Change of Command
(The Serrano Legacy #6)

Elizabeth Moon

Riverdale: Baen, 1999. ISBN: 0-671-31963-9. Pp. 436

Review © 2006 Branislav L. Slantchev

My uneven experience with the Serrano Legacy continues; after a mildly disappointing virginal experience with Once a Hero, I was quite elated upon reading the excellent Rules of Engagement, and so I eagerly started the next entry in the series, the present volume. What a horrible mistake! It's not that the novel is truly awful (although it is far less interesting than even the first one), it's just that it should have been the 100-odd page opener to another novel. That is, despite the flurry of activity, this book has the feel of an infodump that just has to be done to set the stage for the truly important events to follow. But let me enumerate some of the worst offenders quickly.

First, this is not a novel about Heris Serrano. It's not a novel about Esmay Suiza either although she does pop up now and then throughout, invariably in a desperate attempt to get laid by her future hubby Barin Serrano, who is not the protagonist of the novel either. In fact, Esmay's "role" is a bit out of character; what with the single-minded pursuit of a romp in the sack and all. Just not the stuff you want to read when it comes to someone like her. Her main purpose, it appears, is to upset both her family on Altiplano and the Serranos with her plans to marry after accepting to become a Landbride. It also sets in motion a series of improbable coincidences, the unmistakable mark of writing gone awry.

Take, for example, the discovery of the ancient enmity between the Suizas and the Serranos. So Admiral Vida Serrano is taken off duty as part of Hobart Conselline's spreading grasp for power in the Familias' government. The excuse is the long-anticipated problem with the sabotaged rejuv drugs causing NCOs to go haywire. So far so good. But the admiral goes to her planet (where she has not visited in decades), then rearranges some pictures on the wall, then goes down in what must be a vast family archive, then looks at some children books, then discovers one that turns out to be someone's very old journal, where she finds a note between a pasted picture and a page, which reveals the horrible truth (or perhaps someone's version of it) on the events on Altiplano centuries ago, events that led to the destruction of the Family the Serranos had sworn to protect. Naturally, it's the Suizas. Naturally, it's right when a wedding is forthcoming. Naturally, it will all be brought up at the least opportune moment for the two lovebirds.

When Moon is not busy setting up coincidences that stretch credulity even in a sci-fi novel, she is furiously tying up loose ends. It's as if she knows there are these dangling threads that get in the way of the story she wants to tell, so she dispatches them with gleeful abandon to the place where no sequels can follow. Case in point are the New Texan women and children rescued by Barin in the previous book. These are a burden to him (his entire pay is being docked to support them), they get in the way of his wedding plans (hard to get leave to marry when he is responsible for so many already), and they are the object of terrorist attempts by some New Texan hotheads to recover them. All of this could be fascinating except that the gaggle of women and children is unceremoniously dumped on a newly colonized planet (where their low-level skills are in much demand), and the terrorist attack aimed at recovering them is swiftly thwarted by a resourceful NEM. Then it all vanishes on the dustbin of interstellar vacuum to clear the way for the cool stuff.

And the cool stuff is the political intrigue in the wake of Speaker Thornbuckle's assassination. I have to plead some ignorance about the political organization of the Familias and the background events that would have made all that mess somewhat easier to track. Since I jumped in the middle of the series, I will assume that things like Cecilia's brush with death or the reasons for the king's abdication have all been made clear in the earlier novels. Still, it is one long space opera that is very short on space but quite long on opera... of the soapy type. When aristocrats are not riding horses, they practice fencing. And when they do not fence, they kill each other with ancient rapiers (the scene with Miranda performing a sadistic eye exam on the Foreign Minister suspected of having her husband killed is probably homage to Honor Harrington's duel on Grayson in Flag in Exile; I never did quite understand the fascination with pointy objects in these future world novels.)

Unfortunately, the political side leaves a lot to be desired in terms of narrative. Apart from Hobart grumbling and installing a lot of his own supporters, there's not a whole lot going on where it matters. For example, the fascinating problem with rejuvenation a society must face is brushed aside. The threat from the Benignity is remote despite its agents lurking almost everywhere. The moral implications of enabling part of the population to live longer, much longer, than others are also never explored. The ticklish subject of absorbing and allowing the the New Texan women to re-adjust to an unfamiliar and menacing way of life is dealt in the time-honored "wishful thinking" fashion: rather than face a reality which may require them to lose their identities for the sake of their children, Moon offers a "solution" that any liberal would love: a pristine world where their backwardness is an asset, where they can be what they are, where they can be appreciated without having to change a thing. Sort of like an exotic animal in a zoo: never able to function properly in the advanced world they have entered, they are set in an artificially degraded one.

The only real spark is the mutiny in the Navy, doubtless the platform from which the sequel would erupt in full force. The fact that it is organized by elements surviving the death of Lepescu is a bit of a disappointment (or a statement about the lax security in the Familias). The fact that they are using inmates for their dirty work is a bit off-putting (I prefer my mutinies to be less clear-cut morally). But at least we now have a true crisis in the Familias universe. One that would open the doors to new incursions of the Benignity, perhaps. One that may force the union of two implacable enemies (for it does not matter, apparently, that the vengeance Serranos had sworn on the Suizas is many centuries old). As it is, after the exciting rides on Copper Mountain, the novel ends not with a whimper but with a bang. Unfortunately, it's not the type of bang the poet had in mind although it's doubtless a very pleasant one for the two participants.

August 31, 2006