Honor Harrington

Anyone else reading it? It's probably the longest SF book series I have stayed with. My only problem is that of late the Manticorians and her heroine Honor Harrington get too many deus ex machina help by their author and having read some of David Weber's other work I get the impression his writing has slumped into that direction aka the good guys are faultless, will get every tactical advantage and usually all kinds of super weapons while the baddies are idiots on top of vile, insane people.

It's kind of a shame. My favourite characters by now are by far the Havenites like Pritracht or Theismann (goodies who had to serve the baddies) because while Harrington kills people left and right with super weapons others invented and has mutated into superwoman with x-ray vision, pulser arm, superhuman strength and telepathic ability a guy like Theismann toppled an evil regime, reinstituted a democratic system, defeated all the baddies with a desolate navy and was never tempted to abuse his power and still remained a normal human being.
In terms of heroism and character this goes hands down to him.

Other than that please do not get dissuaded by my criticism. The earlier books are intriguing and far more balanced with good character casts and dynamics between opposing factions. It is not until the Manticorians are constantly pitying their enemies to be so hopelessly outdated things get boring. I mean what kind of credible threat is there to remain when the heroes flatout say the opposite side has no chance and is too stupid to do anything about it?

It's good Hornblower in space though I wonder if there are other authors who are more subtle in writing political and military science fiction. Ringo and Weber kind of use a slegehammer.

I know I'm always most critical of the works I actually like most and that I still read the last books although the one sidedness kind of annoys me should balance any kind of criticism I have concerning them.

Honor jumped the shark some time ago; also moving into Cold War from Napoleonic backdrop.

I love it on the whole It gets a little repetitive after a while, but don't forget that the scope has become much, much more broad. What was the story of the ascention of a naval officer has become a space opera describing the collapse of the political status quo of humanity.

And I reccommend reading Against All Odds and continue reading

Originally Posted by torongill

I love it on the whole It gets a little repetitive after a while, but don't forget that the scope has become much, much more broad. What was the story of the ascention of a naval officer has become a space opera describing the collapse of the political status quo of humanity.

And I reccommend reading Against All Odds and continue reading

Currently reading Honor's mission and once again: Shooting a bad guy who murdered some fellow soldiers of yours is not principled. If he belongs to another space navy it is insane.

The Solarian League was also entirely changed from a radical, decadent liberal democracy to a corrupt, defunct bureaucracy. Wasn't these guys as technological advanced as Manticore in their core systems just some 10 years ago and suddenly they are decades behind in even understanding Manticorian tech which is entirely based on the technology everyone else has been using for centuries? Er, what? Why would a radical liberal market economy supposedly exploiting everyone with imperialist capitalism suddenly see technological advancement as a bad investment?

Once again it just looks like tons of people get killed without even the suggestion they have a chance although by all accounts they are an as advanced and far bigger confederacy than Manticore is because they are arrogant... like the US are or the British were or Rome was in Europe or what?
I can buy them being unaccustomed to getting reamed but that they supposedly maintain thousands of warships but somehow aren't used to tactics although it appears they have been constantly playing policeman in the universe seems dumb.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I also don't like how suddenly the Havies from being still superior in numbers at the end of at all costs suddenly become utterly helpless in the face of Apollo. Shouldn't they have spent the months the Manties needed to scrap together an offensive task force to churn out counter measures and more dreadnoughts instead of twiddling their thumbs and looking all defeated in the face of them getting a return visit?

Honor jumped the shark some time ago; also moving into Cold War from Napoleonic backdrop.

Any alternatives. Checked the "Price of Stars" but it had rather bad writing and convoluted plot. I saw Lost Fleet but it looks to Hornblower like to me as well.

I've been enjoying Hinorverse for a year now. Read all the novels (including Torch and Saganami spinoffs) except Rising Thunder.

Must say Weber's writing is getting less intense and more boring, with more and more politics and large, HUGE chunks of dialogues that dance around nothing. I don't mind politics, but what Honorverse was great at is mixing politics with amazing action scenes. Action that's almost absent now in the latest books. Weber went as far as to simply copypaste couple of chapters from Torch spinoff into main Honor Harrington series. Not changing a thing.

I'm reading Safehold now, quite an interesting premise, suffering from the same symptoms - first books started great and quick-pasing, third and forth book are long-winded and often tedious

I still love the characters and wanna see how this mess there got themselves into going to end. Also, Haven was a typical evil powerhouse only at the beginning, I really like how Eloise's reformed Haven is portrayed.

The enemy changed from Old Regime/French Revolution to soulless saltless spiceless bureaucracy/socialism, with Illuminati overtones.

It's as if Weber thinks his audience are adolescents just out of puberty.

As to alternatives, any open ended series tends to find a well paved road to perdition. I do recall coming across one book from a series that might be called Shenandoah, about a cruiser; seemed promising, lo so many moons ago. If the lost fleet is what I think it is, another writer with relationship problems.

Have read most of the books (will think about getting the latest main book), and the Saganami books here, where baen publishers decided to release them for free. They are good, though he does get fairly long-winded after a while. The series bible thingy is quite good as well (don't have the bookmark for that on this computer, too lazy to google right now).

The earlier books are really book, though when she becomes the bestest thing at everything ever it does get a bit wearing. I'll still keep getting the books though, as Harrington herself is becoming less of a focal character throughout the series - for which I am thankful as I'm not much interested in her love life.

As regards to the technology, it does make logical sense for them to come along. Sure the weapons are superweapons to a degree, but at least they are logical progression from what came before, and they are hinted at in earlier books - Weber is following the same set of rules throughout the series, which is better than many other authors in the genre.

As for the Solarians 'technological inferiority', it really only pertains to the military field, where they are behind the curve as they haven't had to fight a war in a few hundred years. Weber set it up so that military innovation had plateaued for a couple hundred years before the event of the books, and only the large scale warfare really changed things - think the movement from propeller-driven fighters in the interwar period to jet fighters, ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons by 1945. The Pearls of Weber website gives a far better explanation of this from the horses mouth than I can do in the limited time I have to write this post.

A great series is "The Lost Fleet" by Jack Campbell, kind of like xenophon's march of the ten thousand set in space. Pretty good, relatively hard sci-fi that would get (in my opinion) a respectable 4 on the Mohs Scale of Sci-Fi Hardness.

Originally Posted by GreyFox

...
As regards to the technology, it does make logical sense for them to come along. Sure the weapons are superweapons to a degree, but at least they are logical progression from what came before, and they are hinted at in earlier books - Weber is following the same set of rules throughout the series, which is better than many other authors in the genre.

...

I do not mind that there are these types of weapons, I do mind that supposedly only Manticore can build them. More importantly since Grayson can build them - a third world country by standards of the start of the Honorverse - then any advanced civilization fighting for its survival should churn such things out by the ship load aka in overwhelming numbers that will give any nominally more advanced but sadly 10:1 smaller nation time to worry.

Instead you get Manticorian admirals sipping brandy and feeling very smug about themselves that all the other guys will be drowned like helpless, little kittens.

That's what I don't like about it. Similarily the Sollies were said to have stolen, bought and disassembled every single piece of equipment the Havenites sent them... not the behaviour of someone too smug to look at foreign wars and be content.

I have read some of Weber's explanations for Manticore's superiority but he has an inherent flaw in them: He likens the Manties to the US and the Havies to Japan. Problem with it he should liken Manties to the Netherlands and the Havenites to the Soviet Union. His ideas of strategic resources seems pretty weird. Manticore supposedly doesn't even have financial problems after 20 years of war and having to replace all its fleet several times over. And Haven with many times the people and planets and an autocratic _planned_ economy in place supposedly cannot radically expand its military output? The Nazis would wish to live in such a universe and those were "just" 3:1 odds against the Soviets.

Well, the biggest superweapon of them all: The writer's pen.

Not quite what even the biggest countries in human history could claim when fighting a major conflict.

will use spoiler tags for a responses.

[QUOTE=Mangalore;11523230]I do not mind that there are these types of weapons, I do mind that supposedly only Manticore can build them. More importantly since Grayson can build them - a third world country by standards of the start of the Honorverse - then any advanced civilization fighting for its survival should churn such things out by the ship load aka in overwhelming numbers that will give any nominally more advanced but sadly 10:1 smaller nation time to worry.

Instead you get Manticorian admirals sipping brandy and feeling very smug about themselves that all the other guys will be drowned like helpless, little kittens.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

and looked what happened to them a few times where the Havenites pasted a few fleets of ships in Ashes of Victory and At All Costs, plus a couple of earlier books.

That's what I don't like about it. Similarily the Sollies were said to have stolen, bought and disassembled every single piece of equipment the Havenites sent them... not the behaviour of someone too smug to look at foreign wars and be content.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

i think you're mixing up solly companies with the solly military. the military not so interested due to bureaucratic inertia, the tech companies quite interested.

I have read some of Weber's explanations for Manticore's superiority but he has an inherent flaw in them: He likens the Manties to the US and the Havies to Japan. Problem with it he should liken Manties to the Netherlands and the Havenites to the Soviet Union. His ideas of strategic resources seems pretty weird. Manticore supposedly doesn't even have financial problems after 20 years of war and having to replace all its fleet several times over. And Haven with many times the people and planets and an autocratic _planned_ economy in place supposedly cannot radically expand its military output? The Nazis would wish to live in such a universe and those were "just" 3:1 odds against the Soviets.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

manties have a massive trade fleet, and a monopoly on their wormhole junction through which a ridiculous amount of the galaxies trade flows. haven doesn't have that, and is bankrupt, only able to pay for itself with the spoils of conquest. but once they do get things under control, look at what bolthole gave them.

I just don't take it too seriously, it doesn't really break my suspension of disbelief too much. I mean, come on, the guy is using reactionless drives.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

and looked what happened to them a few times where the Havenites pasted a few fleets of ships in Ashes of Victory and At All Costs, plus a couple of earlier books.

They supposedly won a few minor victories not worrying Manties despite having >10:1 odds in manpower and resources?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

i think you're mixing up solly companies with the solly military. the military not so interested due to bureaucratic inertia, the tech companies quite interested.

And the question is why. You have a supposedly highly advanced, highly dynamic, supposedly forward looking civilization but their military has problems looking at the stuff their companies looks at? The problem of Ming china was that the entirety of their society was entrenched in class thinking. They didn't have a die hard liberal democratic society believing they will save the universe!

You can't really have a competitive economy supplying the military and the military being ineherently against progress.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

manties have a massive trade fleet, and a monopoly on their wormhole junction through which a ridiculous amount of the galaxies trade flows. haven doesn't have that, and is bankrupt, only able to pay for itself with the spoils of conquest. but once they do get things under control, look at what bolthole gave them.

This translates badly into military hardware once one sides takes off their gloves... and bolthole supposedly gave them a mere 6 month window instead of "ing kill them!" A trade fleet means once the shells are flying left or right, a war industry is an entirely different thing: It's steel, weapons and manpower and you can build them wether your country is a trade empire or not.

They should have more money but France smelting cannons should help the Dutch no one bit to save them from the fact that someone has many more planets and people to produce weapons with. It would only help if they could use said trade to import weapons => Solly weapons cannot be worse than theirs or it won't help them building their fleet one bit since said money won't increase their military output since none can output it. Just being the crossroads of transport doesn't mean anything when someone eles is producing the war machine to kill you. Rotterdam is still the largest European port, you know, it didn't help the Dutch to defend against France or Germany or anyone else. They had to scrap their blue water navy to even muster enough troops to save their skins and even that just meant they survived only with the guarantees of other great powers. And they still were a massive trade center....

I just don't take it too seriously, it doesn't really break my suspension of disbelief too much. I mean, come on, the guy is using reactionless drive,

SF authors violate this all the time. I'm more worried when SF authors violate their own laws. E.g. what derives from the fact that á third world space power can build top rate military equipment without any qualitative or monetary trouble: A first rate space power should own them!

In terms of odds, it's nothing like the RN versus the French, despite some occasional lapses that cost them dearly, like the American colonies, the RN did maintain a quantitative and qualitative edge over the opposition.

Even pre-Revolutionary France produced some brilliant commanders, which translated into the Honorverse, with a grasp of logistics and time tables, could have arranged to overwhelm the Manticore defenses in sheer numbers.

Originally Posted by Condottiere 40K

In terms of odds, it's nothing like the RN versus the French, despite some occasional lapses that cost them dearly, like the American colonies, the RN did maintain a quantitative and qualitative edge over the opposition.

Even pre-Revolutionary France produced some brilliant commanders, which translated into the Honorverse, with a grasp of logistics and time tables, could have arranged to overwhelm the Manticore defenses in sheer numbers.

Yes, but that edge wasn't magic, it came from France's geopolitical priorities. When in doubt the French always build their army first, navy second. This also meant that the first thing that happened when the army needed reinforcements was that the fleet was cannibalized for qualified men.

In terms of technology and doctrine one could also point to various instances where France was being the more innovative naval power _because_ they couldn't afford to build or maintain a navy of the same size. Adopting technology wasn't the primary problem for the western nations. One can say about Soviet tech that it is crude and simple... but given the numbers it was produced in and with what intent we can be certain it would have hurt badly.

Anyway, all suspense is sapped out of a story if the heroes do not actually see a challenge but rather pity the "villains". That's George Lucas level of storywriting.