Honor Harrington spin-offs

[Vertigo]

I have read and enjoyed all the main HH books and two of the Honorverse ones (Crown of Slaves and The Shadow of Saganami, the former co-authored with Eric flint). I still have Storm from the Shadows and Torch of Freedom to read.

And then there are the Worlds of Honor books. As I understand it these four books are short story compilations set in the same HH world but largely by different authors and because of that last point I find myself hesitant to get into them and was wondering if anyone who has read them can give me an opinion....

Parson maybe?

 

[Moggle]

I have one of the world of honor books in paperback, but haven't read it yet; I'm only on book six. I have read the Dahak series, Path of the Fury, Apocalypse Troll and 1632 though.

 

[Parson]

Aye, my good Vertigo man, I have read them. A couple of the stories really stick out "Changer of Worlds" and one whose name escapes me about one of the Harrington forebears who was the first to be adopted by a cat. Both very good and written by D. Weber himself. As with any anthology the stories are a bit uneven, but I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them.

If you are really interested in some more detail I could dig them up and see what I could do, but since our tastes are normally quite in line I think you will like them well enough.

 

[chopper]

Storm from the Shadows is a bit like wading through treacle. very painful unless you like whole chapters of one character explaining the plot to another in great detail. unfortunately you'll need to read it because the plot meshes heavily with Mission of Honor (which is much better).

 

[Vertigo]

Chopper: Ah yes I did notice one or two references in Mission of Honor which I assumed would become clearer when I had read those other two. I guess that's the danger of having two books that overlop on their timelines.

Parson: I guess I'll give them a go then, I am still a llittle hesitant as I'm not a great lover of the short story and always get nervous when one author produces a story set in another author's world. Can work well but can also be disastrous. But having read everything else I guess it has to be done!

 

[Parson]

Vertigo,

I've been thinking about these stories a bit since you brought them up, and I think you really should read them. They provide quite a bit of back story to the Honor Harrington series. In fact, Weber changed the arc of the series because of one of the stories. He was going to have Honor die in the book with the "Peeps" attack on Manticor (the book's title escapes me). Honor's children were to play the part of spy master and and Queen of (the ex-slave planet whose name also escapes me at the moment-- Torch?) but since these characters developed in the short stories Honor didn't have to die.

[With all this brain freeze you would think I was over 60 --- wait a minute, I am]

Parson

 

[chrispenycate]

and one whose name escapes me about one of the Harrington forebears who was the first to be adopted by a cat.

It was "A beautiful Friendship" from "More than Honor" (no, I'm more than 60, too. I looked it up) And I'm fond of treecats; they ought to be an independent force in the alliance, with their own warfleet. But the 'Honorverse' people don't agree with me.

 

[Vertigo]

Chris I didn't know you were an HH reader!

Parson, my understanding was that one of the major reasons he didn't kill Honor off was that she had achieved a life all of her own and he didn't dare!

From the Author's note in Storm from the Shadows (some SPOILER risk in these quotes):

Some of my readers who have spoken to me at conventions know that Honor was supposed to be killed in At All Costs under my version of what Mentor of Arisia used to refer to as his "visualization of the cosmic all." I always knew that killing Honor would have been a high-risk move, and that many readers of the series would have been very angry with me, but at the time I'd organized the timeline of Honor's life—that is, before I'd even begun On Basilisk Station—I hadn't really anticipated the fierce loyalty of the readership she was going to generate. Nor, for that matter, had I fully realized just how fond I was going to become of the character. Nonetheless, I remained steadfastly determined (my wife Sharon will tell you that I can sometimes be just a tad stubborn) to hew to my original plan. The fact that I'd always visualized Honor as being based on Horatio Nelson only reinforced my determination, since the Battle of Manticore was supposed to be the equivalent of his Battle of Trafalgar. Like Nelson, Honor had been supposed to fall in battle at the moment of victory in the climactic battle which saved the Star Kingdom of Manticore and ratified her as the Royal Manticoran Navy's greatest heroine.

However he does go on to say

At the same time, however, I had always intended to continue writing books in the "Honorverse." The great challenge of the later books was supposed to emerge about twenty-five or thirty years after Honor's death, and the primary viewpoint characters would have been her children, Raoul and Katherine. Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending upon your viewpoint—Eric Flint screwed up my original timetable when he introduced the character of Victor Cachat and asked me for an enemy which Manticoran and Havenite secret agents could agree to fight as allies, despite the fact that their star nations were at war. I suggested Manpower, which worked very well for Eric's story. But, especially when I incorporated Eric's characters into the mainstream novels, and when Eric and I decided to do Crown of Slaves, it also pulled the entire storyline forward by two or three decades. Which meant I wasn't going to have time to kill Honor off and get her children grown up before the Manpower challenge hit Manticore.
I wasn't precisely heartbroken when I realized I no longer had any choice about granting Honor a reprieve. Not only did I think her fans would be less likely to come looking for me with pitchforks and ropes, but the closer I'd come to actually killing her, the less and less I'd liked the thought myself.

Oh and Parson, don't worry I will be going to to read them sometime soon. Incidentally have you come across the Lost Fleet series from Jack Campbell (pseudonym of John G Henry). Despite the dreadful book titles and covers they are really quite well thought out military SF looking at fleet sized space warfare and would, I think, appeal to lovers of HH.

 

[chrispenycate]

Chris I didn't know you were an HH reader!

Oh, yes, at least up to "War of Honor", which I found dragged so much with the politics I took forever finishing it, an haven't yet found the courage to continue.

At one point (before arriving here) I was a regular visitor and fairly frequent contributor in the "Honorverse" section of the Baen's Bar website, discussing gravity shear, and how to make a graser amplify at sub-atomic radii, (gamma waves are short) without bomb pumping.

 

[Parson]

Oh and Parson, don't worry I will be going to to read them sometime soon. Incidentally have you come across the Lost Fleet series from Jack Campbell (pseudonym of John G Henry). Despite the dreadful book titles and covers they are really quite well thought out military SF looking at fleet sized space warfare and would, I think, appeal to lovers of H.H.

I have not actually read any of the Lost Fleet Books but Amazon keeps recommending them to me, so I've thought about it, and you're right to a degree it is the awful titles and covers that keep me thinking that they must be some cheesy half baked stories. ---- Always balanced by the fact that there are so many of them that someone must be liking them. I will probably bite the bullet now that you've recommended them.

Chris said:

At one point (before arriving here) I was a regular visitor and fairly frequent contributor in the "Honorverse" section of the Baen's Bar website, discussing gravity shear, and how to make a graser amplify at sub-atomic radii, (gamma waves are short) without bomb pumping.

I am in awe!

 

[chopper]

I am in awe!

likewise! i haven't got the nerve or faculty to do such things! all my sf is complete hand-waving flummery.

 

[Vertigo]

Indeed I am well impressed Chris!

Parson, I took quite a long time to try the Lost Fleet books, largely due to the dreadful covers and book titles. But the hero of the story is a Captain who, for various reasons quickly made clear, ends up commanding the remnants of a defeated fleet deep in enemy territory. To the best of my knowledge he never picks up a gun in the entire sereis (despite all the covers showing a bold soldier totting an impossibly big gun). He quite correctly is commanding everything from within his flagship; in fact I don't think he ever leaves said flagship until the last book. Now, whilst that might sound dull, it isn't. And his battle tactics for space warfare are possbily some of the best thought out I have come across, with lots of "well duh of course, how come no other authors have thought of that" moments. So he talks, without getting too bogged down (in my view), about things like the speed of approach of the two sides being limited by relativistic targeting issues, and also the time it takes to turn around for another battle pass. When you think about it, these are obvious things that most (though not all) authors conveniently forget about.

So I would say they are actually well thought out and still with plenty of action desptie the hero being flagship bound. I suspect from other things you have said that you will also enjoy the sometimes fairly detailed analysis of battle formations and tactics - which I suspect are taken from real life naval tactics and adapted to 3 dimensions as the author is a retired US Navy officer.

Certainly worth a look - not quite as good as Weber's writing possibly but close. To be honest I think his covers and titles do him a great disservice the books are more serious (though still good hard SF space opera fun) than they would suggest.

 

[Rodders]

I do keep seeing the Lost Fleet books in my local bookshop and they do interest me. (Although i have to confess that i'm waiting on them being availble on a 3 for 2 offer.)

I would imagine that the stories by other authors in the Honorverse would need to be pretty decent or they wouldn't be allowed to degrade a pretty well known and respected character. I've not read any of these stories, but i have been tempted to pick them up.

 

[Vertigo]

I must say Rodders, that is probably the biggest incentive for me to try them (although Parson's reccomendation is pretty important too ). Afterall it is a brand that Weber is going to want to protect.

 

[Vertigo]

Parson, following the breif comments here about the Lost Fleet books I fired an email to John Hemry (Jack Campbell is his pseudonym) to which he kindly replied. Here's a couple of quotes and some of the UK covers which are indeed much better:

Hello, Mike. The short answer to your well-posed argument is that I don't have any real control over my covers. The long answer is that Marketing at my US publisher has decided (for reasons known only to them) that every cover must show "the main character" with a hand weapon. That has produced mixed results....

My web site now has a page (in the Lost Fleet series subsection) where I'm posting covers from other countries. The French and UK covers are quite good....

His website is http://www.johnghemry.com/ And here are a couple of the UK covers:

 

[Parson]

Vertigo,

You are right. I am utterly convinced that I would have purchased those books long ago if they had covers like the ones that are shown. They do speak to me about the kind of story I like. The titles are another matter, actually I guess it is the series title "The Lost Fleet" just sounded corny. I just now went and looked at a synopsis or two and I guess it's not as corny as I thought it was.

They are now definitely on my "To Buy" list. I may have several tens hours of enjoyable reading ahead of me.

 

[Vertigo]

Following his email I now suspect the titles probably had more to do with his publisher and to be fair, Weber's playings on the word honor in his titles does wear a little thin after a while, especially if you are a Brit where the name is rarely spelt with a 'u' but the word always is which messes it up a touch.

 

[Timba]

Had a little time to read an older thread or two and found myself here. I am curious Vertigo to discover whether you read the "spin offs" yet or not? I found them quite enjoyable.

I have some John G Hemry books, the Stark's war series and the Paul Sinclair series that I picked up at Baen on a bundle sale. Have not dug into them yet but expect I will do so. Good to know the Lost Fleet stuff is out there waiting and sounds good also.

 

[Vertigo]

Timba - I have read More Than Honor and was frankly a little disappointed. I thought Weber's Stephanie Harrington story was excellent and I can easily see how he decided it was worth a spin off YA series.

The Honorverse facts section was interesting and did provide some additional background but really not a lot. And the other two stories by Drake and Stirling I really thought were quite poor and I mean that in the absolute sense rather just when stood aginst Weber's writing.

I always think that is a danger when you "release" a successful series for other writers to add their own contributions. I seem to remember that both Stirling's and Drake's felt more like fanfic which is rather sad and probably does them no favours either.

I think I shall probably get around to reading the others some day, but this first one didn't really inspire me to race back for more. These days I have so much quality stuff stacked up to read that I think it may be a while. Just reading my first Cherryh book for example and I shall be going back for more from her.

 

[Timba]

I like both Drake and Stirling so perhaps that is why I found them entertaining. I love Cherryh, very good stuff indeed.