Here comes Honor Harrington again, and her entire crew of fans will man the yards to cheer. In her fifth adventure, she is trying to overcome self-doubts about her competence, grief over her lover's murder (despite having splendidly avenged it), and the barriers to a woman's being an effective feudal ruler on the fiercely patriarchal planet of Grayson. She is making headway when a Havenite fleet shows up, bent on the destruction of Grayson, and she must go back into space as an admiral while her enemies resort to open treachery and murder in trying to bring her down. Honor triumphs again, but with a believable amount of difficulty; she is growing into one of the more complex protagonists in military sf. Meanwhile, her fandom will continue to fall in love with Nimitz, the empathic treecat, and admire Weber's sheer ingenuity in so many aspects of creating Honor's universe.
