http://allbookedup-elena.blogspot.com... ( )

I like this. The fact that it's _not_ Honor or her crew that lead this story enriches the Honorverse - Terekhov doesn't handle things the way Honor would, I don't think, but he still handles them. The varied storylines - the Mesans, the various factions at the Convention, the planetary matters (and factions) on Split and Montana and the others, the internal tensions (between Helen and Paul, for one) on Hexapuma - all interweaving to make a strong and coherent story. And the way it interweaves with previous and concurrent books, too - At All Costs makes a lot of references to what's going on in Shadow, and there's a few back (not a lot, the Talbott Cluster is kind of out of touch with the details of what's happening in Manticore and in that area). But Shadow does refer to Abigail's story (in Service of the Sword) quite a lot, and not a few mentions of the events in Crown of Slaves. It's all one universe, and what happens in one place affects others - what happens to one group of people affects or will affect others. It's a little odd that the final battle is so nearly elided - though I suppose it does actually show all the shooting, it's just the endurance portion that gets discussed afterward instead of shown. Good story and a good direction for the Honorverse to go. ( )

A long, sprawling book with a half-dozen overlapping story lines and far too many characters (there's a list at the end, and I recommend you bookmark it). Weber takes several hundred pages to get things started, but once the yarn finds its footing things get really interesting.

It helps to be familiar with the Harrington series before reading this story, but really it isn't essential to do so; most of the characters are either new or had previously been minor players in the larger drama. ( )

Bored: Hey what happened to the adventure part of David Weber's books? The first part of the Honor Harrington series was great! So was "Path of the Fury" and "In Death Ground." The words action-packed and fast paced come to mind when thinking of "March Upcountry" and the rest of the series with John Ringo. "The Shadow of Saganami" is just a shadow of the adventure that David Weber used to be. This is just a long-winded expose' on politics. If I wanted politics, I would go to the current events section of the book store, not science fiction. If you are looking for excitement and battle scenes, look up John Ringo's "Ghost." If you are having problems falling asleep at night, buy "Shadow of Saganami." Really, though, unless you are REALLY into politically based Sci-Fi, this is not the book for you.

Sample Chapters: http://webscriptions.net/chapters/074...