Book List 2010
Apr. 10th, 2010 05:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ebony14#11. Honor Among Enemies by David Weber
I am, very slowly, making my way through the Honor Harrington series, and I've just now reached this title. (Yes, I know it was published in 1995. Shut up.) The series (for those unfamiliar with it) follows the adventures of Honor Harrington, an officer in the Royal Manticoran Space Navy, whose fortunes seem to be intertwined with the rise and fall of the Star Kingdom of Manticore (much like C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower and Great Britain, who was Weber's inspiration). The previous book in the series, Flag in Exile, saw Harrington disgraced and forced into half-pay and inactive status, which sent her to the Grayson System, where she had been awarded the rank of Steadholder and served in that world's space navy. In Honor Among Enemies, she is pulled back into active status, but given a less-than-desirous position, that of hunting pirates in an allied confederacy of systems' space. The ships that she is given aren't traditional warships, and her crews aren't quite the elite, but Harrington finds herself back in command of Manticoran ships again, and she is determined to do her duty to Queen and System.
Weber writes good prose, and I like his science fiction. He gets a little technical in places in the series, but in this one, he focuses mostly on the people, making you enjoy watching them face their challenges and succeed. The battles are exciting, even with the normal delays that space combat has, and he manages to keep suspense by alternating events and scene changes from chapter to chapter, drawing you along. My only criticism is his use of something approaching deus ex machina at the climax of the story. It isn't exactly an unforeseen event, but the possibilities of it seem remote, if you take into account the sheer size of outer space. Still, it doesn't seem to contrived, given the circumstances leading up to it, and I was willing to accept it, since the story up to that point had been enjoyable reading.
I am, very slowly, making my way through the Honor Harrington series, and I've just now reached this title. (Yes, I know it was published in 1995. Shut up.) The series (for those unfamiliar with it) follows the adventures of Honor Harrington, an officer in the Royal Manticoran Space Navy, whose fortunes seem to be intertwined with the rise and fall of the Star Kingdom of Manticore (much like C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower and Great Britain, who was Weber's inspiration). The previous book in the series, Flag in Exile, saw Harrington disgraced and forced into half-pay and inactive status, which sent her to the Grayson System, where she had been awarded the rank of Steadholder and served in that world's space navy. In Honor Among Enemies, she is pulled back into active status, but given a less-than-desirous position, that of hunting pirates in an allied confederacy of systems' space. The ships that she is given aren't traditional warships, and her crews aren't quite the elite, but Harrington finds herself back in command of Manticoran ships again, and she is determined to do her duty to Queen and System.
Weber writes good prose, and I like his science fiction. He gets a little technical in places in the series, but in this one, he focuses mostly on the people, making you enjoy watching them face their challenges and succeed. The battles are exciting, even with the normal delays that space combat has, and he manages to keep suspense by alternating events and scene changes from chapter to chapter, drawing you along. My only criticism is his use of something approaching deus ex machina at the climax of the story. It isn't exactly an unforeseen event, but the possibilities of it seem remote, if you take into account the sheer size of outer space. Still, it doesn't seem to contrived, given the circumstances leading up to it, and I was willing to accept it, since the story up to that point had been enjoyable reading.
