Sheepfarmer's Daughter (The Deed of Paksenarrion, Book 1)

published	June 1st 1988 by Baen
binding	Paperback
isbn	0671654160 (isbn13: 9780671654160)
ebook
pages	512
date added	07-23-07 edit book

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Elizabeth rated it:

(review of isbn 0671319647)

07/04/08

bookshelves: 1992, fantasy, favorite-books, favorite-writers

Read in July, 2008

This is my macaroni and cheese book.

There are certain books that are just comfort food. You've read them a dozen times, they have enough substance to fill you up, and they are completely enjoyable. They are also high in calories, and you know that a steady diet of them would turn your body to mush.

Sheepfarmer's Daughter is great fun. Paksenarrion, a (surprise) sheepfarmer's daughter, runs away to join a mercenary company a...more This is my macaroni and cheese book.

There are certain books that are just comfort food. You've read them a dozen times, they have enough substance to fill you up, and they are completely enjoyable. They are also high in calories, and you know that a steady diet of them would turn your body to mush.

Sheepfarmer's Daughter is great fun. Paksenarrion, a (surprise) sheepfarmer's daughter, runs away to join a mercenary company and fulfill her dream of becoming a soldier, and hero. She wants a magic sword and glory and to prove to her family that she was right not to marry the pig farmer's son. The reality of the military life, fighting, and what you go through to be called a hero is different from her dreams but she adapts and enjoys her life and her friends. The story takes us through basic training and her first few campaigns. Elizabeth Moon has created a Middle-Earth-like continent populated with fighters for good and evil as well as Elves, Dwarves, and Gnomes (these don't figure in this first book much but are present in the later ones). There are magic swords and god-inspired healing and some other bits and pieces of magic that place the novel squarely in the fantasy genre. But the real reason I keep coming back to this series, and particularly this book, is because they are about strength and courage.

Elizabeth Moon asks and answers the questions, what makes a person strong? and what is the nature of courage? Is it because she (or he) is a good fighter? Is it because she has killed bad or evil men? Or, is it because when faced by a challenge, one rises to it, no matter what? Moon challenges the idea that only soldiers are courageous or that having magic sword makes you a hero. She examines the effects of war on common people and what it means to be a fighter "for good" and not just follow orders. There's a lot of subtlety to her argument, in this book, and I find that when I'm tired of patriot rhetoric on the news, I come back it to help me think about these questions another way. I'm not saying Elizabeth Moon is Hannah Arendt (my favorite political theorist who has tackled the subjects of war, violence, and just causes), but she lays out a fantasy story that gives you something to think about; that doesn't give obvious answers; and that enables you to agree or disagree with her while you enjoy the story.

I do disagree throughout this series (there are three books in The Deeds of Paksenarrion and then several related/prequel books). The reader may also get bogged down in the detail that is to help make her points. When you look back on the events of the three books from the end of the last one, you can see how all the small events, little comments, and even minor characters' names, fit together. It's like getting to the end of the Harry Potter series and recognizing that what you thought was a minor event in the first book had been achingly significant. Also, in the later books, her points are not so subtle. I tend to skim a lot of the second book when I reread the series. But the series is fabulously enjoyable, like macaroni and cheese; and just like it, take it for what it is and don't eat too much....less

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Jeff rated it:

(review of isbn 0671319647)

03/09/07

bookshelves: fantasy

recommends it for: fantasy/military enthusiasts

The first of a series of books set in this world, Sheepfarmer's Daughter is a fine example of "bottom up" storytelling, and an excellent look at medieval military life from the ordinary soldier's perspective.

Beginning the tale of the protagonist, Paksenarrion Dorthansdotter (and what a freakin' Nordic mouthful that is), as she runs away from home to join a mercenary corps, Eliabeth Moon's crafting of this first book of her epic is first rate.

Sheepfarmer's Daughter is th...more The first of a series of books set in this world, Sheepfarmer's Daughter is a fine example of "bottom up" storytelling, and an excellent look at medieval military life from the ordinary soldier's perspective.

Beginning the tale of the protagonist, Paksenarrion Dorthansdotter (and what a freakin' Nordic mouthful that is), as she runs away from home to join a mercenary corps, Eliabeth Moon's crafting of this first book of her epic is first rate.

Sheepfarmer's Daughter is the story of the transformation of ... well, a sheepfarmer's daughter into a mercenary soldier in the service of Duke Phelan. Paksenarrion, or "Paks" to her friends in Phelan's military corps, experiences training and fighting that is rarely written about in this genre in such tactical and logistical detail.

The slow transformation of Paks from novice bumbler into hardened warrior is a pleasure to witness. Her ambivalence toward religion and magic is slightly evocative of (and perhaps a sly nod to) Howard's Conan. Characterizations of major players throughout are solid, however villains tend toward the one-dimensional, especially the chief antagonist; more could have been done with this character I thought without endangering the "grunt's point of view" the author is careful to maintain. Detailed descriptions of events come directly from Paks's point of view - we get to experience this strange world for the first time through her eyes.

One quibble I had with the set up of her world - and it's not exclusively a problem with Moon, as I've seen this done by other authors in comparable "period" fantasy work - is the seeming acceptance by what is essentially a feudal society of a rough sort of women's lib. Moon gives us the usual caveats about how "other" societies of her world don't guarantee the rights of women to the extent of the society that Paks finds herself in; nevertheless the historical record of sexual apartheid that "our universe's" western feudal age practiced (even up until mid-industrial age western society) belies the relatively easy sexual assimilation with which Paks works her way into her military milieu.

All in all, Sheepfarmer's Daughter is a worthy start to Moon's Deed of Paksenarrion cycle....less

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Sheepfarmer's Daughter (The Deed of Paksenarrion, Book 1)

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