Product Description

When a treacherous superior officer forced Heris Serrano to resign her commission in the Regular Space Service, she thought she would simply be marking time captaining a rich lady's interstellar yacht. But things seem to happen when Heris is around. During Lady Cecelia's most recent pleasure cruise, Heris exposed a sinister 'hunting club' which used humans as prey, and in the process rescued some former Fleet friends and colleagues betrayed by the same senior officer who engineered her own resignation from Fleet. All well and good, but one of the hunters had been none other than Cecelia's nephew Prince Gerel - first in line to the throne. In an attempt to avoid a royal scandal, Lady Cecelia volunteers herself and her yacht to take the Prince home. Cecelia remembers her nephew as a rather bright young man. So what possessed him to become involved with the 'hunting club'? As the voyage proceeds, and the Prince becomes less and less like himself, Cecelia begins to suspect foul play. Someone is poisoning the heir to the throne, and once again Heris's skills are called upon to solve the deadly mystery.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #365103 in Books
• Published on: 1999-08-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
As "Book Two of the Serrano Legacy", this is an immediate sequel to Elizabeth Moon's enjoyable SF Hunting Party--best read first, since the plot tangles of Sporting Chance emerge directly from the earlier story. Ex-Navy space-captain Heris Serrano is still commanding her eccentric but sharp old patron Cecelia de Marktos's luxury interstellar yacht, the new mission being to ferry home a misplaced sprig of galactic royalty after the first book's action. Something's wrong with this feckless prince, though, and carrying the bad news of possible poisoning makes the messenger a target for Borgia-like scheming among the royals. Very soon, one heroine is in near-death coma while the other's on the run through deep space--harried by Crown warships, the galactic mafia, a traitor crewperson and a plague of mutant cockroaches. Moon counterpoints space-operatic excitement (including one small but tense battle) with slow, agonising therapy as the woman trapped speechlessly within her own body is slowly brought to the point of fumbling communication. Eventually there are massive repercussions for the galaxy's sickly, scheming royalty, and although Sporting Chance ends satisfactorily-- with the major villain getting a suitable comeuppance--it seems clear that something bigger and smellier is ready to hit the fan in book three, Winning Colours. Moon continues to entertain. --David Langford

Review
' A highly entertaining adventure ... thrilling' LOCUS

About the Author
Elizabeth Moon joined the US Marine Corps in 1968, reaching the rank of 1st Lieutenant during active duty. She has also earned degrees in history and biology, run for public office and been a columnist on her local newspaper. She lives near Austin, Texas with her husband and their son.

Customer Reviews

Sporting sequel
I enjoyed this sequel to 'Hunting Party'. I found the parts of the earlier book dealing with the faux-fox hunting practices of the far-future elite to be a tadge contrived. These were necessary however to provide a context for the dramatic events later on in the book, and for understanding the motivations of one of the central characters, Cecelia. It is certainly a novel context. It is convenient then that this book moves on to the political intrigues of the Royal court, the consequences of Herris becoming an outlaw, a poison plot and other such dramatic turns.

If you are looking for solid hard-science, nano-bots, string theory, genetic science or anything else then look elsewhere. If you want a diverting and enjoyable book that plays with some of the basic dramatic themes of loyalty, friendship, betrayal, envy etc against a slightly unusual far-future then you have arrived at the right place.

The book is slightly unbalanced in that the motivations and actions of the 'baddies' are rarely explored, whilst the inner thoughts and emotions of the central heroes are sometimes dragged out too far. Characterisation is a bit by-the-numbers, but in a way that does not detract from the basic readability of the novel.

I would say that the same lightness of characterisation is present in many highly successful works by high volume authors. It doesn't stop them being an enjoyable read though.

Elizabeth Moon does it again
This is the second in the Serrano legacy and picks up neatly from the end of Hunting Party. Heris and Cecilia are embroiled in a political/royal scandal. The oddball crew of the Sweet Delight are a delight. I bought the first book on a whim and then bought the rest. This is a very worthy continuation to the series.

Purely one dimensional
Personally i found this book, and the subsequent novels to be quite linear. The lack of a major plot, or structure took what little fun there was in the book. A single hero, that doesn't really accomplish anything beyond the ordinary, nor any depth of intrigue, made this book shallow beyond belief.

I've read her fantasy series which were basic, but enjoyable.

However in Sci-fi the author needs to step beyond the normal, and prove to the reader the how and why such things are, and why such technology exists. This is never explored in this series...