Once a Hero

If you like David Weber's Honor Harrington series and are in the search for another good "Space Opera" series look no further! Elizabeth Moon's Esmay Suiza books definatly fit the bill. Their truely remarkable!

This book is throughly enjoyable. It somehow reminds me of something in Tom Clancy books, that feeling of a well oiled armed forces, where individual talent and team play combine to produce the most effective results.This is a true Space Opera, with plots and intrigues on political, military and personal levels, and a sense of grandeur. Possibly my favorite Elizabeth Moon book, and, as a matter of fact, the book that made me an Elizabeth Moon reader.

I grew up with Heinlein and other male science fiction writers, and felt sometimes frustrated with male protagonists and story line focus. Some of the other reviewers have mentioned that they had trouble getting into the book because they felt that the rape storyline was something they could not identify with as men. Well, I have always had trouble enjoying books in which women were two-dimensional potential partners...It's nice to finally see books with female protagonists who are assertive and successful, and not focused on partnership! (Norton, while a great writer, always seemed to hook up her women at the end). I enjoyed Moon's characterization of Esmay, and Esmay's family and work entaglements and incidents. Esmay became a character I genuinely cared for- enough to buy the books that include her!

A reader below thinks most men would not like this book because it deals with rape, and they would have trouble "understanding" its affects. I find such comments very disturbing, especially when the audience for this book is science fiction readers: readers who presumably are interested in reading about and understanding people and situations other than themselves and what they have experienced. Rape is central to this book, and the author goes to a great deal of trouble to explain, very successfully, how it affects people, why it is so devastating, and what a person and those around the rape victim could do (and should not do) to help the rape victim get better. She even shows how a male could have a similar experience and problems. If a person -- male or female -- wants to have a better comprehension of rape -- and wants to read a pretty good military adventure story, too -- I would highly recommend this book.

I'll have to admit that I don't really read books, but my school had made a required reading period every Friday, so I grabbed that book that I had planned to read for months and when I started reading I became engrossed with the style and reserve in Moon's writing. I couldn't stop reading it. I enjoyed her style of switching from place to place throughout the book. Her use of a character that wasn't even a command officer, who took control of a ship in battle and won is something that was probably made to grab the reader's attention. Anyhow, the book continues to go into her growth as a person and then reverts back to the thrill of battle, what more could you ask for in a book? I'M NOT GOING TO SPOIL THE BOOK FOR YOU, BUT I WILL SUGGEST THAT YOU READ THIS BOOK. WHAT I'VE WRITTEN IS JUST A TID-BIT OF WHAT IS IN THE BOOK!