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Amazon Review
Elizabeth Moon is best known in Britain for her Paksennarion fantasies; Hunting Party (1993) is the first of her Serrano Legacy SF novels. Its heroine Heris Serrano has suffered a familiar military-SF predicament--forced to resign her command in the space navy thanks to the machinations of a wicked admiral. Her new life as captain of an eccentric lady aristocrat's private space-yacht is handled with originality, charm and a thoughtfulness about how things work that's reminiscent of Robert A. Heinlein's better SF. Both captain and owner emerge as interesting personalities. Following a voyage enlivened by various accidents plus sabotage attempts by a spoiled brat on board, Hunting Party lives up to its title with episodes of horsemanship and fox-hunting on a lord's planet-wide estate. Here, secretly, darker entertainment is also going on--a sadistic armed hunt for human quarry. As a former US Marines lieutenant, Moon is grimly plausible about guns and their effects. Perhaps a little less plausible are the coincidences that bring together numerous unexpected characters, including Heris's personal nemesis and an old flame, for satisfying final confrontations. The story reads well and is self-contained: Heris's adventures continue in further novels, Sporting Chance and Winning Colours. --David Langford
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