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The Deed of Paksenarrion was originally published as a trilogy (the titles are given above) in the late 1980s. It relates the adventures of Paksenarrion, a girl who runs away from home and her peasant family to become a warrior. She joins a mercenary company, becomes friends with the Duke who commands it, and then later leaves to follow what she sees as a higher calling. The main conflict in the book is between Paksenarrion and various minions (human and otherwise) of evil, particularly the deities Achrya and Liart.
There are immediately noticeable biblical elements in The Deed of Paksenarrion. Although the paralells are not as obvious as in such works as C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, they are there, particularly as Paksenarrion undergoes troubles that severely try her faith. Two episodes are particularly good examples of this. In both cases, Paksenarrion is tempted by, and, in one instance, succumbs to, despair, but both times hope wins out in triumphant style.
Simply put, The Deed of Paksenarrion is a superb book. There is, as I have mentioned in other reviews at this site, a fair amount of dreck out there trying to pass for fantasy literature these days, but Moon avoids most if not all of the pitfalls that occasionally ensnare lesser authors (there are, for example, no sweatily-described sex scenes, and the gore is similarly low-key). In particular there is a refreshing lack of cynicism in Moon's writing; on the contrary, one of the central themes running through the book is that despair can always be conquered, if not always without help. Paksenarrion herself, despite the serious scrapes she gets into, and the scars with which she is left, never becomes irretrievably bitter, but merely keeps on accruing wisdom and trying to do what she thinks is right. On a more basic level, the writing is strong, with battle scenes in particular being engagingly described (as an aside, those interested in role-playing will find The Deed of Paksenarrion very useful in the area of background detail for campaigns). The characters are familiar without being clichés, from Paksenarrion's grizzled sergeant in the Duke's company to the haughty, mysterious elves that she encounters later in the book. My only negative comment has more to do with the publication than the novel itself; more maps would have been nice, to better illustrate Moon's fantasy world. In short, anyone who is a fan of fantasy literature will very much enjoy The Deed of Paksenarrion.
Reviewed by Patrick Conway on Friday, February 6, 1998.