"Paksenarrion wasn't planning to submit to an unwelcome marriage and a lifetime of poverty, so she left her village with a plan and her grandfather's sword. And a few weeks later, she was installed as Duke Phelan's newest recruit in a company of soldiers for hire, her arms training about to begin. But when Paks sees combat, she's stabbed with an ensorcelled knife and barely survives. Then the near-misses start mounting up, raising questions about this young fighter. Is she attracting evil because she is a danger to them all? Or is there another reason malignant forces seek her life? Paks will face the spider-minions of the Webmistress Achrya, orcs and the corrupted men who serve blood mage Liart, Master of Torments. She will also earn the gratitude of elves and of her Duke. And through conflict she will learn she has powers of her own and a destiny. To become a gods-chosen Paladin of Gird, and a target for the ultimate torture."
Publisher: Little Brown Book Group
Published: 21 January 2010
Format: 1216 pages
The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon is an omnibus comprising
Sheepfarmer’s Daughter, Divided Allegiance and Oath of Gold. Although I am familiar
with Moon’s The Speed of Darkness and the Serrano trilogy, this is the first
time I’ve delved into her fantasy. The trilogy was written as one story and
follows the life of Paksenarrion Dorthansdotter (or, simply, Paks), the
daughter of a sheep farmer who flees to join the mercenary company her cousin
told her about. But being a hero out of the legendary kind is anything but easy
as she is confronted with the harsh realities of warfare and military life.
In most respects, this series is
what launched Elizabeth Moon’s career on the speculative fiction scene, earning
her the 1989 Compton Crook Award for the first novel, Sheepfarmer’s Daughter. The
Paksenarrion series is epic fantasy and while it undeniably includes classic
fantasy tropes – a girl running off to join a mercenary company, not to mention
elves and orcs – Moon does bring a unique texture of her own to the genre, both
in her attention to legal and economic detail and her peerless portrayal of military
life from the ground up.
The gritty realism of soldering
is a hallmark of Moon’s writing, a theme I’ve enjoyed through most of her
military fiction, both fantasy and science fiction. From drilling formations,
to the espirit de corp and rub of experienced soldiers against green recruits,
to the inanities of supply and procurement, Moon paints a soldier’s perspective
of the world, one that is convincing and finely wrought in its pacing and
detail. In terms of the larger world-building, fantasy epics usually indulge in
grand info-dumping to lay out the overall scheme of the fantasy landscape, but here
Moon defies tradition by articulating her world strictly from Pak’s
perspective. From recruitment to a person of growing rank and political
prestige, Pak’s world fills in around her and it makes for a refreshing lack of
info-dumping throughout the series.
There are familiar elements of
medieval life that spring up – the inevitable inns, some rousing clichéd boasts
and forest scouts – but Moon’s take on the various gods is entirely her own,
and it makes for a fascinating society of vying religious orders. The gods play
a distant yet vital role, and Pak’s many trials take on the larger context of
tests of faith as she later endeavours to become that esteemed holy warrior, a
paladin.
Over the course of her military
career, Paks suffers both triumphs and devastating falls; and as she is called
to a higher form of service, thus her trials are that much harder to overcome,
and they break her in brutal, gut wrenching fashion. Paks’ painful redemption
arc is the focus of the latter book and resolves the long, emotional torment of
her life well even though at times it seemed like the character had overcome these
terrible experiences rather too conveniently to serve the plot.
In retrospect, the book does show
its times in terms of the prevailing genre tropes, but in its own way, Moon
pulls off a grand story that, in my opinion, is one of the defining fantasy
series of that era and stands as a strong benchmark of strong-heroine driven
plots. It is a great addition to any fantasy library and a good jumping point
into more modern iterations without shying away from its traditional roots.
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