Though only the first of them is a side story any real sense. Storm from the Shadows mostly dropped the notion of telling most of the story from the viewpoint of the middies and junior officers and brought in Mike to be the main viewpoint character and top Admiral in the field, and got so tightly woven with the 'mainline' that Shadow of Freedom and A Rising Thunder started off as one book.Roguevictory wrote:I thought the third Saganami Island book was already out? At aleast according to Amazon it is and I could swear that I've seen copies of Shadow of Freedom at the local bookstores.
It's possible to skip the Torch books without being hopelessly confused. It's not possible to skip the Shadows books.