Book Review: Hunting Party by Elizabeth Moon

Hunting Party
by Elizabeth Moon (Moon)

My science fiction club recently selected this book to read for one of our regular group book discussions, and I’m very glad I did. Though she’s a prolific author, I’d only ever read one other book by Elizabeth Moon (The Speed of Dark), which I loved, but which is a completely different type of novel.

 

Hunting Party is the first in a series (7 volumes so far) of “space operas/military SF” novels under the umbrella title The Serrano Legacy. Heris Serrano was forced to resign from a respected position in command of a ship in the Regular Space Service. Now, she’s taken a position as the captain of a luxury space yacht, for a rich eccentric woman, Lady Cecelia de Marktos, and must ferry her employer and some of Lady Cecelia's dilettante relatives to a distant planetary system for some old-fashioned fox hunting, by horseback. All of which sounds like an odd combination of characters and plot elements. But Moon makes them work. Heris is a fascinating character, and her relationship to Lady Cecelia becomes one of the strongest elements of the book. Moon provides a lot of great details about military and social protocols, there’s an unusual amount of time (for a space saga) spent on horseback riding, and there are twists and turns aplenty, including the introduction of a “most dangerous game” subplot late in the book.

 

In the end, some of the plot threads end up wrapping up in not-entirely-satisfactory ways, but the journey of following Heris and Lady Cecelia, and several other very strong female characters, in a type of storyline usually dominated by males, made Hunting Party a very enjoyable read. I hope to continue with additional volumes in the future.

 

[ official Serrano Legacy series page on the official Elizabeth Moon web site ]

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library – Public Service

 

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