Another great read, in an awesome series.

Oh man. The last third of this book had all the feels. I was despairing along with Paks and as a result, unashamedly doing the big ugly cry. Thankfully, I live alone. So no judgement there. RTC.

Elizabeth Moon does a great job at character development in this series. She takes a sheepfarmer's daughter from being completely naive and ignorant of the world outside her village and realistically broadens her worldview and her understanding of herself and her purpose. The first book in the trilogy felt limited because it was - Paks only grew so far in those years in the mercenary company. It's in this second book that she really starts to come into her own.Divided Allegiance still seems to w...

4 stars--I really liked it.Elizabeth Moon is an excellent fantasy writer, and is an especially good military fantasy writer. Her grasp of military details is incredible, and she brings those details to life on the page with ease. Paks continues to grow as a warrior, and also mentally as well, attempting various quests and learning more about the world and its peoples. Minor quibble: there's another attempted rape in this book; this seems to be a common trope in '80s fantasy, and I find it annoyi...

Continuing my re-read of the original Paksenarrion trilogy.First I have to talk about the cover of this book. This is obviously a re-issued cover but I like my original cover better. Both covers actually do a good job of depicting a pivotal character-building event in the book. But I think the original cover depiction of Paks' brutal, continuous death-cage fighting match with the multiple orcs, while all the time being invaded by total evil is the defining element of this entire book. But enough...

Much better than the first!Better the second reading3rd and even 4th. Paks is a strong character, she has been in many battles. She will leave the company, but will she become a Paladin? She has traveled to Fin Panier.She has faced many evils, but can she overcome this last?*5th time around. I really enjoy this trilogy.

Divided Allegiance is the second book in the 1980s epic military fantasy. Despite being written over twenty years ago, it still stands the test of time. Yes, Paks is a bit of a Mary Sue character, but the author is not afraid to have her tested in dire circumstances. Paks is the perfect character to highlight the rest of the world in this series. Having only known home and fighting under Duke Phelan, her outlook on life is expectedly naive. And yet she grows and learns to make more decisions for...

The biggest impression that this book made on me was thinking, “We still don’t treat our wounded veterans very well.” Paksenarrion, the golden girl, leaves her fighting unit for a while to do advanced training. Being the Mary Sue character that she is, she shines at all of it, and is ear-marked to become a Paladin of Gird until she is captured & tortured. Suddenly, her fellow fighters & superiors are questioning her future, even questioning her past dedication to her profession.Moon was a Marine...

Amazingly better than Sheepfarmer's Daughter; all I could think of was "here is everything I was missing in the first." Mostly. Took awhile to get there, but we finally see people encouraging Paks to think about what she is seeing and doing. The plot moved along, in a clever, winding way, and side characters came in who were given more to do than just moral support. I sucked it down in one evening (granted, I had nowhere else to be, but still). Moon brought out all the emotions and connections I...

Probably a 3.5 star as parts of the book were slow though I don’t know how relevant knowing all the details of the gods and peoples might be. On the other hand I love how Moon describes some of Paks’ activities such as learning to gentle a once-abused horse or the weapons workouts at the grange. But what really blew me away was the description of Paks as she lost confidence in herself leading to the devastating cliffhanger artfully written in a series of letters from various Marshalls.

This was a good middle book for a trilogy, which added to the story and background of all the magic, religion and peoples that were touched upon in the first book, where character development had been much more important. Here we expand the story of Paks as she gets thrown into some severe trials and tribulations, and suffers great changes.

Well that was a depressing ending.Overall I think I liked it. It definitely doesn't have the epic scope of a lot of fantasy, but I love how it focuses on Paksennarion. There's a lot of mundane activities, but I am finding it rather endearing.Gonna take a quick break before the third book but I will DEFINITELY be finishing it, I must know how it ends.And it had better be a happy ending.

*As per all of my reviews, I like to preface by saying that I listened to this book in audiobook format. This does indeed slightly skew my rating. I have found that audiobooks, give me a better "relationship" with the characters if done well, but also kills the book for me if narrated poorly. Also due to the nature of listening to the text, names and places may be spelled incorrectly here as I often do not have the physical volume in front of me.Also, I have written this review in a "rolling up

Good tale but hated the storyline. On to book 3

Please see my review of the omnibus edition The Deed of Paksenarrion. This is a transitional book as many second books in trilogies are. This one however will rip your heart out (if you have one). I love these books and gave a longer review of the one volume set, the omnibus edition. The trilogy gets my highest recommendation.I have recently reread these and still love them, and I don't use that word lightly. You don't often see (hear) me say that I love a book. This trilogy is one that I can re...

The ‘problem’ with reading 80’s-fantasy a few decades later, is that it sometimes feels somewhat… dated and predictable. I cannot judge whether it would have been predictable at the time, but I suspect not. Many of their twists and turns have been used so frequently by now that they became tropes.Still, I liked this book much better than the first. First of all, I’m happy to report that my beef with book 1 (the lack of secondary characters) has been removed. Not because it’s gone, but because I

Another stirring story by Elizabeth Moon. More varied and emotionally complex than its predecessor, it is probably more deserving of the title, Sheepfarmer's Daughter - the phrase is certainly mentioned enough.Beware, spoilers from Sheepfarmer's Daughter below.Siniava is dead and, in return for his help during the war, Duke Phelan is helping ex-pirate, Duke Alured, to secure is rule. Uncomfortable with the violence carried out at Alured's command, Paks leaves the Duke's company to see what else

The setting is taken almost wholesale from Dungeons and Dragons, and this bothered me more than was reasonable. _Sheepfarmer's Daughter_ had as context the mercenary company, which sliced the standard warmed-over Tolkien tropes in an interesting direction, and made the derivation less apparent. Here, Paksenarrion leaves the company and treks out for adventure either alone or with a small band. So there's no hiding it.It bothered me I guess because of the implied bankruptcy of imagination involve...

I forgot that this middle book was the dungeon crawl segment of our heroine's journey (in addition to the advanced training), but it's worth it as you get into the expanded lore of the world. Miraculously, I didn't cry for the last 60 page of this book, but there was definitely a wordless sob released at the end. Thank goodness I'm reading the full trilogy version and can immediately move into the next book.