Girded

It's always a good day when you start to read a new book by your favorite author. Having cleared the last pages of two tomes for work, I was free today to begin Oath of Fealty by Elizabeth Moon.

Although she is best known as a science fiction author and frequent collaborator with other sci-fi writers, Moon is my favorite author because of The Deed Of Paksenarrion. It's a fantasy trilogy focusing on a female soldier who becomes a paladin, or religious knight. I've read and reread it many times, and I've passed it on to many students. It always inspires me to show more courage in my life, and sets me ruminating on saints, sects, and religious pluralism.

When you wait this long for a new adventure in a beloved world, and for the reappearance of familiar characters, you want to read every word slowly, to make it last. I'm afraid that even the 496 pages of this (in hardcover ... I'm reading the Kindle edition) will pass by too quickly. Then it's a year to wait until the next book in this second trilory, Kings of the North arrives -- a year at least (the book's not on the publishing schedule yet). Meanwhile, though, there is a lifetime of other books and series to dive into. I'm still in a holding pattern on many I started more than a year ago, and have had to put aside for the constant stream of reading that needs to be done for work. Perhaps this summer I'll be able to sink back into series fantasy with a sigh of pure relaxation.