Customer Reviews

Hunting Party

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Main character, Heris Serrano, is a former military starship commander, who is forced out of the service by an evil Admiral. She carries this book pretty well with solid support from secondary character, Cecelia, who is a rich, aging former champion horsewoman, with a passion for fox hunting. The riding and hunting scenes are very well done, and it appears that Moon must herself have a passion for these things. The book loses its direction in the middle when Cecelia's spoiled nephew and his foolish cronies sneak off for a picnic and find themselves in the middle of a hunt where men are the prey. The book eventually regains its footing and the ending is fairly strong, promising an interesting sequel (which I will certainly read). All in all, a pretty good book.

This is a really award-winningly terrible book, as some of the reviewers above have said, but it's probably a good idea not to let that put you off the rest of the series. I was very, very bored when I first read this and I'm glad, because if I hadn't been I wouldn't have gone on to read the others. It's probably worth reading this for the sake of completeness, but if you're short on patience skip it and move on to the later books - 2 and 3 are quite good, and 4 to 7 are excellent. It's odd that a writer who can produce the later books in the series is capable of turning out such unmitigated crap as this...how can someone who can keep you on the edge of the seat for three hundred pages truly believe anyone at all would be interested in five pages of description of engineering procedures? The many other flaws have already been mentioned - clunky prose, terrible characterisation and the bizarre feat of rendering fox-hunting even more incredibly pointless than it already is (in this book, the idle rich aristocracy of the universe have specially reconstructed the extinct fox from the genes of other animals and dedicated an entire planet to hunting it for absolutely no useful purpose whatsoever) and expecting the readers to like the characters who cheerfully engage in the 'sport'.

Also notable for containing possibly the most unintentionally disturbing passage in any book ever, when one of the intensely dislikable "heroes" finds himself trapped in a bathroom, hands tied behind his back, wishing to use the facilities. He tells us that it would do no good to yank on the waistband from behind, because - I swear I'm not making it up - it has been designed to withstand incredible forces.

I have spent the year since I first read the book wondering, on and off, exactly why *anyone* would design the waistband of a pair of trousers to withstand incredible forces. None of the possible answers has made me sleep any better at night...

The first book in Elizabeth Moon's "Familias Regnant" series (and easily the best of the first three), this novel combines two of the author's interests--horsemanship and navy life--that would at first glance seem incongruous, and sprinkles liberally with Machiavellian House politics. If a would-be reader enjoyed "Sassinak" and "Generation Warriors," this is a good book to try next.

Though it may seem to some that Moon spends too much time focusing on characters who hold little interest compared to Heris, this is not merely Heris's story (as readers will find later in the series). Though it may not be evident at first, this book sets up for important events that will take place later on.

This was my first book by Elizabeth Moon. As a fan of sweeping space opera and a person running short on the authors with which I am more familiar, I turned to this book looking for more. I did not find it but I was not disappointed.

It does involve spaceships, nobility, military dynasties, scoundrels and the other stock items of space opera but they are not put together in operatic form. It made for a pleasant change.

The heroine of the story is one Heris Serrano, late of the space navy. She comes from a long line of naval officers and a naval career is what she desired for her life. It went well for a while but then tragedy struck. Because of the actions of a venal admiral, she found herself disobeying orders. As a result, she faces a choice. She can resign for the good of the service and say nothing or she can stand trial with her entire crew. She chooses to protect her crew and winds up the captain of a rich lady's yacht. It is not a happy decision.

She finds herself with a splendid yacht, and inept and corrupt crew, an employer who knows nothing about yachts and cares mostly for fox hunting and several bratty and aristocratic young people. She is taking them to a fox hunt on another planet. All is not as it seems, however. The kids find themselves being hunted and the yacht's owner turns out to have unexpected depths. A good measure of vengeance helps out as well.

The story is well written and, if not the most exciting I have encountered, certainly well worth the effort of reading it. I look forward to reading more.

I have to give this book five stars if, for nothing else, because it's the first and important background in an extraordinary series.

An outcast ex-military officer and a rich old women who has chosen to stay away from political power and the influence that has position carries are joined in adventure, against their expectations and wishes.

The forte of this book is not action, but personal relationships. Heris and Cecilia, despite their own personal vows at the beginning to avoid having anything to do with each other, suddenly find themselves developing admiration for each other and seeing a growing friendship. Some other characters who late permeate the series are also introduced in this book, setting background for the series.

Do not let this give you the impression that this is an open-ended book, though. The story has a solid end, and leaves nothing to be desired. Well, except equally good sequels. :-)

This book was a disappointment. For the first 150 pages NOTHING of any real interest happens. I very nearly put the book down. After that first 150, we finally get some action, but this action is indeed centered around other characters than our heroine. It seemed like I was suddenly reading another, albeit better, book. Unfortunately, this much more action packed second half is essentially a rip off of all those many movies about men hunting men, while the first half was so much like the Honor Harrington books that I decided to simply go and reread those superior tomes. I suppose my sincere recommendation is that you do the same.

I bought this book on spec because I thought it looked interesting, a woman in the lead role for example. I have to agree with all the reviewers who gave this three stars or less. Since this is the first in the series I expected a lot of setting up of the characters and scenes and introducing the background of the story, which comes into play later in the series.

I wanted to read the whole series before commenting on it. It does read almost like a childrens book, there is too much padding to fill out a simple story and overall the series lacks any continuity in writing style. For example, chapter five in Against The Odds contains some of the best descriptive narrative and storytelling I have read anywhere. Chapter six on the other hand is flat, two dimensional and patronising and made me really want to throw it in the rubbish bin. The whole series suffers from this kind of problem as if whole chapters were ghost written and she has simply filled in the gaps.

Overall I like general idea of the series but it could have been so much better.

Heris Serrano is making the best of a bad situation. Forced to resign her commission in the Regular Space Service, she goes to work as captain of an elderly lady's private yacht. That's a definite "come down" in the universe, for this woman whose family habitually produces admirals. Heris still has her professionalism, though. She's determined to bring the Sweet Delight and its crew up to standard. When that determination saves the yacht's owner and her guests - not to mention the crew, of course - from dying during their first passage together, she and Lady Cecelia discover that a champion horsewoman and an RSS captain have more in common than either might have thought. That establishes trust between them which they're going to need, once they reach the private estate (an entire planet!) where Lady Cecelia's bound. Where there's something going on that the owner of Siralis knows nothing about, which has everything to do with Heris Serrano and her former Space Service crew.

This is a gem of a book. We come to know Heris Serrano, Lady Cecelia, and the many secondary (I can't call them minor) characters by experiencing their lives with them. That's also how we become acquainted with their far-future part of the universe - its politics, technology, economy, and culture. The story gains complexity gradually, and we get backstory exactly when we need it. The characters learn, grow, and change, and - with the possible exception of the tale's villian - they are multi-dimensional people. Including the apparently quintessential "eccentric maiden aunt" Cecelia. Highly recommended!

I enjoyed the book, though I feel that Honor Harrington is a more interesting and tightly written series than any of Moon's space operas. This book was plauged by a few minor flaws, first the smuggling ring on the ship was left quite vauge. I hope this was deliberate and that the culprits (and their unknown cargo) are uncovered. I also feel she spent too much time describing horsemanship.

The villian, an admiral who hunts men for sport, appears only breifly, just long enough to say a few lines and get shot. It would have been interesting to hear a bit more of his thoughts, to let the readers develop a bit of antipathy towards him before he exited the stage.

The other flaw in the book is that Heris finds the book stolen from her by minor characters. The spoiled rich kid on the ship who grows into his wealth and standing, "Bubbles", the odious George and the wealthy owner of the ship are all more interesting, well developed than the hero.

Despite these flaws, it is a readable and pleasant diversion, and I do plan to read the rest of the series.

I've waded through to page 150, but it's been a struggle, and I'm absolutely bored. The most interesting things that have happened so far are that smuggled goods (never identified) have been found aboard, and the yacht owner's spoiled brat of a nephew has jeopardized everyone with a stupid prank. Much of the book to this point has been setting -- the yacht's decor, the environmental features, the characters' clothes, the cuisine, even the yacht owner's exercise equipment. I've got 200+ pages to go, and they promise to be much the same.

So I set this book aside for MAROONED, a Star Trek Voyager book that also deals with space pirates. Within 30 pages, I'm hooked -- and I've never really been a Star Trek fan. Seeing the contrast between it and Moon's book I decide I've had enough of HUNTING PARTY, which goes into my box of charity give-aways.

Too bad -- it could have been a good story if there hadn't been so much fat.