This is one of those books that I didn’t feel any urgency to read after reading the first book. It’s kind of a familiar theme in that some space salvage guy and his crew find a derelict space yacht and begin doing what they do, salvaging stuff. The know they have to do it quickly since the owners of this ship will probably show up pretty soon to find out what happened and why. But, while searching around in the debris, they come upon a small life pod. They take it into their ship and find a beautiful, but very young Princess of Carina. Ok, so, they try and protect her from those they were trying to kidnap her and use her as political capital against her father and the Carinaians. Of course, Devin, the Captain of the HCC Fossa falls in love with this young lady who is about his age. That was the first book.
Now, we find that Devin and his crew come under attack and something happens one of which is that the Princess, Sierra Falco, is re-captured by those who which to hold her hostage. Now, the rest of the book is one political plot that is rather boring in my opinion. Oh, there is some fighting on Earth around Jerusalem and the holy sites, but it’s covered pretty quickly and seems a little too organized for a bunch of terrorist.
But first, you have to read about the horse race for the Champion of Triumph! Yes, in the race to crown a new Champion of the Realm has to be done I guess to fill some book space. Anyway, it takes a good while for this race to get done while all the contestants are killed by each other. The winner is the one left sitting on his horse as it crosses the finish line. Cristiana intends to win, but she doesn’t. You’ll find out who does in the book.
So, back to the political stuff. All this is about who controls Earth, the Sacred Planet. Once side feels that the Earth Federation isn’t doing the job right, but they have no pretext to attach the Sacred Planet and take over. Another group believes the Earth Federation has meddled in their affairs and they want retribution. None of this is true. It’s all political maneuvering by one very clever Minister of Arms. He wants a war with Earth so his empire can take it over and fix what he sees a problems with the Holy Lands. Same old same old!
Well, I did finish the entire book. Davin, our supposed hero and main character in the book, doesn’t do much. What he does do is fruitless in that it didn’t need to be done when he got ready to do it. Read the book. Cristiana, our other quasi-main character turns out to be somewhat of an idiot and doesn’t know who she’s really fighting for. She eventually runs off from the battle leaving her soldiers and the Champion of the Regnum behind to fight what could be a losing battle. Real hero stuff!
Read the book if you like political intrigue and stuff like that. I don’t particularly, but it was a somewhat interesting story.