For the past week or so I’ve been a bit under the weather with a chest cold. It started with an ‘odd’ throat, then went straight to a deep cough. After a few days of that I also had the ‘fuzzy head’, but am glad to say I missed out on sneezing.
Nevertheless, I haven’t been up to much for most of the past week. Which has meant I’ve been reading more fiction than usual.
Luckily I had quite a good stock of Elizabeth Moon (affiliate link)
I’ve been reading 2 series: Vatta’s War and the Serrano series.
Military in space
Moon’s novels feature strong and interesting women, in space, with a strong military influence.
The Vatta’s War series begins with the Vatta trading family, and moves into the formation of a quasi-military fleet whose role is to counter pirates. The lead character is Kylara Vatta, who at the start of the series has been thrown out of Space Academy for a rather trivial seeming wrongdoing.
It turns out that Ky develops into a cunning and strategic leader who deals to well-organised pirates, even though outmatched.
I haven’t yet finished the Serrano series, and have unfortunately missed the 3rd book altogether. It’s an entertaining and solid read though, like the Vatta series. The lead characters, again, are military women who prove to be excellent leaders.
Careful and interesting writing
I must commend Moon and her editors on a job well done. The novels hang together well, with good pacing and nicely drawn characters.
On top of that, I’ve noticed only 2 or 3 typos total in the 10 or so books. The editors have been paying attention. It makes for a feeling of quality where it counts.
The stories are engaging and immersive too. I haven’t been too thrilled to be feeling unwell the past week, but it’s been a great pleasure to spend time reading some very fine sci-fi. My only regret is that with one and a half books to go I’ve pretty much run out of the sci-fi this author has to offer.
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