Trading in Danger Ch7

Trading In Danger Ch7

“—an emergency like this,” she heard. “Unprecedented, we simply have no idea what will happen now.” 

I’ve tried to find a good quote that exemplifies each chapter, and so far I’ve been able to do so very easily. Ms. Moon’s writing is clear, crisp and easy to follow, which is part of the reason I chose this book for an in depth study.

This chapter has things getting yet worse for Ky and company. Two major events occur: one, business looks like it’s getting shut down by the Sabine government, which means Ky won’t be able to get a loan or repairs to her drive to be able to get her ship safely out of the system. They’re stranded. Next, ansible communications have been destroyed by the opposition, so Ky doesn’t even have the luxury of being able to call her family for reinforcements.

I mentioned last chapter that Moon does a cool thing with her writing to increase tension and danger: isolates the character. This makes the situation totally theirs, and something that someone else can’t possibly handle. It places the person we’ve connected with in an extraordinary situation, which is what makes for good science fiction. This chapter has upped that very ante by tenfold.

After this scene, Moon does something that I often see in her books that at one time as a reader, used bother me, though now that I have a much more comprehensive view of writing novels, I can’t find anything wrong with it from a craft perspective. It’s a switch of perspective to a tertiary character. For whatever reason, when this happens in novels, or if it switches perspective to the bad guys, it bothers me. I think it stems from my really enjoying immersing myself in the main character’s viewpoint and feeling the whole story from their perspective. In a very character-centric book like this, that feeling gets more pronounced. A lot of modern books switch completely to first person viewpoints for that very reason. Needless to say, I don’t enjoy George RR Martin’s books. This kind of perspective shift used sparingly doesn’t bother me at all these days, however. It switches to her father, and we see a few things: 1. That Vatta was fully aware of Ky’s competencies and set up a scenario for her to flourish as implied by her crewmates, but now is reaffirmed, 2. Further isolation. They can’t get to her and even the vast Vatta Enterprises has reason to be afraid for Ky. 3. There’s sleeper agents out there that Ky might be able to tap into. 4. There’s something more to her original military career that may be important. That brief interlude accomplished a LOT!

We return to Ky to find that she’s buttoning up the hatches, preparing herself for conflict. One of her crew, who we were told was experienced and competent earlier says he “wishes he thought of that”, which reinforces to the reader that Ky has an extraordinary ability both in her processing situations and leadership abilities. I’m focusing heavily on the character development here because this is where Moon’s writing is strongest, and is a huge driving factor for the enjoyment of the novel. The chapter ends with the station in which they’re docked shutting down their one last ditch effort to get the parts to escape this war.

The story’s in full throttle mode right now. It’s getting difficult to read only a chapter a day and hold off so I can write a blog on it!