I'm not particularly a fan of Weber's politics (monarchy is not high on my list of potential solutions to our problems), but there's no denying the man can spin an engaging yarn (not to mention accomplish the seemingly impossible task of making long passages describing tactical space combat with made up technologies much more compelling than they have any right to be).

This novella gives us Honor's first assignment out of the academy. I didn't particularly want to like this story, especially given the comically unconvincing heavy who is initially Honor's commander, but I have to confess that it kept me turning the pages quite attentively.. ( )