What price victory?

The seventh installment to Weber's Worlds of Honor anthology series (after Beginnings) plants its feet firmly on the ground, focusing less on spectacular space battles and more on filling in background information about this complex world. The founder of the interstellar Andermani Empire, known for his obsession with Frederick the Great, survives a kidnapping attempt (powdered wig notwithstanding) in Timothy Zahn and Thomas Pope's "Traitor." Treecat fans will be pleased to learn how the telepathic felines help solve a human murder mystery in Jane Lindskold's "Deception on Gryphon," as well as ferret out a rogue admiral with a stolen superdreadnought in Jan Kotouč's "The Silesian Command." Joelle Presby's "If Wishes Were Space Cutters" explores the effects of a societal male shortage on a young man struggling to keep his family together while finding a career in constructing a new space station amid the wreckage of the old one. Weber himself details family strife endured by Honor's parents in "First Victory." New readers are likely to be lost, but devoted Honorverse fans will appreciate the filling of many small gaps. (Feb.)