Favorite Author: Elizabeth Moon
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There may be spoilers below. Read at your own risk.
If you’ve been around here for long, you might have picked up that I like female protagonists who are plucky and go for the brass ring. Possibly my favorite books of all time are Elizabeth Moon’s The Deed of Paksenarrion. I’ve bought it in mass paperback, as a trade sized three book bundle, and as a single volume on my kindle. I’ve recommended it to several people who love it as well. Some books sell themselves.
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The original books came out in the eighties. First, The Sheepfarmers Daughter, next came Divided Allegiance, and finally Oath of Gold. The trilogy follows Paks as she joins an army, gets mixed up in things and how she comes out the other side.
The first time I read these, I couldn’t put them down. Period. Took them everywhere to read in any downtime. I found out about Elizabeth Moon through a box of books for charity. She had a space opera out. Sassinak. Love this book. Plucky girl in a space navy. Once I had finished that one, I scoured my local mall bookstore and found Sheepfarmers Daughter.
“In a sheepfarmers low stone house, high in the hills above Three Firs, two swords hang now above the mantelpiece. ”
The book begins with Paks leaving her home after her father tells her she must marry a man after she’s been clear she wouldn’t. What’s a sheepfarmers daughter to do now? Paks follows the road to the next town to catch up with a mercenary company who is recruiting. Off we go into the adventure with Paks at the helm.
Military maneuvers make me want to cry. I’ll skip that stuff and get back to the dialogue. Elizabeth Moon served in the Marine Corps and had an interest in fencing. Her descriptions of the cohort’s training and movement were so well done that I didn’t realize how much of those scenes I’d actually read and retained.
Almost every single one of my gaming characters has Paks somewhere in their name. No one has ever said they recognized it out loud. The courage of Paks infuses you as the reader. You’re marching in the mud or the dust. You’re practicing with poles. You live in the world as she does. You grow with her as moves in the ranks.
“The things that were so bad, that hurt so. If I forget them, if I forget such things still happen, how can I help others?”
Part of the author’s skill is in teasing out the everyday moments of an army. The relationships between the recruits, the first battle, and of course there is an overarching evil that must be vanquished. You stay for the entire ride. There are books you finish and realize your entire weekend is behind you. You’ve got to go to work tomorrow. Delicious and exhausting.
Currently, I’ve been reading her Vatta’s War and Vatta’s Peace. Space opera stuff. I think I’ll read almost anything she writes. She hits my sweet spot. Lots of action and talking.
I seem to trend towards female authors. It was never something I did with conscious thought. My guy pointed it out to me when we first combined our stuff and were sorting books. We both had boxes full. Movers really hate us.
“It’s possible to like bad people, but liking them doesn’t make them good. ”
Elizabeth Moon has many awards for her writing. The worlds she populate sing with crystal clear intentions with an undercurrent of reality. It’s a fantasy world of sword and board. Recognizable to anyone who enjoys the genre. Yet with The Deed of Paksenarrion, she never let the story rest for too long. Bad things happen. Good things, too. Sort of like life.
What books do you read and reread? I love new to me books.
