The past two decades have been a prolific period for fantasy and science fiction author David Weber. From 1991 and 2010, between his own works and collaborations with authors such as Erik Flint, John Ringo and Linda Evans, Weber has published more than 35 books. Weber admits that everything he writes tends to “spawn sequels”—there are few single works in Weber’s bibliography. But Weber’s most successful series by far—beginning with 1992’s On Basilisk Station and continuing through 2010’s Mission of Honor—has yielded 12 books as it follows the exploits of female space navy officer, Honor Harrington.

Harrington battles enemy fleets, inimical political machinations and the schemes of genetic slavers in a space operatic milieu that loosely transposes the naval conflicts and political tensions between Great Britain and France during the Napoleonic Wars to the far future. (Think a female Horatio Hornblower in space.)

The series has certainly resonated with readers, as several of its entries, including 2000’s Ashes of Victory and 2002’s War of Honor, have reached as high as #12 and #8 on the New York Times bestseller list, respectively.

It turns out that even Weber’s shared-world anthologies spawn sequels—February’s In Fire Forged: Worlds of Honor #5 features three new stories based in the “Honorverse.” In addition to Jane Lindskold’s “Ruthless” and Timothy Zahn’s “An Act of War,” Weber himself has contributed “Let’s Dance!” a new Honor Harrington tale.

Though Lindskold, Zahn and Weber’s stories are self-contained enough to keep the interest of a reader unfamiliar with the Honorverse, In Fire Forged is ultimately aimed at an existing fan base. (A fourth and final entry in the anthology, Andy Presby’s “An Introduction to Modern Starship Armor Design,” which is less a story than a faux scientific treatise, will appeal only to the most dedicated Honorverse technophiles.)

In Fire Forged should help tide over fans of Honor Harrington until the next novel, A Rising Thunder, arrives sometime in 2012.

What is it with the devil and violinists? Seems like his thirst for their souls is never slaked. In the 1700s, he made a deal with Paganini; in the 1970s, he went down to Georgia; and now the unlikely California city of El Monte offers up the latest additions to his infernal collection.

In Ryka Aoki’s Light From Uncommon Stars, violin teacher Shizuka Satomi finds herself on the horns of a dilemma: As the clock ticks down, she needs to deliver one more soul to the Bad Guy Down Below or else prepare to take the hot seat for all eternity. She’s already turned over six violin students, each of whom traded their immortal essence for earthly success beyond their wildest ambitions. 

Number seven, though, is a problem. Katrina Nguyen, a transgender teen runaway with a broken instrument and a broken psyche, isn’t motivated by the typical incentives (recording contract, concert tour, international renown) that made Shizuka’s previous students such easy marks.

Katrina isn’t the only refugee with a troubled past on Shizuka’s date card. Local donut shop owner—and starship captain—Lan Tran is on the intergalactic lam from a civilization-destroying phenomenon known as Endplague. After a meet cute, Shizuka and Lan embark on a friendship in which confidences are shared and mutual assistance is provided.

In a sense, virtually all of the book’s protagonists are literary examples of the Japanese art of kintsugi, in which damaged pottery is repaired with gold, becoming stronger because of its imperfections. In addition to the novel’s all-the-feels poignancy, Light From Uncommon Stars is also very, very funny. When Lan’s son is harassed by a hot-rodding local, the interstellar traveler derides the Earthling as “another primitive . . . who thought going 0 to 0.00000089469 times the speed of light in 6.6 seconds was something to brag about.” In another scene, when Lan marvels at a seemingly unending parade of breadsticks at an Olive Garden, Shizuka rejoins, somewhat incredulously, “But you traveled across the galaxy. The galaxy.”

Without straining the metaphor too much, Aoki gets every element of mise-en-scène note-perfect, and her prose is as exacting and precise as the techniques Shizuka is trying to impart to her young charge. Readers can feel the steam emanating from the kitchens of Aoki’s San Gabriel Valley noodle joints, hear the scrape of a freshly rosined bow across recalcitrant strings and experience the acute anguish of having one foot anchored in one world while the other is desperately trying to move forward. 

It almost makes you wonder if Aoki made a deal with—naaaah. She knows better.

So you’ve successfully saved a fleet of soldiers from an intergalactic peril while simultaneously becoming the reluctant commander of a budding resistance movement. Now what? That's the dilemma facing Adequin Rake, captain of the spacecraft Argus. Unluckily for her—but luckily for readers—the excitement doesn’t ebb for even a moment in The Exiled Fleet.

As J.S. Dewe’s rousing follow-up to The Last Watch opens, Rake and her patchwork crew have survived the expanding calamity known as the Divide only to enter a new predicament. Without a warp core to travel to a safe part of the solar system, they’re dead in the water, and food and patience among the corps is growing scarce. Rake must rely on her team of trusted crewmembers to figure out how to retrofit the Argus and jump to safety. Along the way, they’ll encounter ancient civilizations, criminal enterprises and more than a few mechanical difficulties, all while trying to evade the evil Mercer Empire. Strap in—it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

But the bumpy ride is why we’re all here, right? One of the best parts about The Last Watch was how a cobbled-together, rag-tag assemblage of characters and technology still eked out a victory. I’m happy to report that the same white-knuckle, skin-of-their-teeth excitement is here from the very first page. So, too, are many of the characters that made the first installment great, as well as some welcome new arrivals.

Since The Exiled Fleet wastes very little time getting back into the action, it’s definitely recommended that readers tackle the first book before turning to this one. It’ll be completely worth it, because Fleet does a superlative job of expanding on everything that was interesting in Dewes’ debut—and this book is even more engaging and often, more personal. As Rake and her crew search for solutions, Dewes explores more of her complex universe and reveals more about the characters’ pasts. One character in particular has to come face-to-face with some ugly truths about his own family in a tense, painful, scary and oh-so-satisfying scene. Dewes has an aptitude both for excellent naval-inspired action sequences as well as for quieter interludes between characters. The amount of time she gives her characters to simply speak to one another makes the bonds they forge that much more believable.

In my review of The Last Watch, I mentioned that everyone should get ready to go back to the Divide in the next installment. But in The Exiled Fleet, Dewes goes far beyond the Divide to points of space as of yet unseen. Here’s hoping the next book in this excellent series keeps propelling us even further into the stars.