Remnant Population — Elizabeth Moon

Cover of Remnant Population


Remnant Population
Elizabeth Moon
360 pages
published in 1996

Elizabeth Moon is a writer I didn’t pay much attention to until a year or two ago. I’d read one or two of her books and they were competently written military science fiction, better written than those of a David Weber or John Ringo, but nowhere near as good as Lois McMaster Bujold’s. When I decided I needed to read more female science fiction writers, Moon was one of the writers I was giving a second chance. Since then I’ve read roughly half a dozen or so of her novels and my initial impression of her has remained roughly the same. She’s a better writer than she needs to be to sell the sort of stories she usually writes and there’s a bit of hidden depth in her mil-sf stories that’s missing from many of her colleagues, that hint at a greater potential. Yet she seems content to keep on writing the same sort of adventure science fiction and fantasy.

Not always though. On two occasions Moon has attempted to write something else than military science fiction, something more ambitious. The most well known of these two novels is of course her Nebula and Arthur C. Clarke winning 2002 novel, Speed of Dark. The other one is Remnant Population, which is a novel about First Contact, between the hitherto unknown indigenous population of an alien planet and the last remaining inhabitant of a failed human colony. As such, it’s a good case study of Moon’s strengths and weaknesses.

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Trading in Danger — Elizabeth Moon

cover of Trading in Danger


Trading in Danger
Elizabeth Moon
506 pages
published in 2003

Reading Sheepfarmer’s Daughter gave me a taste for more Elizabeth Moon. Trading in Danger, the first book in the Vatta’s War series was what the local library had available. It’s science fiction rather than fantasy, but it’ll do. It’s still the same sort of adventure story even if the genre has changed. The other thing they have in common is familiarity, both are coming of age stories with few surprises, but sometimes familiarity is just what you want in a story.

Ky Vatta is a cadet at the naval Academy, an unusual career choice for a child of one of the great trading families. She’s an examplary cadet, but this doesn’t save her when an impulse to help a fellow cadet lands her in the shit. Expelled from the academy, she now has to face her family. Worse, because it’s a highly politicised mess she found herself in, she also has to leave Slotter Key, her home planet. Worst of all, the reputation she has in her family as a sucker for anybody with a sob story is once again confirmed, in the worst possible way. The solution to all her problems lies in an old Vatta family tradition, that sends any child wanting to join the family trade on a shakedown cruise first. She will captain the Glennys Jones, an old trading ship on its last voyage which will be sold as salvage at the end of it, as it’s too expensive to bring up to modern standards. This trading trip will take a couple of months and at the end of it Ky will be able to come home, having proven herself as a captain. As importantly, it will also get her away from her own humiliation.

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Sheepfarmer’s Daughter — Elizabeth Moon

Sheepfarmer's Daughter


Sheepfarmer’s Daughter
Elizabeth Moon
506 pages
published in 1988

Sheepfarmer’s Daughter was Elizabeth Moon’s first published novel and is now available from the Baen Free Library as a sample to get you to try her other work. I got it to have something to read in those stolen moments where it’s too much hassle to dig a paperback out of my bag, but I can get to my mobile. Sheepfarmer’s Daughter was the ideal book for this: not overtly complicated, easy to read in small chunks without missing much of the plot and engaging enough to keep reading.

I’ve only read one Elizabeth Moon novel before this one, A Sporting Chance, a science fiction adventure story that was decent enough but nothing special. From all I had read about her other novels, they seemed much the same so until now I’d never really sought out her books. But it’s hard to argue with free books and people I trust had been praising Sheepfarmer’s Daughter, so when I needed something new to read the choice was easy.

Sheepfarmer’s Daughter is the first in a trilogy called The Deed of Paksenarrion, which Elizabeth Moon allegedly wrote after she was introduced to Dungeons and Dragons by friends of her and got annoyed by the way it handled paladins, to show what real paladins were like. A paladin is “a holy knight and paragon of virtue and goodness”, as Wikipedia calls it and in D&D it’s one of the character classes you can play. What exactly Moon disagreed with I’m unclear about, but there certainly is some D&D influence visible in the fantasy world she created. The other influence on the series was Moon’s own background as an US Marine, giving her a somewhat more realistic idea of warfare than many other fantasy writers have.

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