Review – Storm from the Shadows

Storm from the Shadows is a sequel to The Shadow of Saganami, and as such advances the general history in the Honorverse only a little bit beyond the end of At All Costs.

I had read some reviews that said that this book ended on a cliffhanger, but I had generally dismissed those. David Weber always leaves lots of interesting things to wonder about, which makes one wait eagerly for the next book. But I was wrong. This is, even compared to a normal Weber ending, a cliffhanger.

Many times as I read a series I get less and less enchanted with the books as I go along. It seems that authors are so anxious to keep things exciting that later books often look like science fiction as it might have been written in their science fiction universe.

In the David Weber’s case, and particularly in the Honorverse, while I think the situation has been escalating, it is not out of hand. I like the characterization, but even more importantly the development of cultures and backgrounds. If I were to have my choice in details, I probably would have had less conversations amongst the Manpower folks (or their even more secret higher-ups), but even that is well done provided one wants to really get involved in the universe as opposed to simply following a few characters for a story.

This book remains five out of five starts for me. There were a couple of earlier books in the series that weren’t quite fives in my book, but they were still very good books, and there is no doubt that I will read every book in this series, some more than once.

Storm from the Shadows follows Michelle Henke for the most part, and she is an interesting character herself. We do see some additional pieces of Aivars Terekhov, who is definitely a character worth watching, and Admiral Khumalo has a substantial role to play. We get passing glances at Abigail Hearns and several other interesting folks we have met in previous books.

There is somewhat less fleet action and a bit more politics, but in my view, that balance can shift quite a bit through the series and I’ll still be happy. I disagree with reviewers I have read who don’t like the way Weber does politics. I do think he follows some improbable tracks, given his characters and background, but he doesn’t go out of the realm of possibility and do things that look ridiculous within the universe he has created.

All in all, I think this is an exceptionally good continuation of an exceptionally good series.