2022 SF, twelfth of its series. Naval forces and stealth ships are
mustered in a joint operation to track down a breakaway force from the
defeated enemy. But they will get unexpected help.
To go into more detail would give away plot points from earlier
books, so let's just say that an objection I had several books ago is
thoroughly addressed here.
And once more Stewart pulls off the trick of having extremely powerful
and well-equipped characters who nonetheless face challenges that are
still hard for them, that could potentially break or kill them.
Indeed, there's a lot of dying among the good guys.
All right, the plot is basically similar to that of Mage-Commander
("bad guys are out there and we're looking for them"), but there's
still enough to distinguish this from that book. There's even some
relationship talk that goes beyond "we find each other attractive, so
let's hop into bed".
All right, I'm still ready to move on to the long-foreshadowed aliens,
but this book in particular made me happy to wait a little longer to
get there.