When I first read Weber’s Honor Harrington series, I read the first five
and put off reading this one for quite some time. Honor had had quite a
hard time in the last couple of books, and the title of this one Didn’t
Bode Well. As it turns out, it’s one of the more interesting books in
the series.

The inspiration for Honor Harrington and her world was, of course, Forester’s
Horatio Hornblower series; Weber has gone to great (and occasionally
painful) lengths to elaborate the laws of physics such that fleets of
space ships are subject to the many of the same constraints and tactical
considerations as the square-rigged warships of Hornblower’s day. But of
course military technology doesn’t stand still, and in this book we get
to watch innovation in action.

In this book, Honor is called back to active service
in the Royal Manticoran Navy. The political considerations that make her
recall feasible also ensure that she cannot be given the command she
deserves and a place in the front lines. And so she’s given command of a
squadron of Q-ships: freighters outfitted as warships, teeth carefully
hidden to better lure pirates in close.

It so happens that the Star Kingdom of Manticore adjoins a somewhat wild
and wooly volume of space known as the Silesian Confederacy. Manticore’s
wealth stems from
trade, some of it with the Confederacy, and even more with systems beyond
the Confederacy. The Silesian government is weak, venal, and corrupt,
and the Silesian Navy is a joke. Consequently, Manticore has long
patrolled the Silesian spaceways, if only to safeguard her own shipping.
The war with Haven has higher priority, though, and now Manticoran
freighters are getting picked off left and right. To Silesia Honor and
her Q-ships will go; but these are Q-ships with a difference. They
aren’t well armored–no freighter is–but they contain within them the
germ of the technology that will eventually win the war.

As the Havenite task force that’s currently playing pirates in Silesia
will soon discover….

One of the strengths of the Harrington series (and also, sometimes, one
of its weaknesses) is its massive cast of characters. In this book we
first meet several people who will become instrumental in later books,
notably Citizen Captain Warner Caslet and his Tac Officer, Shannon
Foraker. Weber never lets us forget that however vicious the war
becomes, and however evil some of the parties are, there are men and
women of honor on both sides.