The last review I wrote was for a book with a ridiculously complicated title; this one is for a book with a ridiculously portentous, or possibly just pompous, title. So, that's fun. But that's just what the book is, though. Fun, that is, not pompous, although the PICA-protagonist can speechify with the best of them, to be fair. That's just a symptom of Weber-character syndrome, though, and as I keep buying and reading Weber books, I obviously don't mind that so very much. Even so, it does get a little eye-rolly at times.
I'm actually not sure what I have to say here that I didn't say in my review of the first installment of the series and that would not be unpleasantly spoilery. The pieces move, but no endgame is in sight - in fact, given how much progress this world needs to make in order to fulfill Merlin's goals, and how much progress was made in this book, I think this series will at least rival the Honorverse for word count by the time they get it all resolved. I really am looking forward to picking up the third one, though. And as long as the brain-eater doesn't come visiting, I'll probably continue to enjoy the heck out of these books, even with the speeches and the obsessively-depicted gorefests of the naval battles and the too-cute "I wanted to make sure none of my readers missed how clever I am" references to Things That Were. Great literature? Not a chance in the world. Great fun? Oh, yeah.
