I place HFAF in the same category as "By Schism Rent Asunder" - pieces move about the table, jockeying for position and events are set in motion that require more segments to resolve. This is definitely a middle book in another story arc.

The excitement of Charisian naval victories and technical supremacy at sea is temporized by the Church moving to a strategy of terrorism, subversion and suicide bombers - all while promulgating oppression as it visit's the "Question" and Schulerite Torture on an ever widening array of targets. Getting your blood to boil at this pace is good in a Kung Fu movie where the villian's payback is only 40 minutes away - but here we have nearly another year to a resolution. After 6 books at this pace - the time to get back into space and take it to the Gbaba will take another decade.

Without spoiling too much for those still in the throws, I found this book went fast. But it drove me about the block and did not provide any great new insights or resolution. Development of the Charisian character ecosystem was satisfying, while subtractions by the Church's suicidal Rakurai raised my blood pressure as the vulnerability of any open society to this sort of attack hit home.

By the end the line is clearly drawn between the secular nations and the Church. Two major questions were raised - the nature of the sleeping elements under the Temple and the inability of the Charisian forces to insinuate an agent in the Temple itself. Clearly Clynthan and his cronies are much more susceptible to the negative consequences of a terror campaign than any of his higly dispersed enemies.