Storm from the Shadows
This splendid continuation of the Honor Harrington saga takes its departure from both The Shadow of Saganami (2004) and At All Costs (2005). The Mantie commander on the spot (very much so, since she begins the novel as a Havenite POW) is Honor’s old subordinate, now an admiral, Michelle Henke. She is paroled to take home a proposal for peace talks between Manticore and Haven. In rapid succession, a Mantie officer attacks a planet protected by the Solarian League that is actually a base for the interstellar genetic-slavery oligarchy Manpower, Manticore annexes a cluster of systems and declares itself an empire, and the Solarian League gets trigger-happy. This all kicks everything up to the grand strategic level, where Honor is coping with new motherhood as well as her responsibilities as Empress Elizabeth’s most trusted advisor. Isn’t that enough for one heroine to have on her plate? Not if she is Honor Harrington, although more and more she has the loyal and competent assistance of a cast of scores, a listing of whom some, at least, may have welcomed. Weber prefatorily indicates changes in the long-term plans for the saga, which has achieved critical and popular success to a degree that is beginning to rival those of some fantasy and alternate-history competitors. However changed, and whatever may befall Honor, more enthralling reading awaits, apparently for ever more readers. --Roland Green