Also the hopes of the Pharsi nation, subjugated and persecuted by Kharst, rest on Quaeryt’s shoulders too as his command is mostly Pharsi refugee soldiers and officers in addition of course to the few mostly untrained Imagers whom he has to shape into officers too.

And not to make matters easier, Quaeryt’s wife and Lord Bhayar’s youngest sister, Vaelora, now pregnant, has her own job at court to co-rule with her sister-in-law Aelina, as Telaryn’s ruler is with the main Army of the North since he has staked everything on the invasion too..

Moreover the Telaryn Commander in Chief, Marshal Deucalon doesn’t like Quaeryt or Skarpa in the least so they get the minimum amount of soldiers and the maximum amount of hardship possible without triggering Bhayar’s ire, while Sub-Marshal Myskil, former close confidant of governor Rescalyn and presumably involved in his plot to take over Telaryn and depose Bhayar, still remembers Quaeryt’s so elegantly breaking the plot, while leaving a dead Rescalyn as a big war hero of Telaryn…

Volume 2 (House of Lies) will cover Heaven, and probably the Andermanni Empire and Silesia and volume 3 (House of Shadows) will cover the Solarian League and Mesa.

Jumping every few years to important events during his times, we get to see the established characters of the Honorverse (Hamish Alexander, Sonja Hemphill, Janacek, High Ridge etc) as young(er) people and the early tussles between Sonja Hemphill and Hamish are a delight to read; many hints for the future and a superb 200 page story.

The companion per se is quite detailed about Manticore, its history, notable people, navy, type of ships etc while the Grayson part is shorter though still a decent compendium. The last part with an essay and a few q/a by DW is also outstanding.

Overall House of Steel is highly recommended for fans of the series and as the compendium stops in early 1921 PD, so just before the first battle of Manticore, there are no real spoilers for the current part of the series so it’s a good “get up to date” for people who want to jump in but do not want to read 20+ books and tons of short stories.

French news correspondent and independent scholar Eleazard von Wogau is going through a painful divorce with archaeologist Brazilian wife Elaine and has moved to Alcantara, a decrepit provincial town where he is sent by his editors an incredible recent discovery, namely an original manuscript from the 17th century purporting to tell the life of Father Kirchner. Eleazard starts preparing the manuscript for publication and annotating it heavily, while getting involved with a mysterious Italian lady of many secrets.

Elaine – a professor at the University of Brazilia – is going on the jungle archaeology trip of a lifetime with a few colleagues, including star paleo-zoologist Dietlev who is her current on and off lover and the just minted geology PhD Mauro, son of rich Maranhao governor Moreira who is corrupt and involved in very shady stuff as most of his money actually comes from his Countess wife Carlotta while he only administers it in her name.

In the Fortaleza Favela de Pirambu, 15 year old “reduced” Nelson is scrapping a begging and occasional thievery life and dreaming of famed outlaw Lampiao and of better things, while squirreling money to buy his dream wheelchair – Nelson has no legs from birth. Nelson is being helped/tutored by truck driver, “uncle” Ze, as his real father has died long ago in an work accident in one of Moreira’s factories.

With brilliant ease, Werner’s meticulously rendered story begins quietly at first, then grabs its reader, refusing to let go. On the Edge, widely acclaimed by reviewers as a treasure of contemporary German literature, has been published in 15 different countries, and has sold over 400,000 copies in Germany alone since its publication in 2004.”

“Everything’s turning. And everything’s turning round him. It’s insane, but I’m even tempted to think that he’s sneaking around the house right now—with or without a dagger. Although he’s supposed to have left, and I’m just hearing crickets and the distant barking of dogs in the night.”

After this dramatic introduction by the narrator – womanizer mid-thirties Swiss divorce lawyer Thomas Clarin – he starts recounting how he drove to his mountain villa for a long weekend to write a paper on Swiss divorce law history, only to to go to a nearby famed restaurant terrace and due to its being busy, sit at a table with an older, powerfully built 50′s man, who at first ignores him after giving Clarin tacit permission to sit at his table. However after Clarin, outgoing, sociable, charming as his many conquests and “theory of dating” show, introduces himself, the older man starts paying attention and tells him his name is Loos as they start discussing stuff:

“Well, first, as I hinted, the discussion was all ‘God and the world,’ but then we gradually got more personal, more intimate, you could say. For example, he asked me about my life as a bachelor and then along the way about my love life.”

Loos is mourning his wife, dead one year ago after a bout with brain cancer and Clarin slowly falls under his spell:

“I met a man by chance at the Bellevue in Montagnola, a remarkable man, a little over fifty, a classical philologist. We got to be friends of a sort, talked with each other for two evenings long. His name was Loos, Thomas Loos, physically a bear of a man. He had come down here, as he gradually revealed, to commemorate his wife, his dead Bettina, whom he revered like a saint—it came across as crazy to me. He was unquestionably disturbed, from time to time almost unbalanced—then completely normal again and impressively sharp-minded, especially when it came to proving how awful the present age is, how unbearable the world—the only thing he valued was his wife, his happy marriage”

While the story reveals itself soon as a pretty familiar one after a somewhat mysterious beginning where both the origins of the cult that is central to the novel and of the architect of the title are presented, the power of the book lies in the captivating style and the slowly turning up of the pressure and the stakes.
 
I would strongly recommend to at least check a sample of this short novel and see if the powerful imagery inside transfixes you too.