This is why I rarely read fantasy novels.
I cannot believe some of the things people will put into them. Its an alternative universe, I suppose, so they can put anything into them. Still, come on.
I mostly liked the story and stuff though.
Its like a mideival times-type era and a roving band signing up mercenaries require them to be 18? uh huh. Okay, lets get past that, we can assume that I guess.
AND they take women and equals. In a world with arranged marriages and doweries? That seems like a little bit of stretch.
Sure there are characters than cannot believe a woman would want to be a soldier, sexual harrassment blah blah. So obviously, women are not accepted as total equals in this alternative universe.
But there is birth control at the table at every meal and the soldiers can have sex with each other during their off hours.
Gee, and you are supposed to wonder why there'd be sexual harrassment.
Again, in a mideival world with arranged marriages and crap. Kind of stretches a readers credulity, then again, its fantasy.
It does have dwarves and elves and such, in the background, not as a main character point. She never actually meets any of those in this book, I guess this was a series, I don't know if anything came afterwards though.
Killing comes very naturally to the character. hhmmm. Her soldier friends die in battle and are almost never missed. Their names are mentioned in passing, as in "oh well".
There are some scenes of potions and magic by the end of the story and the main character is apparently "protected" by some kind of mysterious magic. The paladin's are impressed and think she is going to be something special.
By the end of the book its 4 years later, she'd be 22. Sounds like the average lifespan is quite short with all the death and killing going on. It'd be about time for her "special" abilities to show up, I'd think.
I guess, sometimes, I find it hard to suspend my disbelief.
Sheep Farmers daughter can be downloaded at Baen's free library.
http://www.baen.com/library/ 
