2023 space-navy SF, third and last of its sub-series. Another
ex-commonwealth state is under attack by an alliance of former naval
commanders, and they appeal to the Dakotan Confederacy and the rump
Commonwealth for help…
Which makes everything neatly multi-layered. On the one hand,
we've got an admiral with very limited forces and uncertain allies
fighting against a near-peer opponent; that's a thing Stewart's done
well before, and he's done it well again. But on top of that, the
Commonwealth commander—the Imperator in person—while nominally an ally
is determined to set things up so that the victory will be seen as
his, and the Weston Republic will see no choice but to rejoin the
Commonwealth that he's trying to rebuild.
Yes, all right, there are plenty of spaceships go boom, and swarms of
thousands of missiles, and tough Marines doing tough Marine things.
Stewart knows his core audience. But at the same time, and even more
than in the original Castle Federation series, it's very clear that
the point of the war is von Clausewitz' "continuation of politics by
other means"; the question is not just "how can we win this battle"
but "do we even want to fight this battle now given likely losses and
retreat options on both sides, and if we withdraw instead, how can we
convince our local allies that they shouldn't just charge in anyway".
It gets repetitive sometimes; we established last book that our hero
Admiral James Tecumseh feels that the Commonwealth is dead not because
it's been fractured but because our villain Admiral Walkingstick made
himself Imperator, and now that it's been done every future admiral
unhappy with his political masters will see that he could do the same
thing. (Yeah, very fall of Rome.) OK, good point, We maybe didn't need
to hear that twice more here. And similarly Tecumseh continues to
believe that Walkingstick is at root an honourable man in spite of his
actions over the last two books. Well, they're old friends, I can see
him wanting to believe that…
This is apparently the end of Stewart's plans for this universe, but
he has plenty of others on the go.