Torch of Freedom by David Weber and Eric Flint

Queen Berry of the planet Torch is a nineteen year old who is almost assassinated at her coronation. The slaves who made her Queen are rather perturbed that anyone would try to kill her, and pretty much everyone thinks that the Assassin came from the Corporation known as Manpower.

But Manpower, which makes its money from genetic slavery, is very strange for a corporation. It doesn't always seem to act like a corporation acts, and uses business practices that make no sense from a business standpoint- operating at a severe loss and giving certain corporate allies severe discounts, which make them operate at an even further loss.

Nor is Manpower the only entity making a profit from slavery. But freed slaves, and those opposed to genetic slavery- or slavery of any stripe, including the terrorist group known as the Audobon ballroom, makes it their mission to track down slavers and put them forcibly out of business.

One such group of slavers is using an old amusement park based around the planet Ameta, owned by a family known as the Parmleys. The Parmleys built the park and still run it, but it has never really been a going concern, and they are in no real position to throw the slavers off of their facility. So, when the slavers showed up, they fought them- twice, but lost so many family members that they had to make an accomodation with the slavers or be wiped out. So, the slavers keep to their section of the station/amusement park, and the family keeps to theirs.

But when a group of slaver-hunters lands and exterminates the slavers, the family is afraid that the slaver-hunters will want to kill them for treating with the slavers, because the Audobon Ballroom doesn't take kindly to that sort of thing. But with the accession of Queen Berry and the freeing of Torch, the Ballroom has given up its more terroristic ways, even though they still want to bring down Manpower.

The head of the family travels to Torch, along with some members of her family, hoping that the Ballroom will buy their amusement park and use it as an anti-slaver fortress. Though the amusment park belongs to their family, they no longer have the money to leave- or buy prolong treatments for their children. So they hope they can convince Jeremy X to be generous.

But in the meantime, another assassination attempt is made on Queen Berry, and she and her advisors sit down to get through the problem of Manpower once and for all. Two of her advisors, the Havenite spy and spymaster Victor Cachat and Manticorean Anton Zilwicki head to Mesa to plumb the depths of the corporation to see who was really behind the first assassination- and prevent any more.

Meanwhile, on Mesa, a security officer known as Jack McBryde is put in charge of an angry and distraught scientist named Herlander Simões. Both are members of the Alpha elite, and Herlander is angry that the girl he raised as his daughter, whom he deeply, truly loved, was deemed to be useless and destroyed when she developed massive autism suddenly.

Herlander wanted to keep her alive, and to keep his hope of having her recover, but the decision was take away from him, and now he is desperately angry and in danger of losing it. He doesn't even have his wife any more, for she left him. Now McBride is to keep him from cracking up as long as Herlander is working on a top secret drive project.

To do so, he talks to Herlander and tries to act as a sounding board. But as he does so, he's forced to confront some hard truths about his own society and comes to question the basis of what he's believed his entire life. But can two men really make a great change in their own society?

And meanwhile, Torch must once again be defended when a bunch of disgruntled Havenite Pirates are hired by Manpower to Eliminate the "problem" of Torch and Queen Berry once and for all. But with only a bunch of refitted merchant ships, can the Sollies defend Torch and emerge victorious?

I liked this book, even if it wasn't quite as thrilling as the books starring Honor Harrington. Part of this was because with so many "main characters", the story focus, even if they are all offshoots or subplots around the main thread, sometimes lacks cohesion and feels a bit unfocused.

So who is the main character here? I'd say Torch, since it is the focus around which all plots revolve, even that of Queen Berry, if you can say that a planet is a character. Perhaps it's the idea of what Torch represents- freedom and hope for those born as genetic slaves- through no fault of their own, they are ostracized for their origins.

By the end of the story, a new blow has been struck for the freedom of "gennies", and we have learned more about the structure of Manpower- but more importantly, so have the Audobon Ballroom and the rest of the galaxy- learned the true reason why genetic slavery and Manpower really exist, and who is really behind it. We haven't seen the impact of that knowledge, but I have a feeling that it will be like a dropped bomb- but Torch and Queen Berry's problems won't be over quite yet.

I recommend this book. Yes, the story may seem scattered and unfocused at points, but when things start to move, they really start to move, and the action races to a spellbinding finish that will make you unable to put the book down. A really wonderful story.