Rating: 
Summary: Plodding, by the numbers retread
Review: If you've read the Heris Serrano books, or the Esmay Suiza books, you've seen this book done better. The pacing of the book is even, but excruciatingly slow. The book is more similar to Legacy of Gird and Liar's Oath, than to Moon's other books. It feels as if a particularly uninspired author pounded this one out to meet a deadline.
The book starts quickly, but predictably, setting up the story. It then slows terribly and despite the trials, tribulations and dangers our protagonist suffers, it is difficult to be emotionally engaged.
The ending gets better though, showing Captain Ky getting on her own feet without family, or academy and shows promise for the next book. Without the ending this book was perilously close to being a 2 or 1 star book.
Rating: 
Summary: Adventure in Self-growth
Review: "Trading in Danger" is an adventure story in the context of a trading company, replacing the camel caravans and clipper ships of old with the space ships of tomorrow. Excitement and adventure in an imaginative story of a young woman's self-growth, dealing with commercial enterprises, military threats, leadership responsibility, risk taking, family relationships, romantic challenges, all in the face of injustice, subterfuge, and disasters. The seductive lure of security or the challenge of independence? Are these mutually exclusive, or does the one require the other?
Using a totally different plot, this story shares a theme of the movie "Liberty Valance," illustrating the need of both intellect and force in defending freedom, for an individual or a society.
Rating:
Summary: Solid Moon
Review: A good start to a new series. Typically of Moon, this book while a good read feels more like its setting the stage for further books in the series (kind of like the herris serrano books set the stage for the superior and more entertaining Esmay Suiza. I expect to see many of the plots so far unexplored to reappear in further books (around the time you just starting to forget about them) and possibly a couple of new main characters for the Vatta Family stealing the spotlight from trading in dangers would be hero.To say this book is a rip off of a warriors apprentice is totally incorrect. Miles and vatta are two completly different people living in two completly different worlds. Miles is from a male dominated society that has suffered mass casualties in war (protect the womb!) while Vatta is from a high tech society capable of breeding outside the female womb, freeing women from being seen as the only form of population growth, and therefor fragile and needed to be protected. Miles wanted to join the military because it was the thing for young nobles to do, Vatta mearly wanted her independence. The connection with the agricultural machinery only occurs for two reasons. 1. with soldiers at war, machinery is needed to replace the work said soldiers would normally do. 2. agricultural machinery is often complication machinery, making it easy to hide a weapon in all those parts. thus machinery that is needed (and would be expected to be allowed to pass for humanitarian reasons) is a likely cover for smuggling. both writers worked on this principal, they just used seperate sides of the argument.
Rating:
Summary: A great read
Review: Another great story by elizabeth moon. if you loved the sarrono and esmay stories you'll love this book as well. I can't wait to read more.
Rating: 
Summary: Why bother
Review: As a fan of Elizabeth Moon's Serrano series I looked forward to a new space adventure. However, I am also a fan of Bujold's Vorkosigan series and Trading in Danger's plot bears a suspicious resemblence to the plot in Warrior's Apprentice. See below.
1) In both books the protagonist has been kicked out of the military.
2) In both books the protagonist gets hold of an old merchant vessel.
3) In Warrior's apprentice, the hero knowingly takes on a cargo of weapons which are being passed off as "agricultrual implements". In Trading in Danger its a load of tractors - both shipments are taken into a war zone.
4) Both take on board some hard luck cases
5) Both ships are boarded by mercenaries - to continue would be to spoil the plot of the better book - Warrior's Apprentice. Overall Trading in Danger seems to be a weak copy of an excellent book. So as I said, why bother with this one?
Rating:
Summary: Excellent! Simply excellent!
Review: Before this book, I never read an Elisabeth Moon novel. I loved the story line and characters. It was a little thin, but I'm hoping there will be more pages worth in the next book of this series. I give "Two Thumps-up"! Well done! Bring on more of Kylara Vatta, her ship, and her crew!
Rating:
Summary: ANOTHER GOOD ONE FROM MOON
Review: Being a Moon fan, I was delighted to see the start of another series. I found this to be a pleasant read, with wonderful character developement and Moon's strange ability to make even the mundane interesting. I love her details. I note that several reviewers were whinning about absolutely no sexual content. I actually found this to be rather refreshing for a change. Like Moon's Paks, the author spends time examining moral issues, ethics, etc. Her characters are simply human, with all that entails. This is nice. I am not a big "fiction space fan," prefering fantasy and history, but I did enjoy this one and am looking forward to the following books. Ms. Moon is one of our more gifted authors/story tellers. I still wish Paks would ride back into her mind, but until then, this story line will certainly do. Thank you Ms. Moon.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Stuff
Review: Enjoyed it. Hoping for more about this character.
Rating:
Summary: readable, but uninspired
Review: From the first page of the book, everything screams "conventional". Young female scion of a rich family gets tossed out of the local military academy for making an embarassing mistake. She gets appointed captain of one of her family's trading ships and heads off into space on a simple milk run. You know where this is going to go, and how it is going to get there. You think.
Interestingly, it doesn't really go where you think it might. Instead of somehow pulling off a feat of military brilliance, she simply works as hard as she can to keep her crew safe and turn a profit.
Sadly, that is really the only interesting aspect to the book. The universe is interchangible with any of several dozen others, the characters are all two-dimensional and barely sketched out (except for the central heroine), and the resolution is unsatisfying. It's not that the book is bad, it's just not very good.
The most telling problem is that the teaser for the second book in the series is more exciting and interesting than anything in the entire first book. The second biggest problem is that the most interesting character in the book is a mercenary soldier who makes only two brief appearances.
Rating:
Summary: Below her usual, still above most everyone else
Review: Having read Moon's "Deed of Paksenarion" trilogy, "Remnant Population", "The Speed of Dark" and some of her short stories, this was - something of a disapointment. The main character is irritating, in some ways; the actions and thoughts of everyone around her are overly focused on her. This may be an author's way of emphasizing what an extrordinarry person she is not through her own words but through the thoughts of others; if this is so then it's overkill and boggs down what it's supposed to help. She's yet another adventuresome girl with military training from a rich family who has "destined for great adventure" written all over her, in size 72 bold font. This isn't so much a story in it's own right as it is a prelude to the story of this girl's life, off in space with her own ship to adventure. Still, it's Elizabeth Moon, and I'll read the next books and follow her adventures. It's bound to get better, and I've certainly read many worse.
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