I just finished rereading allegiance and Choices of One, and they were both as good as I remember. I really like Zahn's SW stuff, and Mara is one of my favorite characters.
I've started Star Trek TNG - Dragon's Honor. Its decent so far. Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of fiction based off old asian culture (not counting more fantasy like settings, stuff like bioware's Jade Empire game) so its probably not going to get more than a decent response from me, but thats ok. I pretty much figured that out reading the summary on the back. I have a few thoughts about it at this point:
I'm not totally confinced about the use of the Prime Directive, since the Federation doesn't need a treaty to defend an advanced enough culture if they ask for help, atleast against really alien invaders like the reptile aliens in this book. A failed wedding may delay or stop their admission into the federation for awhile, but say the wedding failed, but not because of a death. If there was no treaty, but the place was attacked by the reptiles, then the Enterprise could still help them if they were asked to. Even if they went back to civil war the reptile aliens invading wouldn't be considered an internal matter. They would atleast run off the reptiles.
That said, I'm not sure about the place joining the Federation anyway. I don't know the Federation policy about monarchy's, but I think that, while they respect differences, they do require members to adhere to some basic rights for their citizens (its been brought up before, in books if not the series). Even if a monarchy was allowed, I doubt gender bias, and especially the rich/peasant thing going on to the degree it does, is something the federation counts as something that is the right of the members to decide. I'd guess that equal rights for everyone, regardless of gender, would probably be a requirement. It would probably be a bit different with Federation allies, but it was even mentioned that Klingon's, while patriarchal, aren't as bad as this group of people. We've seen female klingon's serving on klingon military ships, I doubt this would happen with this group. It just doesn't seem quite right that they could get in the way they act, especially since we've seen how hard its been for some species (like the Bajorans) to get membership.
Still, its not a huge problem. I am enjoying the book well enough (even if I'm not a huge fan of the setting), I just had some random thoughts while reading it.