felt like half the book

I was so shocked when I looked at my audible app and realised I only had 36min left in the book - I was just getting settled into it and suddenly it was over...

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An excellent new direction marred only by repeated storylines and poor characterisation.

The book is also too short, this is common for the series, but it particular shows here.

Everything about this book is excellent, except with the authors now seeming obsession with ‘stick in the mud admirals’ refusing to accept (what are obviously) superior tactics rather than using the same increases in technology to create their own, and Kris Longknife being oh-so-justified in relieving them.

The book also harps on about the evils of Grandpa Al’s corporate world a little too much, it would be nice if the infamous Longknife family perhaps had a few more redeeming features.

We’ve heard both stories before, one is essentially flawed - and while historically very accurate, something that took up almost two books in places and is based both upon a flawed adoption of described technologies (really, if you can’t create a superior battleship with improved reactors, 24 inch lasers, ablative smart metal/water matrix in place of ice, slow light armour and enlarged thrusters, you’re not trying, the same for improved destroyer missile warheads with antimatter drives and warheads) and the entire navy except the kids being boneheaded. This was fun when I was 20, but at an age older than Kris (and younger than the authors fictional grand daughter) I get a bit tired of old people being mocked for being unchanging. It’s been nearly a decade since the Long Peace dissolved, after all. Perhaps if Kris Longknife had not done everything important, some other officers might have experience?

Sardonic moment over - the battlecruiser combat is well enough written, but disappointing as for plot reasons the ‘very alien’ aliens do not use particularly different technology, tactics or designs to the humans - the brilliance of the early setting was in part in the human’s awesome but clunky tech (and the neatness of smart metal interfacing with with it, you can debate the super-science whole smart metal ships) but also due to the aliens having awesome and different technology, but as they’re a very staid empire, they of course are outpaced by the humans (still absurdly fast) advances and production rates.

All that said - the diplomatic, political, social and personal elements of the story are superb and deserve five stars, if a large middle section of the book did not revolve around a truly boring and highly overplayed story that involves Kris Longknife literally illegally having her husband march an admiral or two off their bridges at gunpoint *by their own marines* in a manner that… it was fun once, it felt justified when she was the underdog, but now it costs the book a star in and of itself.

There’s also too little seen of Abi, Bruce and characters other than Kris throughout much of the book, and perhaps a little overemphasis on the kids - they’re actually well presented characters, but the author excels in some of those personal moments, and those we do see are excellent, it would have been nice to loose the battle entirely to allow for more of the ‘getting to know you’ again after five years. Admiral Kitano (sp?) also seems to be introduced only to be removed again, which is completely logical and I really enjoy how she has developed as a character - for all my ranting about the young bucks of the battlecruiser division, I loved and still love the battlecruiser design *as part of a consistent and evolving universe* and the subtle multi-cultural and gender-balanced approach to storytelling that Kitano, Abi and even Jack show is a real breath of fresh air compared to the all-white *or* overtly forced alternative sci-fi styles that often battle for the Nebula Awards, honestly, this entire series could be put forward for the ‘doing the right thing without a hammer’ award, and that - combined with the above storytelling, wins back one of the two lost stars.

I recall the later books being first politically, then heavily combat focused as Kris saves the alien Empire, I am a bit concerned about that - it feels like there should be stronger alien characters taking that role, another Vicky Peterwald (who’s series is still the stand-out best of all of them, although I have yet to read the Santiago stories in part because I may be upset by the treatment of any feline race) so to speak, it feels like a little more White Saviour than it does Shogun, but this is an excellent setup for these books and I’m looking forward to them.

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