Written by Elizabeth Moon
Published by Time Warner Books
Collecting Hunting Party, Sporting Chance and Winning Colours, this monumental omnibus is the perfect opportunity to get into Elizabeth Moon’s Familias Regnant universe. Set in a future where humanity is ruled by families who are one part corporation, one part monarchy, the first trilogy, collected here follows an ex-Fleet officer as she struggles to come to terms with civilian life. Heris Serrano is a superlative officer, a fine Captain and a born leader. What she isn’t, is a yacht captain. But with no other option, Heris takes a job as Captain of the Sweet Delight, Lady Cecelia’s yacht. However, what at first appears to be a simple matter of replacing corrupt or incompetent crewmembers soon turns into something infinitely more complex and far more dangerous.
Moon’s great strength as a writer is to get into the internal dialogue of her characters. Heris and Cecelia are beautifully drawn characters, each intelligent, driven women and each completely unique from the other. The way the friendship between them develops is one of the highlights of the series, and their early exchanges in particular are tremendous fun as both women realise that their preconceptions of the other are completely wrong. Their friendship forms the basis of the series and it’s a rare and pleasant surprise to have a series with two female characters as the protagonists.
Her world building is equally impressive and the gradual reveal of the nature of the Familias Regnant universe is extremely well handled. There’s something old fashioned, almost Napoleonic about some of it that lifts the series far above the usual military SF fare and as a result there’s as much fun to be had ‘learning the rules’ as there is reading the story. Whilst some elements of (Hunting Party’s focus on fox hunting for one) that didn’t sit well, this is a coherent, interesting and unusual world that only gets more interesting as the series progresses. The later books take Heris and Cecelia deep into the power structure of the Familias Regnant in plots which are equal parts Shakespeare and Cyberpunk, incorporating familial honour, cloning and political machinations in equal part.
There’s a lot, literally, to enjoy in The Serrano Legacy. Moon is a tremendously confident writer with a good eye for dialogue and some fantastic ideas. If there’s a problem, it’s that the pace of the books is leisurely and some of the characters, most notably the passengers in Hunting Party are stereotypical. However, these are small criticisms when weighed against the sheer volume of ambition and plot available here. If you’re looking for a different kind of science fiction, then you could do a lot worse than The Serrano Legacy.
Alasdair started writing when he was nine, powered by a hefty diet of '80s cartoons, Doctor Who and Icepops. He's quite tired by this stage but has written a lot of things for a lot of people, including Fortean Times, Neo and Surreal.