Reviews & Overviews by Rod Cameron

The Serrano Legacy - Elizabeth Moon

Publisher:	Orbit
Date:	2006
Size:	1096 Pages
Format:	Trade Paperback
Price:	£10.99
ISBN:	1-84149-484-4
Reviewed by:	Rod Cameron
Review Date:	March 2007

This is an omnibus edition of the first three of Elizabeth Moon’s Serrano novels: Hunting Party (1993), Sporting Chance (1994) and Winning Colours (1995). Having enjoyed her Vatta’s War series, I was sufficiently intrigued to spend the bargain price of £10.99 for three of her earlier novels. The storyline is set in a universe which resembles pre-first world war Britain. Except the country estates that everyone visits are planets. There is a royal family which appears to “own” the universe, and the wealthy aristos travel from planet to planet enjoying hunting, shooting and fishing parties. As well as being able to observe the growth of Heris into a mature and rounded character, the story format also includes a number of youthful characters who start off as apparently idle wastrels, but who also grow in stature throughout the three books.

Hunting Party

The heroine is Heris Serrano, who comes from a long line of career officers in the R.S.S. (The Royal Space Service). At the start of the book she unfortunately has been forced to resign from the R.S.S. by a treacherous superior officer, and has taken a job as captain to Cecelia a rich old lady whose only joy in life appears to be horse riding – both eventing and fox hunting. Yes, fox hunting in space! However life is anything but sedate, and rapidly becomes dangerous when they try to prevent an illegal manhunt.

Sporting Chance

Following straight on from Hunting Party, while transporting a royal prince back to his home planet, he starts behaving strangely and it appears that he is being poisoned. Of course, Heris and Cecelia have to investigate and very quickly one of them is in a vegetative coma and the other is on the run both from the R.S.S. and a piratical galactic mafia.

Winning Colours

Heris continues her fight against the interstellar criminals she came across in Sporting Chance, and is offered the opportunity to be reinstated in the Space Service. However, in order to do this she has to keep the mafia pinned down with a few small ships until the “cavalry” arrive.

This is excellent space opera. Perhaps not as ‘challenging’ as Iain Banks or Alistair Reynolds, but the characters are well written and the stories are well plotted none the less. At £10.99 this represents excellent value. There appear to be a further four books in this series. However, I believe that their heroine is not Heris, but another character who appears briefly at the end of Winning Colours. If Orbit publish a second omnibus edition of these books, I will be very tempted to read them.