Elizabeth Moon is one of the more versatile writers in the Speculative Fiction field, she can weave stories and novels with equal aplomb that can be categorized as Epic Fantasy, Military Fantasy, Societal Science Fiction, and Military Science Fiction. After a few years and novels spent in her popular fantasy world featuring Paksenarrion Dorthansdotter, introduced in The Deed of Paksenarrion trilogy and revisited (along with her supporting characters) in the 5-book Paladin’s Legacy series, which concluded in 2014. Here in Cold Welcome, Moon has returned to the world introduced in the 5-book Vatta’s War saga; a military SF series that was well-received and characters much beloved.
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.
Cold Welcome launches the Vatta’s Peace sequence, set shortly after the events of Victory Conditions, the finale to the Vatta’s War saga. Admiral Ky Vatta is the founder and leader of the Space Defense Force but upon her return voyage to the planet Slotter Key, her ship is sabotaged, forcing her and her crew to crash land in the ocean and eventually make landfall at what was thought to be a remote, unpopulated and largely unexplored island. Communications with off-planet people proves impossible, Ky can’t get in touch with her family or friends, so they begin to understandably assume she is dead. As if that weren’t enough, the people with whom she crashes don’t all exactly agree with her methods or like that she’s taken control of the situation. So Ky is trying to survive in a harsh environment that, in a best weather and condition scenario, is comparable to Antarctica. Couple that with a handful of people who want to see Ky fail, at best and there is a great deal of tension on her journey for survival.
Paralleling Ky’s plight for survival is her family’s quest to locate and save her featuring Ky’s cousin Stella Vatta (who runs the family business), her great-aunt and familial matriarch Grace Vatta and Rafe, who is in a slow-burning romance with Ky. Despite the odds being against Ky’s survival, Rafe and Grace maneuver and wend their way through all the obstacles which get in their paths in order to send a retrieval mission to Slotter Key.
Like much of Elizabeth Moon’s fiction, the characters shine. One of Moon’s strongest qualities is her ability to depict extremely tense situations with relative realism; these are smart, strong-willed people who are sometimes at odds with each other. She captures the situations well, but there seems to be a slight expectation that readers might have an understanding of who the returning characters are.
The parallel narrative device was effective, allowing for a dual set of tensions to be built up as the plot moved along towards the climax. The narrative focusing on Ky was more compelling as it focused on her survival and highlighted her leadership skills, although there was little doubt of her survival throughout. There are also hints, near the halfway point of the novel, that there is a much larger mystery at play in this universe.
There isn’t quite the amount or level of space battles and combat in Cold Welcome as were present in Vatta’s War, but readers should expect more character conflict, a storytelling element at which Moon excels.
As I’ve alluded, this one will likely work best for readers who have read the previous five-book sequence featuring these characters primarily, although Moon is a smart enough writer to make this book approachable to readers experiencing her fiction for the first time. When I first read Oath of Fealty, (the start of a sequel series to Moon’s popular Deed of Paksenarrion) it was the very first book I read by Elizabeth Moon, but I enjoyed it so much and was so intrigued by the world and characters that I was extremely compelled to pick up the big omnibus of the Deed of Paksenarrion. I was extremely pleased as that is now in my personal Omnibus Hall of Fame. There’s enough here in Cold Welcome to hook readers and keep them going with this series and invite them to try Trading in Danger, the novel that introduced readers to Kylar Vatta.
© 2017 Rob H. Bedford
Hardcover, 447 Pages
Published by Del Rey, May 2017
Review copy courtesy of the publisher
http://www.elizabethmoon.com/
