Dreadnought: Nemesis - Book One: 1 (Nemesis, 1)

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Dark and Troubled Past: Sarah's powers are hereditary, thanks to the super-serum her grandfather was injected with, but they come with about a 50% chance of dying from leukemia within ten years of exposure. Two of Sarah's brothers didn't make it, and Sarah herself had leukemia as a child, although the cancer now seems to be in remission. Super Serum: Sarah's grandfather was unwillingly used as a lab rat for one. It worked, and the effects can be inherited, but the government doesn't know that, and Sarah's family is planning on keeping it that way. The result is an enormous (1,040 pp.) volume that is compelling, readable, and salutary for the amateur reader like me wanting a fuller picture of how the "Great War' became all but inevitable. We cleansed our beards of the mutton-grease, The Leitmotif of the book is the naval race. Fisher's impact upon the development of the Dreadnought and the reorientation of naval defence towards protecting the Home Islands from the Hochseeflotte is similarky humanized and stripped of its inevitability. Here, the mercurial Fisher prevails thanks to his good rappport with the King, beset on all sides by powerful opponents within the naval establishment.

After her father has one of his patented screaming fits, Danny's mother typically takes her out to buy something nice, despite the budget. It doesn't take Danny long to see it for the bribe it is, once she's out of her shell. In my estimations this is one of the best naval books written about this crucial period. It is also a key read for any one interested in under standing the gradual march to war in 1914 and the impending tragedies that soon followed. The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance. England, was never going to accept any power threatening its vital sea routes. The Homeland could not survive the loss of food raw materials, or employment tied to its world-wide interests. For England this was an existential fact. Germany had no comparable exposure.

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Bad Guy Bar: The "Flying Dutchman", a bar for graycapes, nonpartisans, and "associated hangers-on".

Big Bad: In the first book, we have Utopia, a cyborg-themed supervillain. In the second, we get Sovereign, a fascist billionaire. After he and his family left America for France, Massie wrote and published his breakthrough book, Nicholas and Alexandra, a biography of the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, his wife, Alexandra of Hesse, and their family and cultural/political milieu. Massie's interest in the Tsar's family was triggered by the birth of his son, the Rev. Robert Kinloch Massie, who suffers from hemophilia, a hereditary disease that also afflicted the last Tsar's son, Alexei. In 1971, the book was the basis of an Academy Award–winning film of the same title. In 1995, in his book The Romanovs: The Final Chapter, Massie updated Nicholas and Alexandra with much newly discovered information. Massie starts with Queen Victoria, her childhood, her reign as Queen and her offspring. For a long time I did not realize how the major leaders in Europe were all related to each other, having Queen Victoria for a grandmother. In Sovereign, she does everything she can to screw up Danny's life. And turns into an outright super villain. I also ended it a little unsure of the intended audience. The length alone would discourage beginners to the subject. Conversely, students of history will be familiar with huge chunks of the biographical sections. With no commentary to mull over or witty observations, the relevant sections boil down to who said what, when.Despite this book’s title, and the picture of a great big ship on the cover, this is really a book about people.

Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Danny gets VERY close to this. By the end of Sovereign she puts her heroics on hold and starts seeing a therapist. Speaking in modern terms, HMS Dreadnought was a game changer, a technological marvel, different and better than what had come before. As a technological marvel, Great Britain’s new battleship was also a disruptor. She made older ships obsolete – for both Great Britain and everyone else – while also upsetting the balance of power on the high seas. A battleship is a floating platform for naval guns designed to destroy enemy ships. Assuming equal marksmanship on both sides, the ship with the larger number of guns, firing heavier shells at longer range, will prevail. Speed is also a factor, giving a captain the power to choose the moment of action – whether to pursue or withdraw. In battle in mid-ocean, where an enemy ship cannot flee to a friendly harbor and where there is no hiding place other than in rain clouds, fog, or darkness, destruction of the slower, weaker vessel is almost inevitable. Range is important because a ship which can fire and score hits out of range of the guns of her enemy is fighting a helpless foe. Range, size of the guns, and destructive power go hand in hand; the larger the shell, the greater the range, and the heavier its penetrating and blast effect. When she was designed and built, the Dreadnought was the supreme embodiment of these concepts…” I doubt there's ever been a book written that will help you understand the causes of World War I better. An exhaustive piece of research, it focuses mainly on the rivalry between Britain and Germany for supremacy in Europe and how royal family squabbles and jealousies set the Hohenzollern dynasty and the German nation on a collision course with England and Russia. In some ways this book is a collection of biographies on those 'great' men of this age. The men who influenced the policy and strategy of the naval world from their perspective nations and positions that they held within them.

You cannot select the same psychic power more than once per battle round, unless that power is Smite. The first time is when Doc Impossible makes the results of Danny's medical scan available to all Legion members, accidentally outing Danny to the trans-hating Graywytch. Everyone Can See It: The Danny/Sarah pairing in Sovereign before their Relationship Upgrade. If the passage quoted in Oblivious to Love below is any indication, it's not hard to see how.