Three short novels, extracted from longer stories published elsewhere.

Ms. Mid­ship­woman Harrington by David Weber is a prequel to the Honor Harrington novels. Harrington is a mid­ship­woman in the Royal Navy of Manticore, on her first tour of duty out in a pirate-infested area. She survives the hazing of a par­tic­u­lar­ly brutal and stupid superior. When half the bridge is blown away by a privateer’s attack, she manages to save the day.

Islands by Eric Flint is extracted from one of the later novels in the Belisarius series, which I read only a few weeks ago. A young wife sets off to India after her husband, a junior officer in Belisarius’s army. Along the way, she manages to establish a sort of Veteran’s Ad­min­is­tra­tion for the maimed veterans who are being sent back to sixth-century Con­stan­tino­ple.

Choosing Sides by David Drake is taken from the Hammer’s Slammers series, about a regiment of mer­ce­nar­ies. A young officer survives an ambush and is posted back to HQ, where he learns that the ambush was triggered by an in­flu­en­tial traitor in the civilian population that hired the Slammers. He deals with it.

Moderately en­ter­tain­ing. I hadn’t read any of the Honor Harrington or Hammer’s Slammers books before, so it gave me a feel for both series. I might read more of them.