Military historian Gunther Rothenberg provides a detailed account of the Napoleonic Wars in this installment of Cassell's multivolume series covering the history of warfare. The treatment is predominantly military rather than social. The matter-of-fact, dispassionate text is rich in tactical details and statistics, augmented by contemporary paintings, well-designed maps, and diagrams.

In this delightful first novel, the opening salvo of a trilogy, Novik seamlessly blends fantasy into the history of the Napoleonic wars.