01/22/2018
Nebula-winner Moon extends her long-running Vatta’s War military SF series (after Cold Welcome) with a middling installment set on Slotter Key, the Vatta family’s home planet and center of their commercial empire. Former Admiral Ky Vatta, having escaped a dastardly assassination attempt in deep space, has found herself nearly penniless and blamed for major crimes, with her former crew members either dead or far away. She and her fiancé, Rafe, seek evidence to clear her name, but soon they are embroiled with an insurrection. Grace’s youthful actions have brought on conflicts with other powerful families, who are plotting vengeful sedition against the government. Holding the line are her redoubtable aunt Grace, Slotter Key’s powerful rector of defense, and cousin Stella, CEO of the Vatta family’s vast holdings. This story’s domestic tensions and volleys against military and civilian bureaucracy don’t achieve the heights of Moon’s typical space operatics, though about halfway through, the action heats up. Moon’s powerful female characters send the unmistakable message that whatever men try to do, these women can do much, much better. Agent: Joshua A. Bilmes, JABberwocky Literary. (Feb.)

[Elizabeth] Moon’s powerful female characters send the unmistakable message that whatever men try to do, these women can do much, much better.”—Publishers Weekly

“Intrigue and great action scenes, along with punchy dialogue.”—SFRevu

Praise for Elizabeth Moon’s Cold Welcome

“A gripping page-turner with enough twists and turns to satisfy even the most hardened sf reader.”—Booklist

“Like much of Elizabeth Moon’s fiction, the characters shine.”—SSFWorld

“Abounding with a new set of piratical baddies, ramped-up military slang, assorted betrayals, and echoes of Shackleton’s incredible cold-weather trek.”—Publishers Weekly

“An exciting tale of military sf.”—Library Journal

“Solidy engrossing . . . Moon’s great strength is her characters, particularly the soldiers and how they comport themselves when under great stress.”—Kirkus Reviews

2018-01-23
In this sequel to Cold Welcome (2017), itself part of a long-standing military science-fiction series, ex-Adm. Ky Vatta must confront a murderous conspiracy against her family and the government of her home planet, Slotter Key.In the previous adventure, Ky overcame sabotage, treachery, and abandonment to bring her inexperienced troops safely home and reveal the outlines of a simmering plot against the Vatta clan and business empire. This time out, Moon emphasizes cloak-and-dagger intrigue rather than her heroine's specialty, space combat. Ky learns that her troops have been seized, drugged, and held incommunicado, while all the evidence of the conspiracy that she so carefully collected has disappeared. And, along with her love interest, Rafe, CEO of a corporation that manufactures instantaneous communicators, she finds herself tied up in legal knots, cut off from her finances, and threatened with arrest and imprisonment. Clearly the conspirators reach to the highest levels of Slotter Key's government—but who bears Vatta such vicious, long-standing ill will? Ky must discover the whereabouts of her troops before their jailers can permanently dispose of them, while other family members—Grace, the planet's Rector of Defense, and CEO Stella, whose relationship with Ky has often been prickly—lead the resistance. Once again Moon's adherence to the military honor code drives and binds the plot's mechanics while providing a mute and perhaps ironic commentary on modern public affairs. Sadly, we get only a few glimpses of the opposition, one of whom, rather feebly, is motivated solely by old familial grudges and rivalry while another—quite implausibly—disagrees and prepares to betray his own family. And, somewhat deflatingly, it proves to be a yarn that, rather than working up to the conclusion, winds down.There's always so much to admire in Moon's work that, even when she's not fully engaged, readers will be gratified.