The story's central joke is excellent: a peaceful world has built an obsolete super-battleship without realizing what it is. Slippery Jim diGriz discovers the fraud through records work, then must solve a problem conventional naval force cannot safely approach.
Harrison keeps the exposition moving through Jim's vanity and contempt for bureaucracy. His confidence is both tool and weakness; he sees through President Ferraro's innocence and Pepe Nero's ambition but initially accepts the gendered performance that lets Angelina escape.
The trap built around the golden yacht Eldorado is a satisfying criminal solution to a military threat. Rather than overpower the Warlord, Jim offers irresistible loot, magnetizes the hulls together, threatens both ships with bombs, and enters through a weakness found in the plans.
The trap built around the golden yacht Eldorado is a satisfying criminal solution to a military threat.
The ending denies him a clean victory. Capturing Pepe and the ship matters, but discovering that Angelina conceived the entire operation turns success into a personal humiliation and establishes the obsession that will continue through the series.
