An otherwise superb book spoiled by its ending and character changes…

If you like the Kris Longknife series of books, you’ll likely love 99.9% of this book.

It has some significant problems with the presentation of Vicky Peterwald’s growth and the rather abrupt way the Civil War is handled as a result of the need to cross over and bring Kris Longknife in… I spend quite a while detailing these, as they cost the book two stars of story - one for the personal flaws and one for the political flaws.

If you like Vicky Peterwald, you may find yourself disappointed, or you may not - while the novel itself is more than up to the authors standards, his political and personal preferences begin to show through heavily, with the Grand Dutchess accepting the left-of-centre political viewpoints put forward by her not-quite-lover, and in doing so both abandoning the Russian/Prussian political traditions that make Greenfeld interesting and also shifting her own personal values and preferences (as well as her love life) to a clone of Kris Longknife’s angst-ridden existence. If on the other than you do not value Vicky so much for her role as a (more) realistic (let’s face it, the setting is full of cackling villains and noble heroines) opposite number to Kris politically and personally, and like to see the values core to the Longknife family presented strongly through her conversion, then you will not have many of the problems I outline below.

As Vicky Peterwald - post her education - was something of a refreshing breath of fresh air and a challenge to Kris Longknife’s perpetual Longknife ‘success at all costs’ democratic heroism (while in parallel books she ignore her own tightly held beliefs and is as authoritarian as her grandpa) this is very disappointing.

It needs to happen to make room for Bold, but as this element of the universe has had considerably more ‘screen time’ it’s very disappointing to have Vicky both give in to Manny’s manipulations, and worse to promptly forgive him without so much as a fight when she almost literally had her step-mother in her gunsights. The story clearly foreshadows her total victory and her step-mothers death, and instead of this victory, Vicky is instead robbed of it.

This story does contain the most interesting and well-written fleet battle of the series - unlike many of the Kris Longknife novels, where her obsession with Frigate-style vessels as the ‘new wave’ of military tactics removed a great deal of the fascinating and well-written formalism of the ice-clad behemoths that are in many ways the centrepiece of the settings ships (abet, in a very interesting way), Vicky is forced to use traditional (abet updated) naval vessels and tactics and for this alone, the novel is worth reading - even if Vicky is reduced in her role as a set piece character by her adoption of monogamy and whatever form of strange non-Imperial democracy that is being pushed by Manny (while at the same time claiming he is not). Really, I can only share her rage at him inviting Kris in - the novel would be much better if he ended up dumped as a consequence.

I feel quite strongly that the author misses numerous tricks within his own setting as a consequence of the strange way his books from 2015+ are written, and this books is really where it truly begins, along with some of the Alwa-station era Longknife books.

But you can’t read all of Vicky Peterwald’s story without reading this book, and so far she has not quite been turned into a red-headed clone of a Longknife.

I have nothing really to add regarding Dina Pearlman’s narration - it is, as ever, excellent.

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