Back in 1998, Weber began to allow other authors to write short works set
in the same universe as his Honor Harrington series–that is, in what’s
since become known as the “Honorverse”. Many of these stories have
introduced characters and bits of history that have later appeared in
the main sequence of the series. This is the first book of such
works; it includes one tale each by David Drake,
S.M. Stirling, and by Weber himself, including a lengthy
pieces on the series background; this latter is, I imagine, the place
where Weber goes to look stuff so that he doesn’t make foolish mistakes.

The first tale is called “A Beautiful Friendship”; it concerns the first
contact between humans and treecats on the planet Sphinx. Although
Honor Harrington herself is always accompanied by her treecat, who is
officially known as “Nimitz” and affectionately known as “Stinker”, I
haven’t said much about the treecats in this series of reviews. I shall
rectify that now.

Treecats are long, six-legged, and furry; they have a vaguely feline
heads, but their bodies look more like a weasels. They are as
intelligent as humans, but communicate telepathically with each other.
They can’t generally communicate telepathically with humans, but they can
feel human emotions. And certain treecats like the feel of human
emotions so much that they will seek out compatible humans and “adopt”
them. The bond between a treecat and his adopted human is such that if
either dies, the other is likely to pine away. Treecats often have
wicked senses of humor, and they’re sudden death in hand-to-hand combat.

Anyway, “A Beautiful Friendship” tells of how a young girl named
Stephanie Harrington, Honor’s ancestor, became the first human to be
adopted by a treecat; and though I find the whole idea of treecats to be
a little cutesy–it’s really just a veiled reflection of our culture’s
fascination with Love At First Sight–I enjoyed the story thoroughly.

The next tale, “A Grand Tour”, is by David Drake. It concerns a
Manticoran’s noble on a grand tour to see archaeological relics; and his
encounter with a scurrilous fellow with an appalling excavation
technique. This one has had no effect on the main series, which is a
great pity.

The final tale, “A Whiff of Grapeshot”, is by S.M. Stirling; it introduces the
Havenite admiral Esther McQueen, and tells how she saved Rob Pierre and
the rest of the Committee for Public Safety from armed uprising. McQueen
goes on to become a major character in Weber’s later novels, so Stirling
can be justifiably proud. The only trouble is, I read the later novels
before I read this story; and as one of those novels summarizes the
events told herein I found the story rather dull.

All-in-all, not bad; out of three stories, I quite enjoyed two of them.