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Charlie's Reviews > Sheepfarmer's Daughter
Sheepfarmer's Daughter (The Deed of Paksenarrion, #1)
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Not an easy starter for the trilogy; I got stuck at chapter 30 for a while, then managed to end it out of sense of duty and read thru the whole trilogy in the end.
This first chapter set the main flaws that will scout us thru the whole saga:
- the plot is extraordinarily predictable from day one: that's fine, the protagonist has to live a great adventure, but she is simply a chick who is saved by some ex machina deity without any particular meaning. She just did what she has been told, the end.
- there is no gray in this world: the villains wore black, are evil, absolutely terribles. The good guys wear gold, are clear, clean. Either 1 or 0.. It feels like a video game where the good guys have to kill "the enemies," as they are called throughout the book, just for the plot to happens.
- the main character is super flat: you don't understand why she does what she does. She has extremely childish characterizations that don't change throughout the book and that are never explored.
- the events happen "because they do", and are not explained in the book: they just happen because elizabeth moon has decided that she has to write 1000 pages out of them.
- there's a magnifying glass set on how many potholes there are in the street, but friends and characters literally die in three lines, or entire months are skipped, just like that.
- you invest 10 pages explaining 10 minutes, and then it goes to "three months later" and you don't understand what the hell happened.
- you go from one battle to another, and you struggle to figure out when one starts and when the other ends.
- there is an annoying sense of wanting to make Christian morality, then let's face it, easy to believe in a god that every 5 seconds comes and saves your ass as happens to the protagonist.
- the main character is a woman but in reality this aspect is never explored: she has no gender, no mentality, no distinguishing features. As far as we are concerned she might as well be an amoeba. She doesn't interact in the world around her as a woman, she seems to be passing through.
- I feel like Elizabeth Moon has some unresolved issues with sex: rape as main story angle and a man got castrated as a side quest, WTF
I finally read the whole trilogy and reviewed here on Goodreads all the books and the trilogy itself:
Book I
Book II
Book III
Trilogy
This first chapter set the main flaws that will scout us thru the whole saga:
- the plot is extraordinarily predictable from day one: that's fine, the protagonist has to live a great adventure, but she is simply a chick who is saved by some ex machina deity without any particular meaning. She just did what she has been told, the end.
- there is no gray in this world: the villains wore black, are evil, absolutely terribles. The good guys wear gold, are clear, clean. Either 1 or 0.. It feels like a video game where the good guys have to kill "the enemies," as they are called throughout the book, just for the plot to happens.
- the main character is super flat: you don't understand why she does what she does. She has extremely childish characterizations that don't change throughout the book and that are never explored.
- the events happen "because they do", and are not explained in the book: they just happen because elizabeth moon has decided that she has to write 1000 pages out of them.
- there's a magnifying glass set on how many potholes there are in the street, but friends and characters literally die in three lines, or entire months are skipped, just like that.
- you invest 10 pages explaining 10 minutes, and then it goes to "three months later" and you don't understand what the hell happened.
- you go from one battle to another, and you struggle to figure out when one starts and when the other ends.
- there is an annoying sense of wanting to make Christian morality, then let's face it, easy to believe in a god that every 5 seconds comes and saves your ass as happens to the protagonist.
- the main character is a woman but in reality this aspect is never explored: she has no gender, no mentality, no distinguishing features. As far as we are concerned she might as well be an amoeba. She doesn't interact in the world around her as a woman, she seems to be passing through.
- I feel like Elizabeth Moon has some unresolved issues with sex: rape as main story angle and a man got castrated as a side quest, WTF
I finally read the whole trilogy and reviewed here on Goodreads all the books and the trilogy itself:
Book I
Book II
Book III
Trilogy
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Reading Progress
December 26, 2021
–
Started Reading
December 26, 2021
– Shelved
Finished Reading
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by
carol.
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rated it 3 stars
Jan 04, 2022 07:40AM
I'm not surprised. The series feels okay, but a little dated. If you want an interesting and more modern fantasy, but still with classic feel, try Robert Jackson Bennett's City of Stairs
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You are welcome! I hope it works well.
@Carol, I eventually read the whole trilogy cover to cover and then updated this review as well as I wrote a review for each single book.I'd updated this review with all the links as well, you may find them interesting since I saw you spent quite some time with this book! :)
