I have enjoyed every book written by Elizabeth Moon. The Kylara Vatta series is one that I have long awaited in audio book format. Unfortunately, Cynthia Holloway sounds like a very young female child and she can't do male voices. This makes the leading mens voices sound ridiculously. Needless to say, it ruins the story completely and I could not finish listing to it. We can only hope that in the future the producers of this series will make a better selection of female reader since the books have many older male characters.

I have read the book many times. I like the story and plot and characters and I am a fan of the author but I am having trouble with the reader. Her pseudo haughty delivery plus nasally Midwestern twain that finishes off the words sounds phony. She is reading words not telling a story. The reader hasn’t prepared herself for the reading, her phasing is often wrong or is off just enough to be irritating. I am hoping to overcome my objections to the reader because I would like to get the rest of the series. Maybe as the reader gets into the books her delivery will improve.

Being a fan of David Weber's Honor Harrington Series. and being a fan of Elizabeth Moon's Deeds of Paksnerrion (Spelling) I had high hopes for this title. The story is a good start with a likable character Ky. Ky starts the story a promising young recruit who ends up in hot water. To alleviate this her family trusts her with a mission that ends her up in more hot water. The narrator does an excellent job. By only giving Ky a specific voice she escapes the mistake some narrator make when speaking for a character of an opposite sex by speaking in the irritating falsetto. I look forward to see what happens next. The story moves at an excellent pace and builds the characters enough not to be blanks.

I have been an Audible listener since 1999 and this is my first review. I am enjoying this series very much. I thought the first book started off a little slow, but this one made up for that. I am going to buy the third one in the series as soon as I finish this review. Ky Vatta is a cool character. She has hidden strengths.
I disagree with the previous reviewer about the reader's voice. Pleasant and concise.

From free wheeling to slogging. The books of The Deed Of Paksenarrion, Moon'[s first trilogy, entertained, stimulated and amused me from page one on through the end of the fourth book (actually a new trilogy with roots in Deed). I expected the same of Trading but was massively disappointed for about the first fourth of the book. The book started slowly, I did not have a clear sense of the environment and culture surrounding the characters...I may have found it hard to transition from fantasy to sf...and maybe narrator Cynthia Holloway's lack of variability between character voices worked together to stunt my interest. All of this said, I finished the book and immediately downloaded Book 2 of the Vatta's War series. Why? I am finally enjoying the plot, the action and most of all, the character of Kai Vatta. All of this said, I found the imbalance between treatment of genders hard to handle. In this book Moon's women are generally unbeatable Amazons who develop character traits throughout the story. Her men are stick figures with little importance and little else, too. This is tiresome stuff. This book is no better than average, but there is enough promise to get me to continue on to the next book.

I really enjoyed reading this series so was looking forward to listening to it and hearing nuances I had not noticed before. However the reading is adolescent -- almost all words are emphasized and pronunciation is odd on many words.

Let me start by saying I'm an Elizabeth Moon fan and have enjoyed everything she's written - some more than other, but to date I can't say I didn't like anything she's written.

This is fairly typical Moon - strong female character with strong work ethic and sense of right and wrong, independent, decisive leader, a little on the innocent/naive side, but learns lessons - gets into trouble for all the right reasons and works hard to get out of it generally with some help from tough "gunnery sergeants" (Moon was a Marine and some of the best stereotypes generally show up in her work).

I give this audiobook a 4 out of 5 because it's a good book if you like her style, although in my opinion not her best book (which I happen to think is the Deed of Paksenarrion). Also, the narrator could be better - her reading is a little stilted - areas where a character should be speaking casually are read too literally and I'd like to see her develop a greater range of character voices. But she does ok and I enjoyed both the story and narration enough to download the next book in the series.

I am enjoying reading this series. It was a bit slow starting but has picked up and I will get all the rest of the books. The narrator being female did not bother me in the least...it is Sci-Fi...using your imagination is supposed to be a given to start with, if you have one! :-)

I often listen to books provided by volunteer readers on a site that provides free audio books. You would expect that such readers would be less easy to listen to than a professional reader. The reader's voice was forced and tense. It made me tired just to listen. The story provides enough tension without adding the irritation of a poor performance.

If you just finished The Deed of Paksenarrion and bought this thinking it would be something similar just in a Science Fiction setting you are in for a disappointment.
It is too bad really. We already know Elizabeth Moon can write great books and personally I really wanted this series to be another amazing trip into another world. Unfortunately, its not. It's barely average. The narrator is stilted and mind grating, at least after just listening too Jennifer van Dyke or Stefan Rudnicki for tens of hours.
So listen to the sample first and treat the series as if you had never read anything by the author before, and if that really is the case you should pick up the Paksenarrion books instead.