The gritty, mud-in-your-teeth reality of soldiering is Moon’s bread and butter, and I absolutely, utterly, and completely love how she does it, be it in her fantasy sagas or her space works. The Paksennarion series is epic high 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 brings a unique texture of her own to the genre, in her attention to legal and economic detail and her peerless portrayal of military life from the ground up.

That’s not to say that this series isn’t worth reading, because these are the books that rightfully launched Elizabeth Moon on the scene, earning her the 1989 Compton Crook Award (for Sheepfarmer’s Daughter). For me, Deed of Paksenarrion suffered in comparison. Published back in 1988/9, the three books that comprise the Deed of Paksenarrion saga are Elizabeth Moon’s earliest works, and while I respect them, I think of them in much the same way I think of Patricia Briggs’ Sianim novels – when you’re spoiled by an author’s later works (I have an unholy love of Moon’s space odysseys), it’s hard to not to find the earlier books lacking in some respect. Oath of Gold finishes her story of recovery and redemption. Divided Allegiance describes her departure from Phelan and her training to become a paladin of Gird….a journey that ends in disaster.

Sheepfarmer’s Daughter takes her from the farm through three fighting seasons as a mercenary in Duke Phelan’s Company. Originally written as one long story, it was broken into three for practical reasons when first published. She has to confront and overcome her strengths as well as her weaknesses…and her triumph redeems more than herself.

In the end, she pays the price that heroism demands and becomes the paladin who saves a kingdom…but the journey is longer and darker than she ever imagined.

But military life and warfare aren’t anything like her daydreams…yet she holds to both her duty and her dreams. When her father tells her she must marry the neighbor’s son, she runs away from home to join the mercenary company her cousin told her about. Paksenarrion Dorthansdotter, headstrong daughter of a sheep farmer on the north edge of the kingdom, dreams of being a hero out of legend, of fame and magic swords and great deeds. All three novels in this epic trilogy, Sheepfarmer’s Daughter, Divided Allegiance, and Oath of Gold, appear in the omnibus edition, Deed of Parksenarrion.

Divided Allegiance by Elizabeth Moon