L'orgueil des Lyon

This book picks up right where Damia's Children left off. As I mentioned in my review for Damia's Children, it feels like these two novels were meant to be one long complete novel rather than the two they are. I did not feel like Damia's Children had an overarching plot, it was more an introduction of characters for this novel.

This novel did have a decent plot, but again, it seemed like small events carried it. I was not impressed with the science in the science fiction. The author was also very absorbed in all her naval and ships and worlds and honestly, it got confusing. Usually I pride myself on keeping all those things straight, but there were too many major and minor characters and worlds and ships to keep straight, so I just skimmed when a listing of people or ships or worlds was given. I'm sure she was just record keeping, dotting her i's and crossing her t's, but it was really just too much.

The love stories that pervaded The Rowan and Damia do not really exist in Damia's Children and Lion's Pride. There are love interests, but they are rather side-lined and not particularly interesting nor developed. You get a bit of "movie" impression where boy meets girl, there are some small interactions that we get to see, then suddenly they are in love and we are expected to understand that deep development must have happened off screen and we only saw sex scenes because those are what sells.

Again, this was a quick read.

This is book #4 in The Tower and The Hive series, and is a pretty direct continuation of Damia's Children with the same cast of characters. The overall plot point here is going from a defensive war against the Hive to taking to the offence and bringing the war to them. But along the way two other issues get involved. The first is that a significant portion of the Human polity is not sure that they want a war. Maybe there could be a peaceful solution, they think. That faces a couple of big problems since the Hive does not seem to be interested in anything except complete extermination, and in any case there does not seem to be any way to communicate with them. The other big issue is that Mrdini are not Human, and they have a different way of thinking, as becomes very clear in a dramatic incident.

I listened to the Audio Book version of this novel