Book review - Sheepfarmer's Daughter

Sheepfarmer's Daughter is the first volume of Elizabeth Moon's fantasy epic The Deed of Paksenarrion. It was published in 1988.

Paksenarrion, known as Paks to her friends, is the 'sheepfarmer's daughter' of the title. When her father tries to marry her off to the pig farmer down the road, she runs away from home and to join Duke Phelan's mercenary company. (In Moon's world, companies from the northern regions are equal opportunity outfits and thus accept female recruits.) Paks is tall, strong, determined and attractive to boot so she's quickly accepted and set to drilling.

Moon spent some time in the U.S. Marine Corps, so her portrayal of an ordinary soldier's life is convincing - Paks is no D&D-style vixen clad in a metal bikini, but a realistic young woman. She learns to march and fight in formation, as well as learning a code of honor. She soon makes friends and enemies and becomes a valued member of the company. After experiencing some routine operations, Paks and her comrades are drawn into a series of increasingly dangerous and exciting adventures. While the mercenaries are honorable, they are pragmatists who fight for the highest bidder - but they find themselves caught up in a struggle against evil powers. It gradually becomes apparent that there is something special about Paks - her destiny is to be much more than a mercenary.

Moon's world contains magic and most of the creatures on Tolkien's evolutionary tree (as Neal Stephenson calls it) - elves, orcs, dwarves and gnomes. However, these races do not play a large role in the story, which is focused on humans and their mundane struggles over power in a late medieval setting. In this way I found it reminiscent of Fletcher Pratt's The Well of the Unicorn, or Gene Wolfe's The Devil in a Forest.

Moon is a Episcopalian whose faith is important to her, and there are some interesting religious elements in the story. Paks lives in a polytheistic culture - she respects the very real power of the gods, but is not particularly dedicated to or knowledgeable about them. The reader slowly becomes aware that this is not entirely a pagan world - some people worship legendary warriors, such as Gird or Falk, who are not regarded as gods, but as saints, servants of 'the High Lord.' It is eventually evident that Paks has a special relationship with St. Gird, though she knows almost nothing about him. One of Paks' friends is a devout Girdian, but her clumsy and ignorant attempts at proselytizing alienate potential converts. On another occasion, Paks is called to transcend her warrior culture and learn the meaning of mercy.

In another review, I mentioned the genre of 'police procedurals' - workaday accounts of ordinary people doing their jobs. Much of this book is the fantasy equivalent to that: not too flashy, but interesting nonetheless. Moon's writing is competent, though not outstanding. Her story is oddly compelling - the book didn't seem particularly exciting, but it kept me turning pages. I just wanted to find out what came next, and on a number of occasions stayed up late to do so! I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

3.5 out of 5.