Customer Reviews

Against The Odds (Angel)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

_Against the Odds_ is the seventh and apparently final book in Elizabeth Moon's series about the Familias Regnant. The Familias Regnant is the term for a large area of colonized worlds in a future galaxy in which humans seem to be the only intelligent species. There are several other confederations of worlds. Familias space is ruled by a number of aristocratic families, fairly but not entirely benignly. The novels cover a period of perhaps a decade, or a bit less, in which radical changes occur in the Familias government, moves in the direction of greater democracy.

On the whole, I found the series very good reading. There are weaknesses: Moon tends to paint her villains too blackly, for one thing; and her plots seem to be driven a bit much by coincidence. But the stories are very exciting, the action is well described, and the main characters are very engaging, we really care about them. Bad things happen, usually with real costs, as well. The first book (_Hunting Party_) is nice but a bit light. I felt that the series hit its stride with the second book (_Sporting Chance_), and maintained a high level through the following three books (_Winning Colors_, _Once a Hero_, _Rules of Engagement_). The sixth book, _Change of Command_, was a serious disappointment. By this time Moon had several significant plot threads from previous books that she wanted to track, all involving different characters. Plus she added an important new thread, a mutiny with the Fleet by disaffected officers of extreme villainy. _Change of Command_ is a very disjointed book, jumping from thread to thread, sometimes with essentially no sense of connection.

This final book, _Against the Odds_, is something of a return to form. It's still not as good, in my opinion, as the four central books, but the thread gathering in _Change of Command_ has by _Against the Odds_ at least resulted in the major threads all being sufficiently well associated so that even though this book also jumps all over the place, the various plot threads are all pretty much linked. The basic action of this book is the attempt to suppress the mutiny that began in _Change of Command_. In addition, some political assassinations which happened in that book have left an unsettled political situation, which needs to be resolved. And finally, Esmay has been discharged from the Navy for basically silly reasons, and she wishes to get reinstated and join the fight against the mutineers. There are still some structural hiccups: the Free Trader plot sort of peters out halfway through the book, while the closing segment of the book is really a separate, late-introduced subplot, which at least serves to unite Esmay and Heris for the final action, but which otherwise seems a bit of an arbitrary addition. And there are quite a number of, I thought, unlikely coincidences. But all that said, the book is a solid and fun read, and it does a good job of closing off the main series threads, while not wrapping everything up too tidily.

I certainly recommend the entire series for anyone who likes colourful space opera, with engaging characters and neat action.

This installment of the Familias Regnant series has redeemed my faith in Elizabeth Moon. The previous book (Change of Command) was spotty and was more of a "set-up" for the events that take place in this book. I must agree with one of the other reviewers, they should have been one book. We get to see more of the irrepressable Cecilia deMarktos, and Heris Serrano of course. This book is about youth growing up -- the younger characters (Brun, Barin, and Esmay) all come into their own, parallelling the maturing that occurs in the Familias Regnant as the issue of the "diamond ceiling" of rejuv is tackled. I was very surprised by some of the events that occured in this book, and found the ending to be rather touching.

I was hesitant about this book because the previous one just wasn't up to standard; however, I figured that _Change of Command_ was setting the stage for the next installment, and took a chance. Am I glad I did!

This is another one of those books, which I expected to enjoy far more then I did. I am probably one of the few people reviewing this book who thought that Change of Command was a superior novel to this one. I did enjoy the novel but had several issues with it.

My first major issue was probably the time lapse since Change of Command. One of the problems with reading a series as it is written is that you have lag time that fogs your memory of the detail of the previous novels. The only way to avoid this issue is to either reread the previous book(s) whenever a new one comes out or to wait to read the series until it is finished. I am pretty sure that I would have enjoyed this book more is I had read it one week after reading Change of Command rather then 3 months later. Elizabeth Moon weaves a universe that if nothing else is complex.

The other major issue I had was with character believability. I had a hard time understanding or believing the motivations for the actions of many of the characters, especially secondary characters. These character issues led to problems I had with the plot. When the characters no longer behave in a believable manner then the plot ceases to make sense. Many of the actions seemed so pat and trite. I know the closing bar scene was supposed to be stirring but I found nothing short of silly.

Overall I was not completely satisfied with the novel and can't say that I am sad to see this series come to an apparent end. An adequate novel I do not regret reading but I am sure I will not read again.

This is a good job in bringing coherency back into this series, something nearly everyone thought was wrong with _Change of Command_. Esmay Suiza has finally grown out of her victim-character (that's a relief), and we get to see more of Heris Seranno in action. Even Lady Cecelia gets to have a good whack at the bad guys again.

Don't start the series with this book; go back to the beginning and read them all. You're in for a treat if you do. Along with Weber's Honor Harrington series, this is the best space-opera currently running.

This book ties up all the loose ends from Change of Commands. Here you have Esmay Suiza fleshed out and acting as a leader/captain in her own right, and all of the "Children" growing up. Where Change of Command was disappointingly unfinished, Against the Odds completes it. These books really should have been one novel -- and if you haven't read Change of Command, this one will be very confusing. However, Elizabeth Moon's characterization compells the reader to continue, and the characters continue to win your heart.

I'm trying to be absolutely fair to this book and series. I have no rave to give it, but I won't smack it around harshly either. I like the fact that Esmay Suiza finally gets to act with proper confidence, and I loved the jailbreak more-or-less led by civilians. I liked the ship-board scenes.

What Moon does right is her action. No one has to display superhuman abilities, even with extremely high tech there is no deus-ex-machina. The politics are half-way reasonable. But only half-way. For one thing, at no point in these books have I believed the society shown could be ruled as discussed. It's just not reasonable, because power doesn't move as shown. Compare, for instance, the Familias Regnant with David Weber's Manticore.

I liked the bargain Brun (who is almost a reasonable character in this book) has to make for power. Achilles' choice, indeed. Moon's discussion of what might happen in a society with a rejuvenation ability was quite good.

My problem with this book is the same I've had with a couple others: complete anti-climax as an ending. There is no satisfying denoument. It all ends in a bit of a muddle, with no resolution of the real problems, and (sorry), a terribly unearned tear-jerking scene at the end. Yeah, I have some absent friends, and it brought them to mind, and I snivelled. But it isn't real.

The title made no sense, but titles are not my thing. At least Moon works on the grammar, so it doesn't drive me nuts, and her style is always clean.

She needs to work on her endings, though.

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 trilogy was 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 in my opinion the strongest in 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.

It is hard to say what makes a book better than another and how much of it is personal preference and/or author's style. In the universe of the Serranos and Suizas, I give this book a thumbs up.

I liked this book the most because it flowed so well. It was fun to read, I cared about the characters and was there with them as the story hopped from sub-plot to sub-plot. In the previous book, Change of Command, I was most disappointed because the sub-plots seem to take me away from the story and not into it.

I have to say, the ending did take me by a surprise a bit. As if the story had a lot of mini-endings throughout the book and simply chose to end after one of them. Also, then ending scene was actually very well written to evoke emotion, however I agree with a previous reviewer who questioned whether events appropriately led up to such a scene.

And lastly, as the book itself mentioned in the beginning, most likely this book won't be nearly as enjoyable as it was to me if you haven't read some of the previous books.

Read the previous books in the series, they are fun.

Someone implied this book is the end of the Familias Regnant series. I'm not so sure about that, but the end is, indeed, very satisfying. It has a sense of conclusion that few other books in the series had.

The pace is pretty good for about three fourths of the book, but it gets bogged down in the middle. Also, some of the threads in the story are a bit weak, meaningless. Looking back, I can see why they were there, but one does get a sense of "and the point is?" while reading it.

New readers should stay away from this book until they have read the rest of the series, though. Or, at the very least, the Esmay Luiza books of the series.

Like Change of Command, this is not exactly a stand-alone book, and I would not recommend it as your very first Elizabeth Moon read. But oh, it's a lovely finish to the Familias Regnant series (which began with Hunting Party).

I'm not ashamed to admit I cried at the end. To absent friends, indeed.