October 2011, SF and fantasy

Science Fiction, Thriller | Elizabeth Moon, Jeffery Deaver

I've finished re-reading the Serrano series by Elizabeth Moon. Sigh. I wanna a Margiu Pardalt story. Wanna. Wanna. Ok, never mind. I must point out that this series is much more deserving of the name 'military science fiction' than Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series (wait for me to reread :) ). And has a lot of very strong heroines, with good support from the heroes.


FYI, more military SF comes from Eric Flint (mostly re-written historical stories; very good) and David Weber (more futuristic, rather grim; but I've read only a few). There is always the old Berserker series by Fred Saberhagen for die-hard fans, but it hasn't dated well.


Back to Serrano. Book 6 in the Serrano series is Change of Command and book 7 is Against the Odds.


In Change of Command, the Speaker gets assasinated on page one. The evil Lepescu's protegee takes over a prison camp, and seeds a Mutiny in the Fleet. Cecilia runs hither and yon solving people's problems and still being called irresponsible. Brun's mother finds out who killed her husband. Methlin Meharry's brother almost saves everyone. We meet Margiu Pardalt. We also meet Goomar Terakian and his carefree cousin Basil. Brun is visited by a most unexpected Ranger from the Lone Star Federation. The New Texas Militia hit a station. The station hits back. Vida Serrano finds out unexpected things about Altiplano. All in all, not a book you should start reading unless Against the Odds is ready to hand the minute you finish. I honestly wonder how the early readers survived the gap in publication between the two books.


Breathlessly, I flipped the pages quickly to the last of the series, Against the Odds. All the problems I mentioned above are resolved, including new ones like Esmay Suiza gets kicked out of Fleet for marrying Barin. Barin gets into an explosion. Heris gets inexperienced crew. In the interests of avoiding spoilers, I shall avoid mentioning that one of the characters gets killed. Oh, actually, whole lots of them do, especially the villains. :) The Benignity does strange things. The Familias history is explained.


Here is a quote from Against the Odds, since I cannot immediately find the one on religion that I particularly liked (ah, rats, books should be searchable):

"It's not a race."
"Sir?"
"It's not a race. Marriage. There is no "behind" or "ahead". You're not in competition; you're a partnership."

Enjoy!


Currently re-reading: The Coffin Dancer by Jeffery Deaver. Part of the Lincoln Rhyme series, in which a C4 quadriplegic forensic criminologist races to detect the villain before he murders more people.