PG16- Surrender None (v,slight x), Sassinak (v,slight x,some b), Generation Warriors (some v,some x), Lunar Activity (v,b)
I've only read a few books by her, but Moon has a pretty clear style, and she prefers to write about the military and female main characters. Her books seem to contain a reasonable amount of detail without overwhelming descriptions.
While certainly not the best writer I have ever read, Moon nonetheless is perfectly reasonable for when you want an action story with some emotional involvement but not a lot of heavy thinking. She's very good at inspiring moral outrage, and she writes a rollicking good fight scene. I often find her main characters intriguing, though the secondary ones sometimes lack depth. Readers who like military stories or action-adventures are the ones most likely to enjoy her work.
Elizabeth Moon, a former marine, knows what she's talking about when she writes books with soldiers in them, and fortunately she also knows how to write. Whether in fantasy or science fiction setting, she has the ability to demonstrate the humanity behind the heroes and the circumstances that lead soldiers to become who they are, as well as the characters of people in a wide assortment of other roles. If you like character-driven writing that gives you a good view of both the dark and lighter sides of humanity, she's a good one to read.
Sassinak and Generation Warriors are reviewed on the page of Anne McCaffrey.
A prequel to Paksennarion is Surrender None, the Legacy of Gird, which describes the life of the man who made Pak's life possible. Gird was a peasant, a soldier, a farmer, an outlaw, and a hero. Yet even more than his physical strength and the secrets he learned from the magic folk, Gird's power lay in his ability to believe his way to victory, forcing his people to abandon the passivity they had used to survive their enslavement. The best part is the first half, where Gird grows up and learns to be a soldier. After that, the pace picks up and becomes a little less coherent and sympathetic. Nonetheless, there are some very good parts in the second half despite some sections that seem to have been written because they were necessary. On the whole, a reasonably strong book, and for those who liked the later trilogy, probably well worth your time.
Lunar Activity is a collection of short stories tied together by a common theme of weather. Short introductions to each story explain just what kind of weather the author is talking about, from meteorology to the weather that shifts and changes in people's reactions to and relationships with one another in different situations. I was impressed by the way her characters come to life in these stories, the farmers and the ordinary people that are so hard for many authors to get a handle on. If you haven't read any of her other work, this would be a good place to start, and if you have you will certainly like this one. Most of the stories are science fiction, ranging from the more hard core story about paramedics in space to one about a family of farmers on the Mississippi flood plain and another about an ordinary man involved in the testing of cutting edge medical technology, but there's also a story set in the fantasy world of her first novels.
(Main Page)
(Categories)
(Awards)
(Authors)
(Titles)
(Top 100)
(Rewrites)
This page owned by: Raven
Questions? Comments? Smart Remarks?
Email me at
[email protected]
Last Updated: February 9, 2000
Author and book reviews are the copyrighted property and responsibility of the person named at the end of the review. If no one is named, they belong to Raven. Any author or publisher who does not want their copyrighted material to be on this page email the reviewer and it will be removed immediately. The reviewer reserves the right to remove material rather than alter it in any way.
