Paksenarrion Dothansdotter, born to a humble family of northern sheepfarmers, has dreamed of a soldier's life ever since a cousin returned
from service with tales of glory and the wonders of the world beyond the pasture fences. Now eighteen, with her father demanding she marry a
local pig farmer, Paks decides to stop dreaming and follow her heart. She runs away from home to sign on with Duke Phelan's mercenaries, one of
the more honorable units operating in the realm. As childhood dreams of war collide with the hard drudgery of a soldier's life, a greater threat
grows over the land - one that will draw this sheepfarmer's daughter deep into its heart, where dark powers and unexpected miracles await.
Review
This started fast, establishing Paks as a strong-willed young woman who, instead of pining for glory and whining about her harsh life with an
abusive father, sets off down the road to make her dream come true. Unfortunately, that's about all there is to her, and the story. She wants to
be a soldier, then within two chapters, she's a recruit. Problem solved. This is followed by long chapters of training and marching here and there
across Moon's fantasy landscape, a journey in which Paks is usually little more than a pair of eyes for the reader to peek through (and a pair of
ears to receive long lectures explaining the world, its geography, its politics, and its myriad gods and saints, among other infodumps.) Paks quite
literally has no other purpose in this world, no other ambition or want save being a soldier, and nothing stops her from fulfilling it. Yawn.
Naturally, she's uncommonly talented at it - she's not a prodigy by any means, but she quickly moves to the head of the new recruits, and her
inexperience doesn't keep her from succeeding at pretty much every task she's assigned. It isn't until round about the halfway mark that things
start to go wrong, and further still before any great threat arises... but, then, this comes with a revelation (denied repeatedly, and bordering on
ridiculously, by Paks herself) that divine will may be guiding her destiny. So, not only is she a great soldier, but she's quite literally blessed.
No wonder she can't fail. After this, and a few pointless sidetracks into other characters, it ends on an awkward half-finished note - but it's the
ending that finally made me understand the snail's pace and grinding, infodump- and battle tactic-heavy tedium of the preceding story:
Sheepfarmer's Daughter is not a book per se, but merely one-third of a longer story, The Deed of Paksenarrion, with no real arc of
its own to wrap up and give the reader any semblance of satisfaction. Even though I'd almost, finally, possibly formed some manner of interest in
Paks by then, I was so ticked off to realize that I'd been duped this way that I don't foresee myself following her any further. Besides, I'd long
since reached my limit on random names - people names, city names, god names, saint names, and more - that I couldn't begin to keep straight.
Since childhood, Ophelia has been told what to do with her life, forced to give up any dreams of creativity or
education to be a housewife, mother and, for forty years, a colonist. But when the charter company, having
struggled for decades with declining populations and no profits, loses their contract, the people are given just
thirty days to pack up and leave... only Ophelia refuses to go. Even her own son considers her worthless (save as
cook and cleaner), and the company actually wants to charge a fee for transporting a woman well past breeding
(read: useful) age to another world. The septuagenarian is beyond tired of being told how worthless she is. All
she wants is peace and quiet to tend her garden, and that can't happen until everyone else has left.
Alone in the abandoned village, Ophelia feels joy for the first time since she was a little girl. She can go where
she wants, wear what she wants, do what she wants, whenever she wants. If she feels any loneliness, it's more than
outweighed by the freedom of being the only human - the only self-aware being - on the entire planet.
Or so she thinks... until she overhears a transmission from a new colony ship that ends in disaster when a
previously unknown species attacks their fledgling settlement - a species advanced enough to coordinate a battle
plan and even use war machines and explosives.
But that ship landed over a thousand kilometers away. Surely, if any of the natives were nearby, someone in
Ophelia's village would've spotted some sign of them long ago... wouldn't they?
Review
This title is something of a classic, or at least a notable title, in sci-fi circles, featuring an older woman,
widowed and a grandmother, as the unlikely point of contact with intelligent alien life. It offers a somewhat
different lens on human and alien interactions, though at times it meandered and drifted and ultimately fell back
on some tired ideas, enough to narrowly cost it a half-star.
From the start, it's clear that Ophelia, and the culture she's part of, is a throwback to mid-century gender
attitudes: women are discouraged from becoming anything but homemakers, men regularly belittle and abuse even
their own mothers, and the status quo is stringently and violently enforced when anyone dares to question it.
Ophelia knows something is not right with this arrangement, that she has been deprived of something vital and
essential, but has tolerated it for lack of options for most of her long life, until the cancellation of the
colony charter offers an unexpected opportunity for escape - if not an unlimited one. Earth-based lifeforms need
Earth-originated food sources grown or fed with Earth microbes, meaning that any plant or animal native to the
colony world cannot be digested (a restriction that goes both ways). Still, there's plenty of gardens and seeds
and livestock to support one old woman for however long she has left to live, and the company didn't bother
removing the buildings or machinery that powered the village and the orbital weather satellite. Ophelia finds
the empty place to be a paradise, freed at last to rediscover joy and whimsy. She doesn't hate her fellow humans
(though she had no love for her late, abusive second husband, and her lone surviving son turned into a petty
tyrant of the household in his cruel father's image), but she never felt like herself when she was around them,
and revels in the chance to discover who she truly is at the twilight of her life. The story drags a little here
as the old woman plots her escape and establishes new routines in the empty village. (There are also hints, now
and again, that some other force is at work behind her unusually strong bond to the planet over her own kind,
but it's never explicitly followed up on.)
A year or so into her isolation, she overhears, via the satellite feed, the disastrous second colony attempt and
learns that the planet holds more dangerous surprises. Ophelia tries to tell herself that nothing has changed,
that she'll likely pass away of old age before the native culture discovers her settlement... but even then,
part of her knows she's lying to herself, that it's only a matter of time before she is found. The People are a
reasonably interesting culture, not nearly so simple-minded or "primitive" as Ophelia initially believes,
though once again things bog down a bit as she finds herself trying to communicate with utterly inhuman visitors.
At first she sees them as almost childlike, partly because the only way she knows how to begin teaching them is
the way every parent teaches their own children, through gesture and repetition, though soon she must concede
that the People are far more intelligent than that, possibly even more precocious than humans with how quickly
they grasp new ideas. Even as she makes progress, her peace has been broken, and it's inevitable that the greater
spacefaring government and military will arrive at some point, which could be disastrous for all concerned.
Though there was plenty Remnant Population did right, in the end I found the excessive meandering and
drifting had worn on my interest. I also felt that it undermined its own oft-repeated ideas of women breaking
free of oppressive patriarchal (and ageist) cultures that expect them to be nothing more than submissive mothers
and grandmothers when it ultimately wound up making Ophelia's maternal instincts the most vital part of her
personality.
The Vatta's War series, Book 1 Elizabeth Moon Del Rey Fiction, Sci-Fi Themes: Epics, Girl Power, Space Stories ****
Description
Kylara Vatta, lone daughter of the prestigious interstellar shipping moguls behind Vatta Transport of the planet Slotter Key, is off to an inauspicious
start. Defying family tradition by joining the military academy, she seemed to have bright prospects... until an incident with a fellow cadet blackened
the Academy's eye, and she became the scapegoat. Her father, hoping to give his wayward daughter another chance, makes her captain of the Glennys
Jones, an obsolete junker making a few last trade stops on the way to the scrapheap. But when a seemingly benign opportunity practically lands in her
lap, Kylara takes a chance for glory and redemption - and winds up leading the Glennys Jones directly into the danger zone of a colonial mutiny, a
struggle which might be just the tip of great trouble about to erupt in civilized space.
Review
I got this book for free when I went to a local sci-fi con, so even though I don't normally read big-ships-in-space books, I gave it a try. I actually
enjoyed it. There's space jargon and technobabble, of course, but it's kept to a dull roar, and the plot doesn't hinge on the reader keeping track of it all.
Moon establishes some good characters and worlds, and slips in a certain undercurrent of wit now and again. Even though I was initially skeptical of the
ability of an interstellar trade/war tale to absorb me, I found myself staying up past midnight to finish it. (Yes, I often stay up past midnight anyway, but
I started reading before noon.) Incidents which at first seemed minor details look to have greater significance in future books; according to the front cover,
there are (at least) four books in Kylara's journey. I'm not sure if I'll pay the full cover price to read the next one, but I'll be keeping an eye out for
it in Half Price Books... or if Barnes & Noble sends me a sufficiently discounted coupon.
