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War of Honor
War of Honor is the tenth full novel in David Weber's Honor Harrington series, and thirteenth book (there being three collections of stories set in the so-called "Honorverse"). For those of you that have read the earlier novels, this is more of the same, though Honor herself figures perhaps somewhat less prominently in it than in previous novels. It's got Weber's usual rich and detailed plot, along with Weber's occassionally turgid and expository writing.
One thing that makes this novel different from the others is that Weber has fully incorporated characters and plot lines from the short stories set in the "Honorverse" but penned by other authors. Earlier novels had made allusions to some of Weber's own short stories, but none had integrated another author's work to the extent that War of Honor does. Of course, this does nothing to simplify the plot or reduce the expository interludes (Weber includes enough explanation so that you can follow the plot without having read the prior short story). It does add to the flavor though, and helps keep Weber from simply retreading old ground.
Discussion of the plot, even aside from spoiler concerns, is well-nigh impossible. There's simply too much that happens. This isn't a book that could be a film - it's a mini-series, even without the prior nine novels. War of Honor is not a light and fluffy read. It's a good two hundred pages longer than the previous novel (Ashes of Victory) and doesn't have some of the breezy, happy passages of its predecessor. In fact, you might want to take a break halfway through - I did, with a complete novel in a much lighter vein (bad pun - it was an Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novel). Suffice it to say that Weber knows how to write the next installment in a series: this one resolves enough threads to make it satisfying and opens enough new ones that readers will continue to scream for the next novel.
What Slashdotters are most familiar with, though, is the CD-ROM that's been discussed here before. And it's a nice one, to be sure. While the books on the CD themselves are available at Baen's Free Library, the CD contains more.
One of the most wonderful resources is the art gallery: the covers of the most recent editions of the Honor Harrington books as jpg images, all at 800x1200 pixel resolution or greater. Not scans of the covers but images of the original art, without the title graphics or anything else. I predict some very nice wallpapers coming soon to a site near you.
The CD-ROM also has other lovely tidbits, such as audio selections from several novels and MP3s of songs from the group Echo's Children. So even if you haven't caught this filk group at a sci-fi con, you still get their songs and lyrics based on events in the Harrington novels.
And all of this is on top of all the books on the CD-ROM. All ten Harrington novels, and yes, that includes War of Honor itself. All three collections of Harrington stories. And twenty five (not the previously-reported twenty two) other books, from the likes of David Drake, Eric Flint, Dave Freer, Mercedes Lackey, Keith Laumer, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, John Ringo, and James H. Schmitz. No encryption. No copy protection. In several formats each, including HTML, Microsoft Reader, Mobipocket, Rocket, and RTF files.
Put it all together in one no-download place and the CD-ROM is arguably worth the price of the hardcover book all by itself. Certainly, no new release CD-ROM sold by itself is going to sell for much less than US$26 (the cost of the book).
I'm of course reminded of Tim O'Reilly's (and many others) numerous comments to the effect that obscurity is a bigger problem for publishers than piracy. Jim Baen evidently agrees. He's just put the full text of a brand new flagship property (another bad pun, I'm sorry) in the clear. The disk even says you can copy it. Stamped right on the disk: "This disk and its contents may be copied and shared but NOT sold." Even the copyright notice says "All commercial rights reserved." Not "All rights reserved."
Given the popularity of the Honor Harrington series over all, it's just possible that this novel will make the NY Times (free reg, blah blah :-) best sellers list. And if it did, with its entire text freely and legally available on the net, wouldn't that be an interesting place for publishing to be?
You can purchase War of Honor from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
"War of Honor is out, complete with the aforementioned CD-ROM full of free, unencrypted novels. If you're a true fan of Honor Harrington, you probably don't need this review - you've already bought the book. If you're just waiting for paperback, don't, because the CD-ROM included with the book is worth the price of the book. If you're new to the Honor Harrington series, reading the book itself is not the place to start, but with the entire series (and then some) on the CD, you might want to pick up the book anyway, just for the CD-ROM."
wow, 4 mentions of the "CD" or "CD-ROM" in the 3 sentence summary of the review...
wait, i'm still unclear...does nellardo think the CD is good, or not?
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
Buy.com has it for $16.38 (shipping included). Wal-mart.com has it for $17.98. All are cheaper than bn.com $20.80. Spend the four dollar differential on something nice!
Ahh, the joys of capitalism.
Unfortunately the characters suffer in WoH. The bad guy Manties (and peep) are just too easy to hate. It's almost as it they wore big black moustaches, black cloaks,top hats and were tying young heiresses onto railway tracks.
Not one of the better ones.
Given the popularity of the Honor Harrington series over all, ...
Who the hell is Honor Harrington ? No don't, I'm googling for it myself, it's just that I have never heard of him/her.
Someone is wrong on the Internet!
**Spoiler**
:) I highly recommend going to read it. :)
Basically, the main idea in this book is that the government is in the hands of inept politicians who go too far to try and take advantage of their recently won peace.
The two main manticore fleets survive because Honor was in charge of one, and had extra ships from Grayson (sent as a training exercise), and the other was reinforced by the Grayson home fleet right as the attack begins.
With that said, there's so much going on in the book, I've hardly spoiled anything.
I was trying so hard not to buy that book... Not that I don't like Weber's work... I like it a lot... but hard cover books here in canada cost an arm and a leg... /me goes looking for the saw, and someone willing to "donate" an arm and leg
Our company provides science-fiction books in our employee library which we all can check out and read. Many of us, in fact, donate any sci fi we get at Goodwill or other cheap sources to this library. Anyway, we just got this book and one of the guys took it home without knowing about the CDROM and was just blown away by the amount of material!!! If Baen hadn't already made us rabid fans, this would have done it!!! Well done and thanks. :)
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
Out of the entire series this book is the worst! Come on you have to read 3/4 of the book just to get
to the first space battle and it is tiny. The last
1/4 of the book is good, but I hate all the
politics. I read Weber for the space battles not
the politics!
I can't really picture reading a book off of a laptop or desktop and being comfortable. This is one case where a tablet pc might be nice to have. Although I see reading as a form of entertainment, and after I get home from staring at computers all day, I don't really want to look at any computer screens at unfortunately. I guess since I don't have the money (or the desire) to waste on a tablet, I'll just buy good old books for now
Personally, I'm baffled as to why anyone waits for a book they may want to come out in paperback. For something along the lines of a $25 hard cover book, the paperback version may be, at best, $15. You save a couple bucks but have to wait a long time until the initial hype and/or sales are done with before they start getting paperback versions out. I actually just go straight for the hard cover whenever I buy any book that is more than a hundred or so pages because it feels better when I'm reading it. There is some structure to the book, the pages don't get all messed up as easily, a good hard cover feels great to read by a fire or on some cold rainy day.
Wow, I read the whole review and still don't have a clue what the book is about :)
[quote]Discussion of the plot, even aside from spoiler concerns, is well-nigh impossible. There's simply too much that happens.[/quote]
While I'm all against spoilers, you got to tell something. Anything!
I have not read any of the Honor Harrington books. I have read and enjoyed the Miles Vorkossigan books (See the Great Buys pair in there? Its paired with War of Honor). Can someone compare these for style and such to give an idea how the series is?
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
here a word out to my mother.
I purchased the hard back as soon as it came out. Not for the CD though which I didn't even know was included. When I saw the reference to the CD however I found that in my copy the CD, attached to the last page of the book, had been removed in the store... and not by the store clerks but rather stolen. Does the content justify buying the book twice (which was one of the weaker in the series) or can the CD be purchased seperately if I contact the publisher?
I got mine at walmart.com, CHEAP (like about $15 WITH shipping!).
I stuck all the novels on my palm's 64 meg SD card, and can read them at leisure either on my PC or the palm.
It's REALLY nice that they included ALL the novels in the CD rom in the back of the book (but I'll probably savor reading the War hardcopy first before the electronic copy).
Good stuff, Maynard!
"Sometimes the truth is stupid." - Lawrence, creator of Prime Intellect
While I'm a big fan of the series, this was not the best book in it. However, that means I still thought it was a better than average book, and it gives me something to read until Neal Stephenson gets around to finishing whatever he's working on now.
Also, you can probably download the book (yes the book the CD comes with is on the CD too) and see if you like it before buying it. Yes it's legal, and I quote from the CD's printing itself: "This disk and its contents may be copied and shared but NOT sold."
I give the publisher major kudos for this (as if the review didn't already.
Oh and as for "Who would want to read a book on a computer or laptop instead of paper?" That's the point. You download a book you like, but it's irritating to read on a computer, so you go buy at least the paperback version because it's more comfortable. It seems to work in my experience, if the book is good enough.
Introducing the new Occam Fusion! Now with sqrt(-1) fewer blades!
Finally a publisher who gets that electronic content doesn't need to be locked up in some godawful "security" scheme! I didn't like the first book in this series. It's a very forced attempt to do a Hornblower-type naval tale in space. The space technology comes across as carefully tailored to provide similar tactics to the age of sail. The impact of many technological changes (e.g. improved computers) isn't really explored. The main character is unconvincingly good, noble and chaste. Still, it's a popular series. I hope the book is successful and inspires similar initiatives by other companies.
4x the cost.
I prefer paperbacks, theyre lighter, and easier to read for me at least.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
I've been using an ipaq to read ebooks lately. As the review said, the books are available in MS Reader, HTML and Palm formats. A backlit PDA is almost the perfect device to read ebooks. I've gotten so used to reading them on my ipaq that I prefer them to dead tree books.
Some of the material on the CD-ROM is available online at the Baen Free Library.
I'm impressed that it's a downloadable. Though I had already bought the paperback, it makes it easier to recommend to others as I don't have to worry about only sharing my copy. Incidentally, that 1 copy has turned into a hardcover of 1633, and 2 hardcovers of the anticipated 1634..
If you're an alternate-history fan, this is the book for you. I found 1633 a bit too heavy on the exposition (and some repetition, though I had just read 1632) but the characters are real and the story doesn't indulge in copouts..
I have to say that the Honor Harrington series has outlived the ability of its author who has fallen into the Tom Clancy trap and now thinks himself as a master political analyst.
Unfortunately, when anyone with a point of view different that the military's must be a rotten coward and intellectual bigot then story becomes nothing more than melodrama with endless pages of exposition.
The best Honor stories were the first three or maybe four. Fortunately you can read them on the CD.
Me, I'll stay with Patrick O'Brian whose Aubry and Maturin are more alien to our 21st century sensibilities than anyone in Weber's work. If you want works that rich and that spark a sense of wonder, then look back not forward.
Price discrimination. Lets say you have 10,000 people who are hardcore fans of the series or author, or just prefer hardcover books, and are willing to pay $25 for a copy. You also have 90,000 casual readers who don't think that the book would be worth $25, but would pay $15 for a hardcover book. So what do you do?
1. Print the book in hardcover only. You will have 10,000 readers * $25/book = $250,000.
2. Print the book as a paperback. You will have 100,000 readers * $15/book = $1,500,000.
3. Print the book in both hardcover and paperback. You will have $250,000 from the hardcover sales, and 90,000 readers * 15/book = $1,350,000. Your total revenue is $1,600,000. You just made an extra hundred grand.
With price discrimination, each group of consumers is able to pay what they want, so the publisher can earn extra revenue by allowing consumers that are willing to pay a higher price to do so. Similar principles are at work in airfare pricing (first class and coach), coupon clipping, and discount cinemas/matinees.
Your publication of these sale prices is a clear violation of the DMCA. The next knock at your door will be gun toting FBI agents. You're in a world of hurt now, buddy....
will get the CD and print it out at the office?
-- "You can lead a yak to water, but you can't teach an old dog to make a silk purse out of a pig in a poke" - Opus
Here I thought the flip animation they had in Honor among Enemies was a neat gimmick.
Ed Craig "Who cares what you think?" George W. Bush, 4th of July 2001
i can only recommend to read the introduction to the Baen Free Library. It's good to see, that not every one who depends on selling content wants to fleece the customers like sheep.
Living from content and a fair use policy are no contradictions. They explain why and how. And it works. I keep buying WebScriptions and the books ;-). That I love to read John Ringo (Gust Front), David Weber (Honor series) and Lois McMaster Bujold (The Vor game) may explain it.
Yours, Martin
P.S. Has anyone already written a simulator (Perl prefered) for the starships in the Honor-Universe? I would like to check some battles :-).
For those so inclined, here's a general synopsis of the plot (the series not just this book, but the CD includes the whole series, anyway).
Honor Harrington is a (space) naval officer in the Royal Manticoran Navy. She starts as a captain, later she's an admiral. The situation is a space-age re-writing of European history during the age of classic (water) naval battles. For the guy who mentioned Horatio Hornblower, you hit the nail on the head. Honor proves her own strategic brilliance, courage, honor(pun definitely intended by the original author), loyalty and sense of duty, mostly against overwhleming odds and underskilled opponents. A few skillful opponents are thrown in for proof that she's not just lucky.
Mixed into this action premise is a truly glorious back story of political intrigue and class conflict. The entire series can be taken as a diatribe against the policies of a welfare state if you want, but it's well concealed, and, in general, well thought out. Throw in a healthy spatter of the harsh realities of war and treachery, and mix well.
I had actually thought of doing a review of this novel myself, but I'm glad I was beaten to it. As the author says, the book is worth it, even if only for the CD. I'll add that as a political statement, buying this book/CD combination to try to encourage it in future publications is also worht it, even if you never read a word. But you'll be missing out if you don't.
Do not confuse duty with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different.Duty is a debt you owe to yourself.
Because I am a fan of the series, and because I think what author Weber and publisher Baen have done with the CD-ROM thingie is both courageous and spiffy, lemme try and save y'all some Googlin'...
As has been noted, The Honor Harrington Series is Space Opera, Military Science Fiction. What David Drake did for future tank crewman with his Hammer's Slammers books, Weber does for their space-navy counterparts. There is no "Earth" and no "Aliens," just some far-flung planetary empires, each with different politics (monarchy, socialism, feudalism, whatever) all on planetary scales.
Honor Harrington is an Ayn Rand Romantic Heroine from the Old School. She fights classism, fleet politics, bigotry, duels, and Big Honkin' Enemy Fleets with equal tirelessness and aplomb. She loses friends, limbs, eyes, commands, and keeps coming back for more, plasma cannons a-blazing.
The series has traced her career, from just-out-of-academy first command to whatever she is now, Lord Admiral of the Friggin' Universal Royal Fleet, or somesuch. (Personally, I liked her better when she was "coming up through the ranks," but hey...)
From a geek perspective, the series is notable for its rather detailed thinking-out of space navy mechanics. As someone here has said, Weber is Master of the Space Battle, not necessarily because they are any more exciting than your average Tie-fighter sequence, but because the detail in the physics and the navy crewmen operations seem exceptionally plausible.
If your idea of a good read is the latest Chicano-Lesbian-Prison-Drama from some Lower East Side playwright, move along, there's nothing to see here. If your idea of SF is a barrier-breaking, genre-bending, quantum-cyber-dystopic Enduring-Parable-For-Our-Time, ditto.
If, on the other hand, you enjoy a good read, with interesting, likable characters for whom you can really cheer, and an approach to space-battles that will have you running for your calculator and some graph paper, the Honor Harrington books are da bomb.
I don't read the Left Behind novels but what caught my attention was the fact that there was a sticker advertising that all 11 Left Behind novels were on the CD in Palm and Microsoft Reader formats.
I know this is vastly different from what the person in this story is doing (since these are no doubt encrypted versions) but I find it interesting that the CD-ROM only retailed for $30 (and had even been marked down to $25). These books retail for $25 hardcover each and $15 on paperback (they do those "big" paperbacks, not trade paperbacks). To buy all 11 on paperback at a discount (let's say $10.49) would cost over $115 before tax, but they're giving them all away on this CD-ROM.
Clearly they don't think that there's much of a market to the PDA book market.
Anywho, I figured I'd point this out (since the Left Behind series is immensely more popular).
Please do us all a favor though and if you respond to this thread, don't turn this into a religious flame war (since the Left Behind series is a speculative fiction series about the rapture).
Schnapple
I just love a book review that doesn't mention what the book is about. I know nothing about this author and series so comparing the book to how it reads compared to others in the series does nothing for non-familiar readers. How about giving a little insight to what the book is about next time rather than the technical aspects of the book. All that is useful for fans of the series but for the unfamiliar reader it does nothing for the book.
'Same speed C but faster'
Tom Clancy had the same problem. In each Jack Ryan novel, Ryan got promoted. Once Ryan had been re-elected President, there was nowhere to go. So he set Red Rabbit back in Ryan's early career. That helped; Clancy is good at action, but mediocre at political novels. Weber has the same problem.
Sounds interesting, but I don't see where the male panties fit in..
I got the book the day it hit the shelves... then didn't start reading it because it was just too darned big & heavy to hold! (Arthritis is a bitch...)
I've been reading my way through the enclosed CD, but it wasn't until reviewer pointed it out that I realized the book, itself, is also on the CD!
Boy, is my face red!
-Eldurbarn
You can download most of the Vorkosigan series (I'm not sure how many, or which ones) from www.fictionwise.com. She also puts sample chapters on the Baen site, and in one of those places is the first 11 chapters of The Curse of Chalion (if you haven't read it yet, you really need to!).
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Yeah, I could use some ad space on the slashdot frontpage... Please Mr editors, how much do I have to pay if I want my crappy product announced here???
Geez, and this POS is also overpriced...
"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds !"
When I heard about War of Honor, I remembered that I had bought the first Honor Harrington book (On Basilisk Station) last year, but never read it (I started it, but it seemed pretty lame). I dug out Basilisk and read it. About halfway through I stopped hanging up on the amateurish writing and really got into the story, so I bought the second one. It was good, so I bought the third. Then I realized that I was going to blow nearly $80 at this rate (the used bookstores around here rarely have the Harrington books), so I bought War of Honor and thought I'd give the books on CD a try.
I've read three of them so far on my laptop using the Microsoft Reader and it's really just something you have to get used to. I've read a bit of them on a monitor, but sitting in front of a monitor in an office chair just isn't the way I like to read a book. At home, I plugged in my laptop and sat it on a chair in front of the couch, lay on my side, arranged my pillows, moved around so my finger rested on the "next page" button, and started reading. After I while, I actually preferred this to propping up and reading a "real" book (although I would prefer to have the same book on a PDA so I could put it in my pocket -- or read it on the toilet).
As for the hardcover vs. paperback arguement, I tend to buy hardcovers of my favorite authors new books mostly because I'm anxious to read them or expect to re-read them. But, overall, I prefer paperbacks. It's rare that I don't have a paperback shoved in my pants pocket or jacket pocket.
Regarding Weber himself, his writing gets better as the series progresses, but, as other posters have commented, his plotting suffers as he becomes overconfident. Plus, if I read "the bomb pumped X-ray lasers clawed at the cruiser's sidewalls" on more time, I'm going to scream. You could make a good drinking game on his descriptive cliches.
The books aren't as good as Bujold's Miles books, but they are entertaining if you like that sort of thing.
-- stream of did I lock the front door consciousness
If I'd read your review first I'd have been turned off. I don't see Honor Harrington as being Randian in any way except that she's very talented. She isn't one of the socialists in the series, but neither does she come across as a libertarian (the professional tax-dodging whiners, as Berke Breathed called them.)
While the enemy (in the early books) is a dolist state, where everyone is on welfare, it strikes me as a comment about people who sell out for temporary gain more than people who take government handouts. It does bite them, this large burden they have to carry, but then all the political and social systems in the book get examined and we see the flaws in all of them.
Weber makes a few comments that indicate he's on the libertarian side of politics, but mainly in that some characters (not Honor) complain about a progressive tax, and that the "better" societies (that people enjoy living in) have less government control of sexuality and such, but that just seems to make sense.
It's also interesting in that Honor isn't religious, in fact she's an athiest though she rarely says anything that would indicate it, yet the book has what I (an athiest) feel is a fair and positive view of religion.
In fact, I feel less political and social commentary in these books than in most others.
.
I bought "War of Honor" from Amazon pre-publication & read it in one sleepless overnight sitting. Yes, I am a fan...
Honor Harrington appeals for several reasons. I like David Weber's plausible, well thought out, pleasantly unpredictable, carefully crafted plots & background. While it may seem he injects too much detail into the series, underneath it all is even more cultural history & a detailed scientific environment (available for those that want to read it) that is the basis for everything he writes.
What's even better is that the important nuances of each character's actions & reactions, their motivations & personas, are laid out for the reader to follow (but not always predict).
But the most important factor in the series is Honor Harrington's honor. Weber presents a future where a strong female lead strives to always do the right thing. If there is one theme throughout the series, it's that gentle pun of Honor doing the honorable thing.
Baen Publishing has done some amazingly right things with publishing on the Internet -- read the details at Baen (http://www.baen.com/library/) -- but the most daring of all is including the complete Honor Harrington series on CD with the hardback.
I give Honor 10 stars.
.
.
Bzzzt, wrong.
David is not a scientologist.
"You've got an invalid haircut" -Warren Zevon - Life'll Kill Ya
for( int ii=0 ; ii100 ; ii++ )
{
enemy ships attack.
high ranking guy/gal sends 100 ships.
10 of X ships blow up.
80 of X ships blow up.
high wanker is sad, but knows war is sad. leaves post-it note to be sad later.
political scandal occurs, accuses high wanker of not being sad. hank wanker is sad, but not in civilian way.
}
high wanker wins, but loses friend
sex occurs
The End.
It so happens I have read the Honor Harrington books, but even if I had *not*, I would buy this book expressly to support the concept of free and open distribution of ebooks. Baen is taking a chance that no one else has been willing to do, it's what we the consumers really WANT, and we need to support that.
This was the first hard cover book I have ever bought for myself.
Then you'd get the same story 4-5 times with all the names changed. At least Eddings is shrinking his story into a smaller number of books.
when will there be ISO's of the cd avalible, hehe. I would enjoy reading 20+ books for free, since I only read each book once every 2 or 3 years...
My potato gun was confiscated by the United Nations. They said I wasn't allowed to have weapons of mash destruction.
Please. Gun-toting FBI agents are sooo 1999. These days, you can expect drama-toting CTU agents.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Horatio Hornblower, even as an Admiral, is constantly faced with his deficiencies (he has little physical courage, he is unsociable and he can't hear music). Consider this excerpt from "Lord Hornblower", where he has to kill or capture a brig's crew, who have mutinied because their (literally) sadistic captain had them whipped daily:
Our other H. H., in contrast, is a likeable enough character. But she is perfect, she's a mix of Joan of Arc, Queen Elizabeth (of Armada fame) and the girl that the guy who did the Nike of Samothrake probably had wet dreams about. Let's see her in action:
And that's her as a midshipwoman, age 18. But hey, buy the books anyway, they're damn good military SF, and I really, really apreciate the good physics.
Unfortunately, they started off 'okay' with On Basilisk Station and got steadily worse. In contrast to some who have posted here, I found the characters wooden, the science iffy, the plots childish, and the premise (Hornblower in space) stretched beyond credibility.
Weber's characterizations are quite shallow; HH herself is the only one with any depth to her at all and a walk through the ocean of her soul would scarcely get your feet wet. Aside from some adolescent angst wondering if she's doing the right thing by risking the lives of her crew (they did sign the waiver, didn't they?) in saving the galaxy, there's little here to suggest a real person instead of a plot automaton, bravely forging ahead because she's convinced she's doing the "right" thing. When the inevitable occurs and lives are lost in the cause, it's stiff upper lip and heroes all.
The science in the story is pretty much cut to fit the framework of naval broadsides. The warship's drive field projects zones of near-invulnerability on the top and bottom aspects, with soft areas in the "wedge" on the port and starboard. It's a nice way to be able to ignore that pesky third dimension that infest space battles over surface naval ones. I have to wonder if Weber doesn't think his readers are able to grasp the extra dimension, since they don't figure in his pyrotechnics (or for that matter in his characters). Many of the battles are based on actual historical ones at sea, and some mild interest can be generated by puzzling out which ones are represented in the novels.
Plot seems to come to most of these novels almost as a way to frame the space battles, and frankly, the battles are much better. As Weber moves further from the grisly fireworks and closer to political infighting, the series loses steam. Honor variously works her way through the naval ranks with her "brilliant" strategy and tactics, always seemingly in the right place at the right time, and ends up with an entire navy at her disposal before all is said and done. Even then, you can guess where she'll be found during any major hostilities: on the bridge of a warship, risking her supposedly-irreplaceable aft-quarters with the rest of the swabs. Fiesty, yes. Honorable, perhaps. Believable, no. In one novel, beset at all sides in a political ploy and outgunned and outmanouvered by her opponent, she settles his hash by challenging him to personal combat in a duel of swords! Riiiiight...
Still, I suppose I'll read this latest installment, since I'll have to buy it for the wife anyway. It's remotely possible that Weber will begin to tinge HH with some degree of humanity. It'd be nice to see her -fail- once in a while, especially considering how much of war comes down to pure dumb luck.
But then again, this isn't war. It's pulp fiction..
.. Conquering Earth for our robot masters.
What I've found is that the white background of the color PDA makes for very nice reading. And the Mobipocket reader even does a touch of smoothing. In all, it's pretty much like reading a story in a magazine, with text running about the width of a standard magazine column
Another thing is that I've found it comes in quite handy of late when the kids wanted me to stay in their rooms a bit as they go to sleep. Just bring it on in and read while their lights are off and the drop into slumberland.
Oh, and since buying the hardcover book, I'm now up to the 5th Harrington book on it.
My question:
:-)
Can this book be read and understood without reading the predecessors, or is it worthless without reading the other 9 first?
This book sounds intriguing, but I have no method to read the CD comfortably (I don't want to sit at a desk to read, and can't fit my tower machine in my lap
--
-- I have monkeys in my pants.
Title says it all pretty much, I liked the stories, many of the characters (some of the villian were a little over the top) but I hated Honor herself. The author kept trying to make her a "fragile human" while basically giving her a skill set gilgamesh would have been proud of. It would have been better to hint at Honor's inner turmoil, rather than trying to make me feel sympathtic for her.
You missed the point.
You're spouting back to me the same (ahem) engineering that Weber created to justify the naval battle style.
He created a scientific breakthrough (the impeller wedge) for the sole purpose of telling the story in a certain way, and it's one that I had a problem believing as reasonable. But I got over it.
Design for Use, not Construction!
Anyone know if the amazon.com version has the CD?
I'm WAY behind on the Honor series, but I do like the series. And this seems well worth the price.
Shelf space is another real advantage of paperback books for fiction - they take about half as much space as hardbacks or big paperback computer books. If you read a lot, this can be an important constraint, unless you also dispose of books after reading them.
Besides, how much of a hurry are you in? There are *lots* of books out there to read. For most science fiction, my usual tradeoff is used vs. new, though I have the advantage of living near bookstores with large collections of used science fiction. There are a few authors I'll buy new the minute they hit the store (Steven Brust, Neil Stephenson, and this gradually became the case for the Honor Harrington series, though not for Weber's other books), but I'm very seldom in enough of a hurry to read a specific book that I'll buy non-remaindered hardbacks - the three I see on my shelves are Steven Brust's "Dragon", Vinge's "A Deepness in the Sky", and of course Cryptonomicon (but as a Cypherpunk, that was an obvious must-buy.) The 25th century and the quasi-Middle-Ages can wait an extra six months.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
See subject.
Instant Karma's gonna get you...
Either of you guys want to provide proof either way here?
Instant Karma's gonna get you...
Just so you'll know, on the NYT bestseller list published 10/20/02, "War of Honor" was #8. :)
--Steffan
I would be remiss if I did give unto all Slashdot Harrington geeks THE official Harrington swag website, Pegasus Publishing. This guy hits A-kon and several other cons, but has the lock on the Honor Harrington fanstuff contract, such as it is.
You can get a stylin' RMN jacket or cap, sport your love of all things treecat, or even have Harrington Steading towel sets.
Be sure to check out the other geekstuff there, especially all the bumper stickers you have ever wanted. The geekery goes on for days....
________________________________________ History Must Not Fall Into The Wrong Hands ___________________________________
One aspect of this electronic format release is that the text is editable. I had not read the Honor books because of the swearing, but by using the text from the Baen Free library (plain text or .doc) and a profanity filter I can enjoy the story without reading words I'd rather not see. Does anyone else find this feature useful? I realize it can also be controversial, like the sites that sell edited versions of movies.
Steve Cline http://www.clines.org, http://www.objectbap.com
"you might enjoy this cd-rom if...."
I don't know if anyone else has pointed this out, but when you read the HTML version of the books, a cookie is placed with the last page you were on. So you can easily pick up where you left off.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
There's been a few attempts to put the CD online. The main problem with it hasn't been Legal,
instead it's been this
The files have also bounced around a few Usenet groups, but the preferedd method of storage is still CD-ROM because it's easier to upload them via Palm Format, or quickly browse something via HTML without having to dig through a whole bunch of different directories.
Is it just me... I first read it as "War on Horror" and was like, wow, that makes sense. The other term must have been overused so much that the bad guys started calling themselves horrorists just to make sure they are not part of the general population...
I just went to thefifthimperium.com, and there I see an excerpt from Sluggy Freelance. After reading When the Devil Dances, I had to find out who "Bun-Bun" was, and I spent a couple of weeks catching up on the online comic (folks, stick with it for the first 2 years, it's worth it for the backstory when you get to the good stuff.) So I see Bun-Bun on the Baen site, the comic gets a lot of press in John Ringo's book, and now I see some of it at David Weber's website. Is there some hidden cosmic connection that links them all?
First off, I normally don't buy SF in hardback -- I would have to have another house just to store my reading backlog if I did. Then, I was not much interested in the HH series, though I do like Weber as light SF reading, but when I heard ALL the books were on the CD, then I just *had* to buy the hardback. To get several other continuing series in one place as well is pure gravy.
The point being that far from "giving something away", Baen made a sale with high profit generation that he otherwise would not have made. Plus, he makes me feel positive towards his company, predisposing me to buy other books with his imprint.
It is *especially* gratifiying to be able to get the "back numbers" in a series, without having to haunt the used bookstores [I have been looking for _The Kalif's War_ by John Dalmas for years] -- this is something other SF publishers should look into -- I suspect it would actually increase sales.
- Start small, news groups, email
- Subscribe to a few mailing lists
- Subscribe to a creative writing mailing list
- Start reading creative writing sites
- Visit fanfiction.net, set your minimum length to 100,000 words and sit back.
Once you can read a meg of text in a single sitting, you have arrived. Of course, a non blurry monitor helps too.Yay me!
I was just answering the question?? Stupid fucking moderator.
We're all pro-P2P people here on Slashdot, right? Well, do a search for 'David Weber', and you'll probably find a bunch of RTFs and PDFs of his work. Depending on who is online at the time, of course.
Music^H^H^H^H^HLiterature wants to be free.