Rating: 
Summary: Too much emphasis on setting
Review: I've waded through to page 150, but it's been a struggle, and I'm absolutely bored. The most interesting things that have happened so far are that smuggled goods (never identified) have been found aboard, and the yacht owner's spoiled brat of a nephew has jeopardized everyone with a stupid prank. Much of the book to this point has been setting -- the yacht's decor, the environmental features, the characters' clothes, the cuisine, even the yacht owner's exercise equipment. I've got 200+ pages to go, and they promise to be much the same.So I set this book aside for MAROONED, a Star Trek Voyager book that also deals with space pirates. Within 30 pages, I'm hooked -- and I've never really been a Star Trek fan. Seeing the contrast between it and Moon's book I decide I've had enough of HUNTING PARTY, which goes into my box of charity give-aways. Too bad -- it could have been a good story if there hadn't been so much fat.
Rating: 
Summary: Generally entertaining reading
Review: Main character, Heris Serrano, is a former military starship commander, who is forced out of the service by an evil Admiral. She carries this book pretty well with solid support from secondary character, Cecelia, who is a rich, aging former champion horsewoman, with a passion for fox hunting. The riding and hunting scenes are very well done, and it appears that Moon must herself have a passion for these things. The book loses its direction in the middle when Cecelia's spoiled nephew and his foolish cronies sneak off for a picnic and find themselves in the middle of a hunt where men are the prey. The book eventually regains its footing and the ending is fairly strong, promising an interesting sequel (which I will certainly read). All in all, a pretty good book.
Rating:
Summary: Generally entertaining reading
Review: Main character, Heris Serrano, is a former military starship commander, who is forced out of the service by an evil Admiral. She carries this book pretty well with solid support from secondary character, Cecelia, who is a rich, aging former champion horsewoman, with a passion for fox hunting. The riding and hunting scenes are very well done, and it appears that Moon must herself have a passion for these things. The book loses its direction in the middle when Cecelia's spoiled nephew and his foolish cronies sneak off for a picnic and find themselves in the middle of a hunt where men are the prey. The book eventually regains its footing and the ending is fairly strong, promising an interesting sequel (which I will certainly read). All in all, a pretty good book.
Rating: 
Summary: Mil sci-fi with a difference!
Review: Okay, I thought this book was pretty good as far as books from this genre of Military science fiction go. Heris Serrano is a very likeable character, as are the rest of the supporting characters in the book like Lady Cecelia, and even her nephew Ronnie. This book is actually not one about military science-fic per se, but its about an ex-Servicewoman trying to carve out a new life for herself as a civillian. Serrano goes on a self discovery of sorts as she slowly re-immerses herself back into the civillian world and life as Captain of the very saccharine and gag-worthy named "Sweet Delight", Lady Ceceilia's personal craft.. The plot itself centres around a conspiracy that goes up to the highest levels of the government, and is fast moving and fluid. Unlike some books where you find yourself gettting stuck at a particular chapter without motivation to go on, this book is very readable. I particularly liked the "island" scenes where Ronnie and the rest of the youngsters were left to fight for their lives and fend for themselves. I found Bubble's graudual transformation from rich fluffhead to the calm collected young lady she later became especially interesting, and that angle provides a lot of material for Moon to work with as she continues the series. Overall, 5 stars for a fine piece of work, and a good first novel in a series that I will definitely continue reading!
Rating: 
Summary: Enid Blyton writes Starship Troopers!
Review: The best thing about this novel is that after reading it I have decided to write a novel myself. My inspiration being that if I was iliterate and had English as a secondary language I could not come up with a bigger pile of rubbish. According to some of the other reviews this book is the weakest of the series. I will never know as this book has put me off *reading anything ever again!* It really is that poor. How people can justify giving it 4 or 5 stars in a review is beyond my comprehension. Books like 'A Game of Thrones' by George RR Martin, or 'Perdido Street Station' by China Miéville, deserve that kind of rating. Read them... Go. Now.
Rating:
Summary: Enid Blyton writes Starship Troopers!
Review: The best thing about this novel is that after reading it I have decided to write a novel myself. My inspiration being that if I was iliterate and had English as a secondary language I could not come up with a bigger pile of rubbish. According to some of the other reviews this book is the weakest of the series. I will never know as this book has put me off *reading anything ever again!* It really is that poor. How people can justify giving it 4 or 5 stars in a review is beyond my comprehension. Books like 'A Game of Thrones' by George RR Martin, or 'Perdido Street Station' by China Miéville, deserve that kind of rating. Read them... Go. Now.
Rating: 
Summary: Foxhunting can be "the most dangerous game"
Review: The first book in Elizabeth Moon's "Familias Regnant" series (and easily the best of the first three), this novel combines two of the author's interests--horsemanship and navy life--that would at first glance seem incongruous, and sprinkles liberally with Machiavellian House politics. If a would-be reader enjoyed "Sassinak" and "Generation Warriors," this is a good book to try next. Though it may seem to some that Moon spends too much time focusing on characters who hold little interest compared to Heris, this is not merely Heris's story (as readers will find later in the series). Though it may not be evident at first, this book sets up for important events that will take place later on.
Rating:
Summary: Science Friction
Review: There is nothing like a good science fiction story... And this IS nothing like a good science fiction story. This tale has been told in many, many different books and films and every single one of them was better than this poor excuse for a novel. The characters lacked depth, the premise lacked credibility and the plot had more holes in it than a factory full of of polo mints. Instead of being an integral part of the story the science fiction element (basically a disgraced starship captain and a few wretched attempts at some futuristic style technology) was totally incidental and the story could easily be cloned to take place in any country, in any social setting and in any period in time. This was the first Elizabeth Moon I had ever read... and the last.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing and derivitive
Review: This book was a disappointment. For the first 150 pages NOTHING of any real interest happens. I very nearly put the book down. After that first 150, we finally get some action, but this action is indeed centered around other characters than our heroine. It seemed like I was suddenly reading another, albeit better, book. Unfortunately, this much more action packed second half is essentially a rip off of all those many movies about men hunting men, while the first half was so much like the Honor Harrington books that I decided to simply go and reread those superior tomes. I suppose my sincere recommendation is that you do the same.
Rating:
Summary: don't let it put you off, though
Review: This is a really award-winningly terrible book, as some of the reviewers above have said, but it's probably a good idea not to let that put you off the rest of the series. I was very, very bored when I first read this and I'm glad, because if I hadn't been I wouldn't have gone on to read the others. It's probably worth reading this for the sake of completeness, but if you're short on patience skip it and move on to the later books - 2 and 3 are quite good, and 4 to 7 are excellent. It's odd that a writer who can produce the later books in the series is capable of turning out such unmitigated crap as this...how can someone who can keep you on the edge of the seat for three hundred pages truly believe anyone at all would be interested in five pages of description of engineering procedures? The many other flaws have already been mentioned - clunky prose, terrible characterisation and the bizarre feat of rendering fox-hunting even more incredibly pointless than it already is (in this book, the idle rich aristocracy of the universe have specially reconstructed the extinct fox from the genes of other animals and dedicated an entire planet to hunting it for absolutely no useful purpose whatsoever) and expecting the readers to like the characters who cheerfully engage in the 'sport'. Also notable for containing possibly the most unintentionally disturbing passage in any book ever, when one of the intensely dislikable "heroes" finds himself trapped in a bathroom, hands tied behind his back, wishing to use the facilities. He tells us that it would do no good to yank on the waistband from behind, because - I swear I'm not making it up - it has been designed to withstand incredible forces. I have spent the year since I first read the book wondering, on and off, exactly why *anyone* would design the waistband of a pair of trousers to withstand incredible forces. None of the possible answers has made me sleep any better at night...
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