This is the second of Weber’s “Honorverse” anthologies; the contributors
this time are Linda Evans, Jane Lindskold,
Roland Green, and David Weber himself.

The book opens with a tale by Linda Evans called “The Stray”. It’s
another story of the early days of men and treecats,
and takes place a few years after Stephanie Harrington became the first
treecat adoptee. It’s also a tale of murder and corporate greed; indeed,
this tale includes the earliest mention I’ve noticed of genetic slavers
Manpower Unlimited. It’s not bad, although the “Big Corporations Are
Evil” meme has been overused of late.

Next up is “What Price Dreams?” by Weber himself. Roger II is king of
Manticore at the this time, and his daughter Princess Adrienne is making
a royal visit to Sphinx. King Roger’s out of sorts with Sphinx, and with
treecats, and especially with the Sphinx Forestry Service; thanks largely
to the late Stephanie Harrington, large tracts of what were previously
Crown land on Sphinx are being held in perpetuity for the treecats, and
hence are unavailable to be given out as rewards to Roger’s political
allies. The power of the monarchy is under assault, and Roger needs all
the friends he can get. The last thing he needs is for his daughter to be
adopted by a treecat….

I’m afraid that “What Price Dreams?” was somewhat predictable, but heck, I
enjoyed it anyway.

Next is “Queen’s Gambit” by Jane Lindskold, which tells of the
assassination of King Roger III and his daughter’s
accession to the throne of Manticore as Queen Elizabeth III. Not a bad
story, all around, though it has the misfortune that many of the
pertinent details are summarized in one of the main-line Harrington
novels. As a result, I knew more-or-less what was going to happen before
I read it.

Then comes “The Hard Way Home”, again by David Weber, which is a tale of
Honor Harrington as a young officer. An avalanche buries a good bit of
a ski resort on Gryphon; a contingent of Manticoran Marines are practicing
drops nearby and immediately move to aid the rescue efforts. Along the
way Harrington has to deal with yet another obnoxious friend of her old
nemesis Pavel Young.

Finally, we have “Deck Load Strike” by Roland J. Green, a tale of a unit
of Manticoran Marines serving as advisors in a bush-conflict on a minor
planet rather far away from Manticore; Haven, naturally, is supporting
the other side. I liked this one least of all the stories in the book,
though it has the advantage that it involves new characters and settings.

All-in-all, not a bad outing.

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.

This is the most recent book in the Honor Harrington series, and in most
ways the least satisfying to date. It’s simply not that pleasant
watching idiots fail by the numbers.

Manticore’s Centrist party lost power near the end of the previous book,
and following Manticoran tradition the Opposition parties were given the
chance to form a coalition government. And so they did–an unholy
alliance of the far right and far left, whose leaders were motivated by a
single goal: to gain power and to keep it for as long as possible. And
so for this entire book, we get to watch the new Prime Minister of
Manticore and his cabinet pissing away (you should excuse the expression)
all of the political and military gains of the last ten years for their
own personal political benefit, while compromising most of their supposed
principles.

This is one book that would really benefit from some serious trimming.
The main plot is explored in tedious and painful detail; it would really
have made a much better subplot while something more interesting was going
on.

The book does have a few high points; it’s not a total loss. And as with
its predecessor, if you’ve come this far in the series you’ll want to know
what happens next. But I sure hope the next book won’t be more of the
same.

I find I have to elaborate on my review of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

I described it as a quiet book, with rather less action than its predecessor, and this is true. On the surface. In point of fact, there’s quite a bit of action going on quietly, under the surface. We can’t see it happening, but the signs are plain to see.

This is the book in which Harry Potter grows up.

He still has trouble with his temper, but he’s beginning to learn to moderate it.

He’s learning when to be patient, and when to step in.

He’s learning to trust others to take care of themselves.

He’s learning compassion.

He’s learning to be upfront with those he cares about.

He’s learning to do the job that’s in front of him.

He’s learning not to be jealous of other people’s achievements.

He’s learning who he is, and what his task is.

At the beginning of the book, he’s still confused and unsure. At the end, he’s looking toward the future (and not a very nice one) clearly and with open eyes.

He’s a lot more mature, is our Harry.

Oh, my. That’s all; oh, my.

In many ways this book is less action-packed than its immediate
predecessor (and shorter, too); most of the story takes place at
Hogwarts, and for most of the book Hogwarts is a reasonably peaceful
place. There’s more teen angst and bickering, and a few delightful teen
victories–oh, and Harry spends quite a bit of time working with Dumbledore.
Doesn’t sound like much, put that way, but the book works, it definitely
works, even if it has a quieter tone than some of the others.

Of course, there’s always a lull before the storm….

Oh, my.

This is the next book about Honor Harrington, except that it isn’t really
about Honor Harrington. As a result of the rigors of her capture and
escape, she spends most of this book in rehab and on light-duty–teaching
at Saganami Island, Manticore’s naval academy. And of course she mostly
saves the day at the end of the book. We visit with her periodically.

The book is partially about the fruit of Honor’s tactical experiments in
Honor Among Enemies and Admiral White Haven’s execution of
(what should have been) the final phases of the war with Haven.

But mostly, it’s about Honor’s honorable opponents, those men and women
in Haven’s navy who are now fighting a double war–not only an open war
with Manticore, but also a covert war to preserve their nation from the
fanatics who now rule her.

And everything’s beginning to look nice and shiny,
and then it happens. I’d tell you precisely what happens, except that Weber
kindly devoted the whole next book to it so you’ll have to wait until the
next review.

Anyway, there was much of interest in this episode; there were a number
of things that annoyed me, including a subplot I have a real distaste for;
and there were a lot of extra words. In short, it’s worth reading if
you’ve read the previous books and want to know what happens next, but
there’s nothing special about it.

The Honor Harrington books have never been solely about Honor Harrington;
her adversaries and the various players in the governments of Manticore
and Haven have always had their turn on the stage. But starting with this
book, Weber ups the volume. I mean that literally; it’s longer than its
predecessors and although it’s nominally about Honor’s escape from Hell,
the prison planet run by Haven’s Office of State Security, at least half
of it is devoted to a variety of goings on in other places. It’s a fine
book, and I enjoyed it; but I fear the cast might be getting a bit too
large, and I suspect a little judicious cutting would have made it a
better book. It’s not so bad here, but becomes more pronounced in later
books.

There’s a park near our house where we sometimes go for walks. I was there a couple of weeks ago with my younger son, and noticed quite a few ant hills. Some were populated by little teeny black ants, but most of the ones I saw were populated by big red ants–they were about 3/8’s of an inch long.

Tonight we went back for another walk, and followed the same trail. I kept an eye out for ants, and although I spotted quite a few black ants, I only saw a few red ants–a solitary scout here and there, but that was it. Except for one place, where there was a red ant hill and a black ant hill about eighteen inches apart. There are black ants all over the place, and the red ants I could see were so aggravated they were practically vibrating in place. They were trying to attack the little black ants, I think, but they didn’t seem to be making much headway. And they were far fewer in number than the black ants.

Now perhaps there were buckets of red ants hiding out underground; I saw a lot of holes with no activity. It’s possible. But it looks to me like the black ants were involved in some ethnic cleansing, with remarkable success. I’ll be curious to go back in another couple of weeks and so how things have changed.

The first half of this book is a dead loss. The second half is much
better, but unfortunately it isn’t long enough to stand on its own.

The first half of the book is intended to put Honor Harrington into
a position where she must necessarily be captured by the People’s
Republic of Haven. (Given the book’s title, this hardly counts
as a spoiler.) Further, because Honor is such a paragon her capture
mustn’t be her own fault. It can’t be due to cowardice; it can’t be due
to making a stupid tactical decision; no, it must be pure bad luck
mingled with heroism.

And it doesn’t work. Honor is commanding a squadron of cruisers on
convoy duty. According to her deployment, one cruiser leads; the
remainder trail. The point position is the most dangerous, especially
as the convoy enters a new system–the ship on point will be the first
to see any lurking enemies. If there are any, it will probably be able
to warn the ships the follow, but it will probably not be able to get
away. Weber explains this to us in great detail, and has Honor
reluctantly agree that her ship can’t take the point position. As the
squadron commander, it’s her duty to be where she can best protect the
convoy as a whole.

So far, so good. So how come, a few dozen pages later, we find her on
the bridge of her second-in-command’s ship, in the point position, as
said ship enters a system? Well, she was there for a birthday party,
and there was no time to lose, so instead of returning to her own ship
she stayed where she was and got captured.

Now, really, that’s just dumb. Visiting the point ship while they were
in hyperspace is one thing. Staying on board while the point ship
recon’d the system the convoy was approaching is quite another. No matter
how you slice it, Honor blew it.

And Weber lets her get away with it. Ugh.

Aside from that, quite a bit of nothing goes on during the first half of
the book; there are few scenes that set things up for later books in the
series, but most of it could have been cut without damaging the story.

The second half, now, the second half is why the book was written at all.

Some books back, the People’s Republic of Haven underwent a revolution
led by (for goodness sake) one Rob S. Pierre. (Sometimes I wonder if Weber
regrets having chosen such a cheesy name.) Things have stabilized
somewhat since then, and Haven is now governed by the Committee for
Public Safety, or practically speaking, by Pierre; by Oscar St. Just,
head of the Office of State Security; and by Cordelia Ransom, head of the
Office of Public Information. Yes, our Cordelia is the chief
propagandist of the Revolution; she’s also a True Believer of the most
militant stripe, and a sadist to boot.

As the book begins, Ransom has gone to visit the front lines in the
Office of Public Information’s private cruiser, the Tepes (and isn’t
that a name that’s fraught with atmosphere). Honor has the bad luck to
be caught just after Ransom arrives in-system, and though her naval
captors do their best to see that Honor and her crew are treated decently,
Ransom has other ideas. For her actions in
On Basilisk Station, Honor was tried and convicted of murder (in
absentia, of course). Ransom sees the publicity coup of her
life–Honor Harrington, war criminal, is on the short road to Hell and
death by hanging.

Naturally, our heroine can’t be allowed to end that way…and therein
lies the tale, and it’s a good’un. Once you get past all of the garbage
at the beginning.

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.