Bennis takes the 18th and 19th century war story and borrows all the fun bits--derring do, snarky one-liners in the middle of the battle, ever so slightly larger than life characters--and some of the serious bits--the fighting and the dying--and uses it to craft a very entertaining novel about fighting airships. This isn't a story about the futility of war to the men on the ground or the role of women in the army, but those elements are an important and compelling part of the narrative. The story is about, so to speak, what a fighting blimp would look like. Bennis tells that story admirably and, if the characters occasionally feel a little like larger than life sketches as opposed to meticulously rendered figures...well, airships! derring do!