The obvious question posed by this book: Why does David Weber think he needs to write a Young Adult novel set in the Honorverse? Let’s just say I have doubts about his need to commit to write still another series….
That said, it’s a decent book, and fills in some of the Sphinx backstory. Half of the book’s a direct reprint of the novella with the same name; the second half is new and, to me, far too predictable. Weber often goes out of his way to make his villains into real people; no such luck with this one, who’s pretty much a cartoon.
There’s an Honorverse glossary at the end of this book, by the way. Just thought I’d mention that; I’m sure new readers to the series will find it helpful, but only if they know to look for it.
This short review was originally published on LibraryThing.