Sea Changes

by Linda Grant De Pauw

The Second adventure of Lieutenant Maggie Steele.

Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

LINDA GRANT DE PAUW is President of the Minerva Center (an institution dedicated to studies of women in the military) and Professor Emeritus of History at George Washington University.

Reviews

[Silvio Curtis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sequel to Baptism of Fire. That was the voyage out from Earth, and this is the voyage back several months later. Even though the first book was so informative, this one doesn't make much progress filling in the remaining gaps (which are still large) in how the Earth's Navy and meritocratic monarchy work, or the background of the Delphinians, the Colonials, and the Delphinians' ordinary food hominids. There is a ghost, apparently brought in under Christian assumptions and completely unnecessary to the plot. There are also some romantic subplots, broadly speaking; it's a pleasant surprise to find the Navy is more sex-positive than I expected considering its entanglement with an authoritarian sort of Christianity, but I still thought this part of the book came out a bit silly. What world-building and excitement there are come from a secret Delphinian plot and Navy counterplotting.