Product Description

The worst has happened: Fleet is tearing itself apart. Some of the mutineers see injustice in the unequal spread of the rejuvenation drugs that offer virtual immortality to the rich; others are simply thirsty for power, or for blood. The Loyalists, meanwhile, fight desperately to preserve the rule of law in Familias Regnant space. But when Esmay Suiza-Serrano is unceremoniously booted out of Fleet, the apparent victim of Family politics, she has no idea of the whirlwind of conflict into which she is about to be drawn ...For information about this or any other Orbit title, visit the Orbit website at www.orbitbooks.co.uk

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #165640 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 560 pages

Review
'Brilliant . . . the excitement of high heroic adventure' BOOKWATCH 'A tour de force' JACK McDEVITT

JACK McDEVITT
`A tour de force'

About the Author
Elizabeth Moon has degrees in history and biology, and served as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. She lives outside of Austin, Texas with her husband and son.

Customer Reviews

Thoroughly enjoyable but not quite the expected climax
This is book seven in the Serrano/Suiza series, billed as the final volume and evidently from Moon's preface, a book she found hard to write which could mean that it is indeed the last. That will be a pity - not only is the book a thoroughly good read, like its predecessors, but there are several elements of the plot including the background interstellar war with the 'Benignity' and one or two newly introduced which are not finally resolved and about which we would like to know more. Almost all of the favourite characters we have met before return and there are some great dramatic moments. However, there is little or no character development (although we do get to meet the Terakian family a little more closely than before) perhaps because there are so many people to fit in to the plot and despite the fact that this is probably the longest volume in the series in terms of pages. While it may be unfair to ask that we shoudl hear the 'end of the story' in a book which aims to present a fictional history - by its nature continuing - the result is a little unsatisfying. But then, David Weber's Honor books, with which this series compares well, suffer from the same defect. I would recommend this book but not as wholeheartedly as I would have wished.

Enjoyable, but...
Having just finished the last book of the series, I can't help but paraphrase that old TS Eliot quote "This is the way the series ends - Not with a bang but a whimper". On the whole, I enjoyed the series very much. The Heris Serrano books were well written and (despite a strange preoccupation with the minutia of breeding horses) contained many memorable sequences. Esmay Suiza was, to my mind, an even better heroine than Heris and her first two books are the strongest on the series. But then it comes to the last two books, and it just seems to be a mad rush to get to the last page. Elizabeth Moon has lots of good plot ideas throughout the series - The Benignity, the Bloodhorde, the mutineers, the problems on Altiplano, Sirialis and Copperwalls, the Rejuvenant vs, Aegist problem, the NewTex Militia etc., but she seems to have tried to cram in as much as she possibly could, and the effect is to leave far too much up in the air. What happened to the fugitive confessor? Why DID Arash Livadhi do what he did? What happened on Sirialis? All these questions (and many more) go unanswered.
In my opinion, Elizabeth had enough plot ideas to fill twelve books, not just seven. And if she didn't want to write so many, one can't help but feel she should have left half of her ideas out in the interest of streamlining the story.
Having said all that, I enjoyed the series and will adding her, alongside David Weber and John Ringo, on my list of American authors who deserve more UK recognition.

Bit of a let down
This is a bit of a let down really. Not in the characters and the background as they were well done in the fashion we had come to expect from Ms Moon in this series. However, the novel felt rushed, particularly the splits in Fleet. It seemed to get patched up reletively quickly. However, the conflict between the rejuvenated older generations and their children and the solution was rather nicely handled.