On second review…

Having now made it past Chapter 23, I can only rate this book even lower.

While there are elements of a good story, the supposed threat posed by the aliens - who can have a moon sized battleship and 150+ 500,000 tonne ships wiped out by 16-odd 50,000 tonne ships with weapons that are, by the physics of the setting, almost impossible (6x 22 inch lasers mounted to the fore, 4 to the aft and 8+ 5 inch secondary lasers are mounted on them, when a 300,000 tonne battleship (of admitted lesser technology, but still state of the art 5 years ago) can only mount 12 18 inch lasers and uncounted secondaries in turrets plus possess unbeatable range) is completely non-existent, the good guys take no losses when they go on the offence.

This renders every element of the social discord and settlement drama deeply unrealistic and makes the dictatorial attitude of the commander, plus the utterly appalling attitude she has to command problems (simply demanding her way, much like her grandfather, only without the cause - Ray Longknife was a good commander in his books) even worse.

This is a shame, because the middle three hours or so of the novel are actually quite good, with Kris’ stubborn attitude finally being brought to her attention via assassination attempt and her attempts to resolve it being mostly from the heart, well thought out and realistic (although as ever, she has to have her way, which is far less of an admirable character trait in a CO than a plucky subordinate) and give depth to Alwa station.

The utter lack of the cat-people being involved is deeply disappointing - an interesting race and pair of characters is reduced to a character who essentially replaces the casually offed Colonel Cortez.

The less we discuss of the formulaic and rather boring final battle and the absurdity that are one million one relativistic bullet launchers, the better. For the price of those ten or twenty battleships that could vastly outperform the super frigates (given the apparent comparative weighting and the frigates ability to charge ships ten times their sizes) could have been built, and would have been vastly more useful.

I’m genuinely worried about the remainder of the books, and while I remember the second series quite fondly, I am deeply concerned given the quality of writing in this novel having finished it.

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