Re: Highlights and Lowlights - June 2024

On 7/2/24 1:54 AM, Titus G wrote:

On 2/07/24 07:56, Tony Nance wrote:

>
Highlights and Lowlights - June 2024
>
Books are listed in reverse chronological order from how I read them,
using a very primitive rating system:
“+” are good, and more “+” are better
“-“ are not good, and more “-“ are worse

snip

>
( +++ - )  Fleet Elements - Williams [Praxis #5]
Good! Lots of intrigue, lots of space action, some unexpected events. An
incident near the end is handled in a very puzzling way (imho), and the
way it’s handled will influence book #6 greatly, where the Terran forces
vs the Zanshaa forces will surely come to a head.
>

 Isn't Fleet Elements Praxis #2 ?
 

The three Dread Empire's Fall books are generally considered to be Praxis #1 to #3 - consider that #1 is titled "The Praxis".

My favourite William's was the Metropolitan series and I also enjoyed
Dread Empire's Fall which even improved with book three but though I
enjoyed The Accidental War (Praxis #1), I thought it too implausible

I remember thinking The Accidental War was a tough go, and for all the plot advancement it achieved could have been a pamphlet instead of a book. Gratefully -- some years later -- I found myself enjoying Fleet Elements.

and I did not finish Fleet Elements because there was too much
redundancy or repetition and it was too similar to Dread Empires Fall
which I had just reread prior to beginning the Praxis series. So I am
not familiar with the puzzling incident.
 

I'll put a spoiler for the incident after my sign-off.
- Tony
Big spoiler for Fleet Elements below...
No, really, it's a big spoiler...
Well okay, you've been warned...
Throughout the book, Lamey has been struggling to line up investors for his financial scheming and has been more and more overtly threatening Sula (definitely blackmail, and also hinting at physical violence) if she doesn't come through for him.
Toward the end of the book, Lamey meets with Sula alone, and as the conversation doesn't go the way Lamey wants, he sucker-punches her in the gut and reaches for her face/jaw as she's bent over. She shoots him, he dies, and Martinez is the first one to enter in the immediate aftermath.
Ok, fine...Lamey has been threatening her, he assaulted her, it wasn't clear the assault would stop, and she killed him. Here's the puzzling part:
Both Martinez and Sula act like she's done the most heinous thing imaginable, they immediately contrive to hide/destroy the body and all of the evidence, and of course since she now has the worst cooties ever, Martinez decides she needs to be assigned to an extremely distant part of the fleet, certainly nowhere near him, and now he never wants to see her again.
What? Did I miss something plausible?