Finished The Exodus Gambit (House Adamant 1) by G Stewart about which I talked a bit above and it was excellent so I am eager to start book 2, The Old Guard (book 3 is due in March 2025 so luckily no long waits here - all btw are KU); my Goodreads review:
Very entertaining with great characters and set-up. While the storyline is a familiar one, the execution matters a lot and here it kept me turning the pages until I finished it and I definitely plan to read the second series book next.
The universe is also fairly familiar - a central "democratic" and super powerful human polity dominated to a large extent by corrupt and profit-seeking giant interstellar corporations, United Worlds here, the plucky small kingdom of Adamant on the far side of the human space with six habitable worlds and a locally powerful navy, with close enemies (the Richelieu Dominion) and friends (the Concordat of Amal Jadid the native polity of Frederick Adamant-Griffin, the Prince Consort and father of our heroine, lt commander Lorraine Adamant, youngest and fourth in succession to her mother Valeriya the "King" of Adamant), other local polities of the fringe cluster where Adamant is located with diverse relationships in-between and with the UW looming over them.
The government of Adamant, a democratic monarchy has the interesting feature that it doesn't have a crown prince/princess but 5 Pentarchs - in the usual succession order but all need to be over 18, so Lorraine is now 4th Pentarch as the youngest daughter after her two older brothers and older sister but when her twin baby nieces will become of age in 17 years, she will fall out of the Pentarchy, unless the "King" retires or dies and then a 6-month election from the 5 Pentarchs at the time decides the next ruler.
Similarly, her favorite uncle, Benjamin, commander of the Adamant Navy and famed admiral who decisively defeated the Richelieu Dominion in their latest aggressive war a decade past is now 5th Pentarch, though he used to be Second Pentarch and one of the succession favorites alongside his sister Valeriya, but he was badly injured in the accident that killed their father so couldn't really contest the election and lost to his sister, loss which he seemed to have taken with grace, at least until now decades later...
Lorraine, now 28, admired and loved his uncle who taught her the military arts and much more - they have been keeping a long-distance chess contest for years in which Lorraine only recently started having occasional success - and she was eager to follow in his footsteps in the Navy, even being ready to resign her Pentarchy in favor of her cousin, Benjamin's heir, just before the action of the book starts as she most likely would anyway fall out of it in the future...
So when deployed on a space mission on the frigate Goldenrod and Benjamin executes his coup murdering all of Lorraine's family except potentially her second brother who was an army officer and could have been protected by the army who didn't love Benjamin for reasons explained in the book, Lorraine barely escapes assassination by luck and timely action of her chief bodyguard, major Vigo, only to be numb with grief and incredulity that her uncle could have done such a thing. After somehow internalizing all, she realizes that her uncle would have a bunch of other options for her neutralization, from more direct assassination attempts to destroying the ship, to simply faking proof that Lorraine was behind the murders (of course Benjamin faked an attempt on himself too which he "luckily" survived and then took power as emergency Regent until future time when the election for King could be held) so she has to think fast on her feet, hope that both her guard and the crew of Goldenrod would stay loyal and assess her options to respond...
The other interesting thing is the translight mode of travel (slower of course than wormholing) which is done in integral multiples of the speed of light (quanta of c) and of course that dictates a lot of the strategy and tactics of the book.
Overall excellent stuff so far and with a good ending at a tbc point, I am eager to see what happens next and I highly recommend this series.
I'm surprised you haven't read it. But in terms of genre, this book is more science fiction or alternate history than fantasy.
But this book is really good!
