Darktraders

Butterfly St. Cyr #2

by Eluki bes Shahar

Butterfly St. Cyr, an honest darktrading smuggler, must bring Tiggy, the young hellflower heir to the chief diplomat of the AlMayne mercenaries, back to the Starbringer family's home world fortress. Original.

Genres: Science Fiction, Space Opera, Fiction

256 pages, Mass Market Paperback

Published March 3, 1992

About the author

An earlier pen name of Rosemary Edghill.

Reviews

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

This trilogy is criminally under-read. The first installment, Hellflower, was quite a bit of fun; you've got some "smuggler with a heart of gold" going on and swashbuckling space adventure, but in retrospect it almost feels like it was all a warm-up to get the reader up to speed on the world and characters for this book, which goes well past "fun space romp." Hellflower laid the groundwork and world-building for Darktraders to just phenomenally dive in and get complex, with layers of political intrigue and deception, growth and change for our MCs, and astonishingly good cyberpunk.

I took particular delight in the joy the author takes in words and wordplay. This trilogy isn't likely to endear itself to readers who can't abide dialect- and slang-heavy books, but a playful use of language and the almost-tongue-in-cheek place names like Tahelangone Sector mesh deliciously with the well-realized world to really set the books apart. Ignore the cover art on the deadtree editions; these are so well worth reading.

[Tina · Rating 5 out of 5]

An old favorite revisited

This is the middle book of a trilogy, and book 3 is not yet released as an ebook.

This is a tight and twisty space opera with underdogs and forbidden tech and a wicked pace.

Every solid definition you start with in this story mutates and flowers and dies in unexpected ways, and each view you get of the shape of the universe changes in response. It's breath-taking.

I highly recommend finding Hellflower, and Dark traders, and then waiting impatiently for Archangel Blues.

These books are published by Ring of Fire press, and not yet available on Amazon. Go to the website to purchase them!

https://ringoffirepress.com/shop/hell...

[Suzanne Thackston · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read this a few times now, and while my younger son (now a grownass man) and fellow Butterfly fan loves the entire trilogy wholeheartedly, I've never liked 2 and 3 as much as 1. Let's see if this re-read changes anything.
2/21 Upping the stars from 4 to 5. This re-read brought home to me that I was craving more of the Butterfly/Paladin exchanges which I so love in the first book, so the first few reads of this one really felt that lack. But going into this time remembering that it wouldn't be so freed me to simply enjoy it on its own terms. My kid is right- this is a fantastic book, and all the humor, subtlety and rollicking action are terrific on their own. It's okay that it's not modeled exactly on the first.
Yay!

[Chrysto Kalr Fray · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know what it is about this book/series but I just love it. I read it when I was in middle school and have re-read it a dozen times since. I look for space setting action type books and have always compared them to this series in the hopes that they're similar but rarely if ever find books that I enjoy as much as I have this one. The search continues though.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up Darktraders from my favorite used bookstore because one of the book sites that I regularly read recommended Hellflower, the first book in the series. I thought Hellflower would be worth checking out because how could I resist a book that has a chapter titled, “ How to file for Moral Bankruptcy?” So in lieu of finding Hellflower I read Darktraders the second book.

As the recommendation say Eluki Bes Shahar’s tale is very much an old-fashioned space opera. Not a lot of science or characterization, but a good deal of daring do and double crosses. Eluki is a pen name for Rosemary Edgehill who has written traditional fantasy with a historical fiction tint. She brings those skills to Darktraders and for the better. While some of the double crosses, and one plot reveal at the end, are pretty easy to figure out it remains a decent enough ride.

Baijon, is a member of the Hellflowers ruling class. Hellfowers are mercernaries bound by a hard bushido code and deep hatred of AI computers. It was a war 1,000 years earlier between humans and their computers that tore apart the Old Federation and decimated the human race. Even after 1,000 years the Empire occupies half of what it used to.

Events in the earlier book led to Baijon hooking up with our lead Butterfly is Free St. Cyr, smuggler, pilot escaped slave, and under a death sentence from the Empire. The two have discovered a plot by a high ranking member of the Empire who had obtained one of the old AI computers. While they took care of his computer, he still has his hands on the planet destroying weapons the Old Federation used.

The intended humor is fair, and the use of dialect often fails for me. Overall, while not original it holds up pretty well for a space opera written in 199.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been fairly fortunate so far this month in that all of the trilogies/series I've picked up have had very good middle books, and this one's no different! Darktraders takes Butterfly and Valijon through a series of personal and political dangers -- of course, in this world, the personal is political and vice versa -- and introduces them to the Big Bad that's been dogging them. Like Hellflower, there are moments where I get a little lost in the dialect and some things just don't make sense to me -- but it's still a damn good read.

[Marty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this very much. continuing adventurers of Butterfly and Valijon with Butterfly finding herself somewhat infested by a Library and Valijon finding all he had believed in will fail him.