Review: Best yet
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 23, 2013
I think this is Mr Nuttall's best work yet. Unlike most of his books, the story starts out with action from the start. The entire novel is well paced and very upbeat in the face of adversity. This is another switch that I wholeheartedly approve of. This, the fifth book is set in the same universe as Semper Fi, When the Bough Breaks and two others. Mr Nuttall has stated that even numbered books will deal with Avalon and the commonwealth while odd numbered books deal with peripheral stories. As an odd numbered book, this deals with the figure known as the Trader Queen. A young women from a fundamentalist Islamic world is adopted into the Trader Clans and learns the economics of the Empire well enough to manipulate events to prevent the downfall of her home sector of the Empire.With funding from a rare beverage native to her home-world, she wrangles her position into a very successful trading empire and leverages that during the downfall of the empire into a political position to help stave off collapse. With the help of the local Imperial Navy squadron, which she also co-opts, she is able to prevent and demolish a plan to conquer her sector by the religious authorities of her home-world. The book ends with a representative of the Avalon commonwealth meeting with her for the first time.Overall, I was waiting for the next chapter at the end of each one. I thoroughly enjoyed this book as well as the series in general. I highly recommend both series and book to anyone who likes sci-fi, space opera and/or speculative fiction.