystery to her. This begins with consistent inability to recognize phrases like "attitude jets", (which she consistently reads as "altitude jets") and in many circumstances it's clear from her phrasing that she does not understand the meaning of what she is reading even as sentences.

Furthermore, she reads most characters in exactly the same voice, which is not an advantage, but if consistent is no great disadvantage. But then she reads one character in a strange "accent" that is very distracting.

If it were not for the strength of the underlying material, the narration would be a strong disincentive to buy more books from this series, but fortunately Moon's writing can overcome even this disadvantage.

Recommended if you can look past bad narration.

1 person found this helpful

Good story, poor reader

Would you try another book from Elizabeth Moon and/or Cynthia Holloway?

I love Elizabeth Moon but I intend to never purchase a book read by Cynthia Holloway again.
This means I won't be listening to the rest of the Vatta's War series. I will look for the books in a print format.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Marque and Reprisal?

The hand to hand combat in space.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Some people perform a book, enhancing the material. Cynthia simply read it aloud. Very little differentation of character voices and common words mispronouced.

1 person found this helpful