New Books You Might Read

Elizabeth Moon has written some excellent works...I first ran into her writing as she collaborated with my favorite fantasy/sci-fi writer of all time, Anne McCaffery Sassinak (Baen Books), a story of a young woman who grows up to be one helluva of starship Captain, and to her delight, a member of Fleet (with a giant F to distinguish it from any other organization...Fleet is like the other big F word, Family).

Lately, I read a few of some other works by Mz. Moon

• Hero (Baen Books) - In this story, a tough young spacer sticks to hard work and application to get ahead in the Royal Space Service (R.S.S.). But its her exceptional skills in coming up with new ideas to save her crew's butts that draw attention of the R.S.S. brass. Where did this talented officer come from and why haven't we noticed her before? What is she hiding?

  After reading this and then going back to read Sassinak and Generation Warriors again, I decided to go trolling for other Elizabeth Moon novels. Sure enough a series about Herris Serrano, a brave but ill treated officer of the line, an officer of extreme high quality framed into resigning her commission. Herris takes the job of Captaining a lady's pleasure yacht...talk about washout! But it gets exciting, and fast.

  The Herris Serrano stories are found in Baen Books titles:

  • Hunting Party - Captain Serrano takes command of the Sweet Delight a rich lady's toy yacht.
  • Sporting Chance - Captain Serrano returns with a mystery to solve that places the royal family at risk, and the ships owner in dire straits.

  Speaking of Anne McCaffery, I recently got hands on two new based on her brainship series, The Ship Avenged by S.M. Stirling and The Ship Errant by Jody Lynn Nye (who collobrated with McCaffery on Crisis on Doona Mz. Nye also recently released Medicine Show the sequel to Taylor's Ark a delightful tale of intrigue in the world of space medicine.

  And of course Anne McCaffery recently released Dragon's Eye a tale returning to the early day's of Pern, yet far enough removed that the settlers have forgotten the threat of thread after an extremely long pass.

• If you like these accomplished Captain's then also take a look at David Weber's fine series about Honor Harrington, one of the best Space Captains I have ever read about (Baen Books):
  • On Bassilik Station - Honor's first opportunity to show what she is made of.
  • The Honor of the Queen - It isn't over for Honor yet, she's got plenty of will and tricks left to win her own.
  • The Short Victorious War - Don't underestimate Honor, she is at it again and with a vengence.
  • The Field of Dishoner - Revenge and a good trouncing of the bad guys is just the beginning for Lady Honor Harrington.

  I just noticed, all these books (except for Crisis at Doona an Ace Science Fiction book) are Baen Books. I have enough Ace sci-fi to knock over a wall, so they are no slouches either.

• I would be a total idiot for not mentioning 3001 The Final Odyssey (Del Ray), Arthur C. Clarke's latest in the 2001 series. We meet a long lost friend from the first book, and now I am not so surprised a certain actor has his head shaved lately. Can you guess who I am thinking about? Makes me think of a new movie in production. Course it could just be a TV show he's on. Oh well, wishful thinking I guess.

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