“Let's be about it, people.”
May 2, 2018 5:15 PM Subscribe
Of Treecats and Spaceships: David Weber’s On Basilisk Station [Tor.com] “Any series whose hook starts with “Napoleonic wars…IN SPACE” has potential, but when the rest is “fought by a kickass woman with a telempathic cat” I knew I was in for a rollicking good time. On Basilisk Station, and indeed the entire Honor Harrington series by David Weber, never fails to make me thrill with wonder and delight as I tear through the books and then, later, as I digest it, to think of all the sociological philosophy he snuck in while I wasn’t looking!”
• The Legendary Honor Harrington's New Adventure: Movies, Comics and More [io9]
• The Legendary Honor Harrington's New Adventure: Movies, Comics and More [io9]
“Honor Harrington is one of the all-time great heroes of military science fiction. The star of over a dozen novels by David Weber, she's inspired a real-life army of fans who belong to the Royal Manticoran Navy. And now she's coming to comics, games and eventually movies, from Evergreen Studios. We talked to Weber plus Evergreen CCO Scott Kroopf about the next phase of the Honorverse. The Honor Harrington series follows a brilliant genetically engineered starship captain, leading her crew on difficult assignments 2,000 years in the future, when the human race has discovered hyperspace travel and has colonized the far corners of the universe. She fights for the Star Kingdom of Manticore, a relatively small empire based in a binary star system.”
Downloaded onto kindle, generally shy away from explicitly "war" oriented SF, not averse to space battles by any means but generally skeptical about most of the authors that have that theme as primary. Psychic cats are always cool.
posted by sammyo at 5:27 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by sammyo at 5:27 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
I have always found Weber to be unusual as a member of the Baen pantheon, which runs from pretty right wing (not atypical for hardcore military Science Fiction) to pretty reactionary to insane (eg Oh John Ringo No!). He is not as explicitly political, though he does love free market capitalism a lot.
On the other hand, Weber cannot resist the infodump - there are many long, and sometimes suprisingly complicated, technical descriptions that are presented as the musing or lectures of various characters ("Capt. Thundermountain thought of the advantages of using two rollers to mill grain. By reducing heat that caused grainocentisis, this would change the way flour production worked forever!" - except for 20 pages at a time). There are also some occasionally repetitive or annoying word choices, such as "thunderous thunder," and the fact that everyone is always "quirking" their eyebrows or lips.
If you like Weber, you may also like what I consider the best "fun" military science fiction series ever (also with strong female characters, etc) - The Praxis. Great space battles, sense of humor, and wonderful writing.
posted by blahblahblah at 5:32 PM on May 2, 2018 [7 favorites]
On the other hand, Weber cannot resist the infodump - there are many long, and sometimes suprisingly complicated, technical descriptions that are presented as the musing or lectures of various characters ("Capt. Thundermountain thought of the advantages of using two rollers to mill grain. By reducing heat that caused grainocentisis, this would change the way flour production worked forever!" - except for 20 pages at a time). There are also some occasionally repetitive or annoying word choices, such as "thunderous thunder," and the fact that everyone is always "quirking" their eyebrows or lips.
If you like Weber, you may also like what I consider the best "fun" military science fiction series ever (also with strong female characters, etc) - The Praxis. Great space battles, sense of humor, and wonderful writing.
posted by blahblahblah at 5:32 PM on May 2, 2018 [7 favorites]
Honor Harrington's cybernetic arm has a slot in it for a gun and yet they can't make permanent, long-term, reversible birth control
I have a bone to pick with Weber about how he basically ripped off the French Revolution for the Havenites and how most of his books, within and outside this 'verse, portray socialism as a TERROR
posted by lineofsight at 5:34 PM on May 2, 2018 [6 favorites]
I have a bone to pick with Weber about how he basically ripped off the French Revolution for the Havenites and how most of his books, within and outside this 'verse, portray socialism as a TERROR
posted by lineofsight at 5:34 PM on May 2, 2018 [6 favorites]
Well of course he ripped off the French revolution. The series, or at least the earlier books, are pretty blatantly Horatio Hornblower only in space with a magic cat. Weber mixes things around a bit but the plot points are there. I know the article mentions this but it doesn't emphasize it.
(Not hating on Honor. I love me some space opera, and Weber's contributions to Eric Flint's equally ridiculous but fun 1632 series are also great fun if you like his style.)
posted by Wretch729 at 5:47 PM on May 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
(Not hating on Honor. I love me some space opera, and Weber's contributions to Eric Flint's equally ridiculous but fun 1632 series are also great fun if you like his style.)
posted by Wretch729 at 5:47 PM on May 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
He is not as explicitly political...
The primary villain in his Safehold series is named Clyntahn (Clinton).
posted by zakur at 5:51 PM on May 2, 2018 [14 favorites]
The primary villain in his Safehold series is named Clyntahn (Clinton).
posted by zakur at 5:51 PM on May 2, 2018 [14 favorites]
Weber names one of the Havenites Rob S. Pierre which is so insane and over the top and yes the French Revolution is a rich mine of gory stories but... it's very on the nose
posted by lineofsight at 5:55 PM on May 2, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by lineofsight at 5:55 PM on May 2, 2018 [6 favorites]
I loved the start of the series despite Honor being a bit of a comic book / pulp character... perfect at everything, but the later books felt like they bogged down.
posted by BrotherCaine at 6:09 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by BrotherCaine at 6:09 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
I tried to get into that series a while ago, and ended up just unable to Care What Happens to Those those People... But I grew up on both classic sci-fi and Hornblower, and the lack of (reasonable/powerful/non-cardboard-cutout) female characters in both has always pissed me off. And also makes me totally unable to read any Heinlein ever again.
Maybe I should give it another shot? Is there a trusty sidekick with a plant-based name?
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 6:10 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
Maybe I should give it another shot? Is there a trusty sidekick with a plant-based name?
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 6:10 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
I have avoided the Honor Harrington series because I'm afraid to (possibly unfairly) compare it with the space opera of my heart, Bujold. (Which, for anyone who has not read it and is so inclined, deals with the birth control technology problem almost immediately as a major plot point, and dives into lots of other interesting sex and gender issues too.) So, for folks who have read both, how does it stack?
posted by WidgetAlley at 6:13 PM on May 2, 2018 [8 favorites]
posted by WidgetAlley at 6:13 PM on May 2, 2018 [8 favorites]
And now she's coming to comics, games and eventually movies, from Evergreen Studios.
*starts throwing money*
Honor Harrington is my favorite badass female character in the Entire World. I have reread this series start to finish, at least 10 times, and seeing this post makes me want to go for 11. Sure, it’s Horatio Hornblower in space, but if Horatio Hornblower was a badass lady with an amazing sense of righteousness and a “fuck
assholes” gloriousness that I can’t explain without spoiling but seriously just read it read it read it.
posted by corb at 6:14 PM on May 2, 2018
*starts throwing money*
Honor Harrington is my favorite badass female character in the Entire World. I have reread this series start to finish, at least 10 times, and seeing this post makes me want to go for 11. Sure, it’s Horatio Hornblower in space, but if Horatio Hornblower was a badass lady with an amazing sense of righteousness and a “fuck
assholes” gloriousness that I can’t explain without spoiling but seriously just read it read it read it.
posted by corb at 6:14 PM on May 2, 2018
I liked the first many Honor Harrington books, despite Weber's endless preaching about how liberalism is evil and conservatism (framed as "centrism" in his books) is the best thing ever.
I burned out around At All Costs. They're fun enough though.
For a book series that started very explicitly as Horatio Hornblower **IN SPACE** (including the initials of the protagonist, and the SF tech designed to have actual sails in hyperspace and metaphoric sails to strike in the "wedge" they use for slower than light travel, and having to run out the guns, and so on) it was a lot better than it should have been.
He manages to strike a good balance between melodrama, exposition, pages long descriptions of fictional military hardware, and descriptions of battles that specify how many missiles were launched, how many failed to achieve lock, how many were stopped by ECM, how many were stopped by point defense, and how many hit their targets.
If you're into that sort of thing, and I am, he does it well.
My biggest gripe is that he explicitly says they've got tremendous automation technology, yet the big political argument is Evil Space Commies vs. Good Space Capitalists. The idea that in the year 4000+ we'd still be doing commies vs capitalists is just plain absurd.
There's also a kind of fun bit of real science making science fiction fail. When Weber started the series it wasn't yet proven that gravity traveled at the speed of light, so he decided it was instant (or at least extremely high speed FTL) and a lot of his fictional technology relies on the assumption that gravity is FTL. Then it was proven that gravity is limited to light speed and it makes a lot of what he came up with seem about as realistic as phlogiston based SF. Which doesn't hurt the series, but is one of those things that amuses me.
They're a fun read up until you get bored with them, if you do.
kleinsteradikaleminderheit I dunno, if you tried them once and couldn't get into them you might just not be all that into the series. I think, as is often the case, the first book is pretty weak. Not bad, just not one of the stronger entries. It takes him a while to get going, so if you wanted to try again maybe read the wiki on the first one and start in on the second?
But, for all that I enjoyed it, there's no denying that it's pulp. Honor is pretty cardboard, she fleshes out a bit as the series progresses but she was still fairly cardboard when I quit. If that's a stopper for you, then you probably won't like it.
posted by sotonohito at 6:14 PM on May 2, 2018 [8 favorites]
I burned out around At All Costs. They're fun enough though.
For a book series that started very explicitly as Horatio Hornblower **IN SPACE** (including the initials of the protagonist, and the SF tech designed to have actual sails in hyperspace and metaphoric sails to strike in the "wedge" they use for slower than light travel, and having to run out the guns, and so on) it was a lot better than it should have been.
He manages to strike a good balance between melodrama, exposition, pages long descriptions of fictional military hardware, and descriptions of battles that specify how many missiles were launched, how many failed to achieve lock, how many were stopped by ECM, how many were stopped by point defense, and how many hit their targets.
If you're into that sort of thing, and I am, he does it well.
My biggest gripe is that he explicitly says they've got tremendous automation technology, yet the big political argument is Evil Space Commies vs. Good Space Capitalists. The idea that in the year 4000+ we'd still be doing commies vs capitalists is just plain absurd.
There's also a kind of fun bit of real science making science fiction fail. When Weber started the series it wasn't yet proven that gravity traveled at the speed of light, so he decided it was instant (or at least extremely high speed FTL) and a lot of his fictional technology relies on the assumption that gravity is FTL. Then it was proven that gravity is limited to light speed and it makes a lot of what he came up with seem about as realistic as phlogiston based SF. Which doesn't hurt the series, but is one of those things that amuses me.
They're a fun read up until you get bored with them, if you do.
kleinsteradikaleminderheit I dunno, if you tried them once and couldn't get into them you might just not be all that into the series. I think, as is often the case, the first book is pretty weak. Not bad, just not one of the stronger entries. It takes him a while to get going, so if you wanted to try again maybe read the wiki on the first one and start in on the second?
But, for all that I enjoyed it, there's no denying that it's pulp. Honor is pretty cardboard, she fleshes out a bit as the series progresses but she was still fairly cardboard when I quit. If that's a stopper for you, then you probably won't like it.
posted by sotonohito at 6:14 PM on May 2, 2018 [8 favorites]
Oh, here is the Baen Books Free Library.
posted by Fizz at 6:24 PM on May 2, 2018 [10 favorites]
Baen Books is now making available — for free — a number of its titles in electronic format. We're calling it the Baen Free Library. Anyone who wishes can read these titles online — no conditions, no strings attached. (Later we may ask for an extremely simple, name & email only, registration. ) Or, if you prefer, you can download the books in one of several formats. Again, with no conditions or strings attached. (URLs to sites which offer the readers for these format are also listed. )Happy reading!
posted by Fizz at 6:24 PM on May 2, 2018 [10 favorites]
OK thanks sotonohito... I'm hearing cardboard as an adjective a little to much to believe that this is the one that will redeem the feminist credentials of sci-fi as a genre... I guess jscalzi and cstross remain partly in charge of that. No pressure.
I also feel like I should add that the Hornblower books are fantastic, and at least in the second half of the series, there actually is a central and awesome female character. Of course she doesn't get to be in any naval battles or anything, but that one's probably on the early 19th century British navy...
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 6:36 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
I also feel like I should add that the Hornblower books are fantastic, and at least in the second half of the series, there actually is a central and awesome female character. Of course she doesn't get to be in any naval battles or anything, but that one's probably on the early 19th century British navy...
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 6:36 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
WidgetAlley I can't help you because if we're on a 1-10 scale Bujold is my 1000. I love her and nothing else compares.
posted by Wretch729 at 6:45 PM on May 2, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by Wretch729 at 6:45 PM on May 2, 2018 [7 favorites]
The other "Hornblower in Space" series that I know of is the Seafort Saga (wikipedia link), which starts with "Midshipman's Hope," in which a 17-year-old midshipman who has to take command of a starship after the entire command structure above him is killed. Definitely not feminist, and almost certainly bad, this is a series a friend and I enjoyed together some years ago, though I'm pretty sure I dropped out before Seafort became President of the Known Universe or whatever. I can't exactly vouch for it because it's been many years since I read it. Still, I was a big Hornblower fan for a long time, and I'm a sucker for "callow youth takes charge" stories. Indeed, now that I've been reminded of it, I'll probably read the Midshipman one again.
posted by Orlop at 7:11 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Orlop at 7:11 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
Not that I want to derail my own thread but on the subject of Hornblower-esque series, Naomi Novik's Temeraire series is Hornblower with dragons/airforce and it's excellent.
posted by Fizz at 7:20 PM on May 2, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by Fizz at 7:20 PM on May 2, 2018 [9 favorites]
Agreeing with BrotherCaine here. The deeper in you go, the more space Haven’s problems take up, including long political/economic infodumps. I don’t remember the last book I tried reading, but I enjoyed most everything before it a great deal. I’m also a big Hornblower fan.
posted by lhauser at 7:25 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by lhauser at 7:25 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
Honor is pretty cardboard, she fleshes out a bit as the series progresses but she was still fairly cardboard when I quit. If that's a stopper for you, then you probably won't like it.
sotonohito, I love you dearly, but did you notice that Weber blasted, burned, or vaporized more and more parts of her away as the series progressed?
All replaced by wonderfully functional though purely mechanical prostheses, of course, but I finished the first book feeling a little odd about the overtones of Penthouse Pet in space armor in her characterization, and when I stopped reading the series, an eventual convergence to sex doll in space armor seemed all but inevitable.
posted by jamjam at 7:25 PM on May 2, 2018
sotonohito, I love you dearly, but did you notice that Weber blasted, burned, or vaporized more and more parts of her away as the series progressed?
All replaced by wonderfully functional though purely mechanical prostheses, of course, but I finished the first book feeling a little odd about the overtones of Penthouse Pet in space armor in her characterization, and when I stopped reading the series, an eventual convergence to sex doll in space armor seemed all but inevitable.
posted by jamjam at 7:25 PM on May 2, 2018
The early Honor books were good. Not great for me, but they were entertaining. The later ones eventually came pretty close to being just plain bad. Worth reading a good bunch of them, but I'd be prepared to bail. Gotta admit I didn't see the Hornblower tie-in (even as a HH fan) until I saw it mentioned in a review somewhere.
Series degeneration seems to have become a habit with Weber. His Safehold books also started pretty good, but fell apart even earlier. How do you even write 700 pages where absolutely nothing happens? At all. To what felt like 700 new characters. I think that was #4? Sheesh.
posted by ClingClang at 7:28 PM on May 2, 2018
Series degeneration seems to have become a habit with Weber. His Safehold books also started pretty good, but fell apart even earlier. How do you even write 700 pages where absolutely nothing happens? At all. To what felt like 700 new characters. I think that was #4? Sheesh.
posted by ClingClang at 7:28 PM on May 2, 2018
WidgetAlley I can't help you because if we're on a 1-10 scale Bujold is my 1000.
Bujolds are actually a great unit of measurement for for the goodness of sci-fi. "Seventy Bujolds". Nice.
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:00 PM on May 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
Bujolds are actually a great unit of measurement for for the goodness of sci-fi. "Seventy Bujolds". Nice.
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:00 PM on May 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
> BrotherCaine:
"I loved the start of the series despite Honor being a bit of a comic book / pulp character... perfect at everything, but the later books felt like they bogged down."
You could only do so many horrible things to her before it started getting unreal.
posted by Samizdata at 8:22 PM on May 2, 2018
"I loved the start of the series despite Honor being a bit of a comic book / pulp character... perfect at everything, but the later books felt like they bogged down."
You could only do so many horrible things to her before it started getting unreal.
posted by Samizdata at 8:22 PM on May 2, 2018
I have some gripes with Bujold (specifically the prequel that does the White Savior Thing with the four-armed spacedock people) but her work is pretty solid on the whole, in ways that are atypical for the genre. I do think of her work as mostly "courtly comedy of manners in space," though, as opposed to Weber's "Military Fiction In Spaaaaaaace." While Bujold does have some space politics and space war, the focus is solidly on the social lives of the characters, which is actually pretty cool! Weber is much more, as others have said, Hornblower in Space! With Horrible Space Commies, and UBI Makes Everyone Lazy And Imperialistic. I remember enjoying some of the world-building hoops he jumped through to justify "Space is like the Age of Sail" metaphors. The political preachiness got a bit too much for me fairly quickly, though -- I don't think I'd re-read it.
posted by Alterscape at 8:39 PM on May 2, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by Alterscape at 8:39 PM on May 2, 2018 [7 favorites]
Honor vs. Bujold is pretty difficult for me. I love them both in very different moods, Bujold is for comedy and genuine literary merit, while Honor is for the occasional desire to watch uncomplicated good guys trounce bad against the odds. Honor is probably worse, by objective standards, but I appreciate her anyway.
posted by Alensin at 8:40 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Alensin at 8:40 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
All replaced by wonderfully functional though purely mechanical prostheses, of course, but I finished the first book feeling a little odd about the overtones of Penthouse Pet in space armor in her characterization, and when I stopped reading the series, an eventual convergence to sex doll in space armor seemed all but inevitable.
It's been a lot of years so I might be mis-remembering, but I think the opposite is true. The sexual mores of the books are extremely conservative, and HH is literally a 40+ year old virgin. At one point she has killed 1 million plus people and boned 0 people, which is the exact opposite of the numbers you should be aiming for.
posted by Balna Watya at 8:42 PM on May 2, 2018 [9 favorites]
It's been a lot of years so I might be mis-remembering, but I think the opposite is true. The sexual mores of the books are extremely conservative, and HH is literally a 40+ year old virgin. At one point she has killed 1 million plus people and boned 0 people, which is the exact opposite of the numbers you should be aiming for.
posted by Balna Watya at 8:42 PM on May 2, 2018 [9 favorites]
I definitely got a "Hornblower in Space" vibe from The Daedalus Incident by Michael J. Martinez, which alternates between a mystery on a Martian mining colony and the HMS Daedalus, sailing the Void by means of alchemy and battling the French and the United States of Ganymede. Great fun, and there are two more books in the series if you like the first one.
posted by mogget at 8:58 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by mogget at 8:58 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
Widget, if I want mil-sf with interesting female characters, I'd recommend you read Elizabeth Moon. She's rather less interested in banging the drum of her own politics, and has managed to bring multiple series to a reasonable conclusion.
But I still think Cherryh's Chanur series does it best, even if technically The Pride is a merchanter rather than a military ship.
posted by suelac at 9:27 PM on May 2, 2018 [9 favorites]
But I still think Cherryh's Chanur series does it best, even if technically The Pride is a merchanter rather than a military ship.
posted by suelac at 9:27 PM on May 2, 2018 [9 favorites]
I've read a lot of Hornblower inspired series, but not the original (or Honor). I should probably fix that... but in the meantime, I'll add to the conversation with another recommendation:
- The Alexis Carew series (JA Sutherland) is another "age of sail, but in space" series with a female protagonist. Alexis is a pretty good character, and grows over time in terms of rank, personal relationships and the psychological scars of war (without getting too depressive about it, since this is a pulpy sails in space series). Science is very soft in order to give similar "sailing" mechanism. Setting is a mix of "things are somewhat better in the future" and "why would people still be terrible in these ways reminiscent of the age of sail". Author always has an appendix talking about the historical bits it's based on.
posted by Anonymous Function at 9:43 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
- The Alexis Carew series (JA Sutherland) is another "age of sail, but in space" series with a female protagonist. Alexis is a pretty good character, and grows over time in terms of rank, personal relationships and the psychological scars of war (without getting too depressive about it, since this is a pulpy sails in space series). Science is very soft in order to give similar "sailing" mechanism. Setting is a mix of "things are somewhat better in the future" and "why would people still be terrible in these ways reminiscent of the age of sail". Author always has an appendix talking about the historical bits it's based on.
posted by Anonymous Function at 9:43 PM on May 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
> Fizz:
"Oh, here is the Baen Books Free Library. Baen Books is now making available — for free — a number of its titles in electronic format. We're calling it the Baen Free Library. Anyone who wishes can read these titles online — no conditions, no strings attached. (Later we may ask for an extremely simple, name & email only, registration. ) Or, if you prefer, you can download the books in one of several formats. Again, with no conditions or strings attached. (URLs to sites which offer the readers for these format are also listed. )
Happy reading!"
Wow. I have forgotten about that since, ohhhh, I still had a Palm Pilot to read on. Cheers for the reminder!
posted by Samizdata at 9:57 PM on May 2, 2018
"Oh, here is the Baen Books Free Library. Baen Books is now making available — for free — a number of its titles in electronic format. We're calling it the Baen Free Library. Anyone who wishes can read these titles online — no conditions, no strings attached. (Later we may ask for an extremely simple, name & email only, registration. ) Or, if you prefer, you can download the books in one of several formats. Again, with no conditions or strings attached. (URLs to sites which offer the readers for these format are also listed. )
Happy reading!"
Wow. I have forgotten about that since, ohhhh, I still had a Palm Pilot to read on. Cheers for the reminder!
posted by Samizdata at 9:57 PM on May 2, 2018
I think the best part of the Honor Harrington series is how it doesn't try to hide that it's gender-inverted Horatio Hornblower in space with bonus psychic cat. Because why would you want to? That's a fucking awesome premise, and if you don't think so, well, they are probably not the books for you.
As a result of reading and rating the Honor series on Amazon, I was immediately recommended (and ended up reading) Jack Campbell's The Lost Fleet series which is basically Anabasis In Space, but also with space dreadnoughts. It's fun in the if-you're-gonna-steal-steal-from-the-best sort of way, but there's some pretty blatant sexism which I found distracting.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:13 PM on May 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
As a result of reading and rating the Honor series on Amazon, I was immediately recommended (and ended up reading) Jack Campbell's The Lost Fleet series which is basically Anabasis In Space, but also with space dreadnoughts. It's fun in the if-you're-gonna-steal-steal-from-the-best sort of way, but there's some pretty blatant sexism which I found distracting.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:13 PM on May 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
I only read one mid-series one, but it didn't work for me at all. I remember being especially annoyed by the predictable way some noble warrior vs. civilian bureaucrat conflicts were set up and played out.
So, for folks who have read both, how does it stack?
Well, I like Bujold quite a bit and Honor Harrington not at all . . . OTOH they aren't so similar that you'd constantly be comparing them, so if you trust other people on the early books give them a try.
But Elizabeth Moon mentioned above is a bit better on characters and depth if you want space opera with a female captain.
posted by mark k at 10:54 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
So, for folks who have read both, how does it stack?
Well, I like Bujold quite a bit and Honor Harrington not at all . . . OTOH they aren't so similar that you'd constantly be comparing them, so if you trust other people on the early books give them a try.
But Elizabeth Moon mentioned above is a bit better on characters and depth if you want space opera with a female captain.
posted by mark k at 10:54 PM on May 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
I’m kind of sincerely confused by people who don’t think she has depth, honestly. Like, not “They’re wrong and should feel bad”, but kind of “How are we reading the same books?” One of the reasons I’ve loved her so much is that as a female in the military, I really loved her characterization (and okay yeah totally wished I had an empathic treecat but STILL).
Also, she doesn’t stay a virgin, she has healthy relationships with two fairly awesome guys with real problems and reasons to love them, and it’s not played for prurient interest at all, which I remember also liking a lot.
posted by corb at 11:04 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
Also, she doesn’t stay a virgin, she has healthy relationships with two fairly awesome guys with real problems and reasons to love them, and it’s not played for prurient interest at all, which I remember also liking a lot.
posted by corb at 11:04 PM on May 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
I'm hearing cardboard as an adjective a little to much to believe that this is the one that will redeem the feminist credentials of sci-fi as a genre... I guess jscalzi and cstross remain partly in charge of that. No pressure.
Seriously? I mean SERIOUSLY?
Oh sorry, my mistake. Imean, it's not that there's any women, say by the names of Jemison, Bujold, Leckie, Wells, de Bodard, or Chambers involved with sci-fi these days. Guess we'll have to leave it to the men.
Don't mind me, just going to be sitting here rereading "How to Suppress Women's Writing.
posted by happyroach at 11:06 PM on May 2, 2018 [20 favorites]
Seriously? I mean SERIOUSLY?
Oh sorry, my mistake. Imean, it's not that there's any women, say by the names of Jemison, Bujold, Leckie, Wells, de Bodard, or Chambers involved with sci-fi these days. Guess we'll have to leave it to the men.
Don't mind me, just going to be sitting here rereading "How to Suppress Women's Writing.
posted by happyroach at 11:06 PM on May 2, 2018 [20 favorites]
I finished On Basilisk Station in the early '00s and abandoned the series on the second book because of terminal boredom. The ship-to-ship combat managed to be singularly silly *and* dull, and Weber's political opinions are rather quaint viewed from Europe.
OTOH, Fizz, apart from +1000 to the Vorkosigan saga recommendations, if you haven't already read Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch series, try it. The other piece of military SF/F I've read lately was the final book in Django Wexler's Shadow Campaigns series, which I enjoyed very much, but rather than Napoleonic era IN SPACE milSF they're Napoleonic era gunpowder fantasy with demons and lesbians.
posted by sukeban at 11:12 PM on May 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
OTOH, Fizz, apart from +1000 to the Vorkosigan saga recommendations, if you haven't already read Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch series, try it. The other piece of military SF/F I've read lately was the final book in Django Wexler's Shadow Campaigns series, which I enjoyed very much, but rather than Napoleonic era IN SPACE milSF they're Napoleonic era gunpowder fantasy with demons and lesbians.
posted by sukeban at 11:12 PM on May 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
If anyone is interested in reading the first Honor Harrington book, 'On Basilisk Station' the kindle download is currently available for zero pence on Amazon.
I have to admit I wasn't that taken with it myself, I picked it up last month after reading a list somewhere or other.
posted by biffa at 1:04 AM on May 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
I have to admit I wasn't that taken with it myself, I picked it up last month after reading a list somewhere or other.
posted by biffa at 1:04 AM on May 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
Ok, "I'm an idiot time". I only knew David Weber from the Bolo books he did, and never read any of these because I had it confused with Damon Knight's short story from the 50's.
posted by mikelieman at 1:38 AM on May 3, 2018
posted by mikelieman at 1:38 AM on May 3, 2018
I second the Chanur recommendation. For a better Hornblower than Hornblower, I cannot recommend the Aubrey/Maturin series by O'Brian enough. No need for tortured explanations to make space battles like those of sailing ships, when you have the actual weather gage to contend with.
posted by bouvin at 2:00 AM on May 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by bouvin at 2:00 AM on May 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
The articles are a bit dated but I wanted an excuse to talk about Honor Harrington because I just started the series and I'm loving the hell out of it.
Wait till you get to where the war starts for real and Weber starts describing the flight path of every of the 1,000,000 million missiles fired by each of the hundreds of dreadnoughts and super battleships that make up the fleet in this small encounter.
The next book is even better, moving on to the impact of every laser beam fired!
Then Honor gets a fresh cup of chocolate! (whoops! Spoilers!)
posted by MartinWisse at 2:07 AM on May 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
Wait till you get to where the war starts for real and Weber starts describing the flight path of every of the 1,000,000 million missiles fired by each of the hundreds of dreadnoughts and super battleships that make up the fleet in this small encounter.
The next book is even better, moving on to the impact of every laser beam fired!
Then Honor gets a fresh cup of chocolate! (whoops! Spoilers!)
posted by MartinWisse at 2:07 AM on May 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
He is not as explicitly political, though he does love free market capitalism a lot.
...
The villain in the first few books is a decadent welfare state that's ultimately overthrown by egalitarian radicals led by somebody named St Just.
Book two ends with the snivelling liberal coward who talked big about peace getting backhanded by Honor after he orders her to abandon their allies and save their skins when war breaks out.
There's a lot of political shit to swallow with Weber before you get to the space battles and treecats.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:10 AM on May 3, 2018 [8 favorites]
...
The villain in the first few books is a decadent welfare state that's ultimately overthrown by egalitarian radicals led by somebody named St Just.
Book two ends with the snivelling liberal coward who talked big about peace getting backhanded by Honor after he orders her to abandon their allies and save their skins when war breaks out.
There's a lot of political shit to swallow with Weber before you get to the space battles and treecats.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:10 AM on May 3, 2018 [8 favorites]
Count me as another one who put up with the thinly-disguised political crap for only so long before I gave up - maybe 2/3 of the way through the series. It's a shame, because I did like the characters, generally speaking, and thought he did a reasonable job of making the space-as-sail mechanics work for the story.
But yeah, give me the Vorkosigan stories by Lois McMaster Bujold any day of the week, month, or year, thanks.
posted by Nice Guy Mike at 5:04 AM on May 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
But yeah, give me the Vorkosigan stories by Lois McMaster Bujold any day of the week, month, or year, thanks.
posted by Nice Guy Mike at 5:04 AM on May 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
My brother has been badgering me to read these books because "SPACE HORATIO HORNBLOWER EXCEPT LADIES" is extremely in his wheelhouse (he is 6 years younger than me and grew up on my hand-me-down books and claims he thought women were always the action heroes). He's been trying to sell me on representation (in fact, when I sent him this article, he said "yes! And the Queen of Manticore is a young black woman! Representation!"), but he didn't mention any of the terrible libertarian politics that keep getting in the way of fun space battles. The first book was 99 cents on Kindle, but I will not read the rest of the series.
posted by ChuraChura at 6:08 AM on May 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by ChuraChura at 6:08 AM on May 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
jamjam I always took the cyborg parts as a sort of Mary Sue "flaw" that isn't really a flaw. She's perfect, but oh so sad she can't regrow limbs so she "has" to get all these wikked kewl robot parts.
Especially since, early on, her other "flaw" was that due to the nature of their anti-aging treatments she had a prolonged adolescent "awkward" appearance phase. Which was the part that struck me as fetish fuel the way he kept talking about how to Graysons the Manticore ships looked like they were crewed by teenagers.
I never thought of the cyberware as fetish fuel, but I suppose it could be.
corb I’m kind of sincerely confused by people who don’t think she has depth, honestly.
Different taste perhaps?
I found Honor to be a bit of a Mary Sue type character. Omnicompetent, her only "flaws" being non-flaws (like her math thing that wasn't really a flaw because she had an intuitive math sense, or her belief that she was ugly because of her anti-aging treatments), people who hated her hated her because she was awesome, etc.
She's not a total Mary Sue, Weber isn't the best author but he's at least competent so she isn't as flat as a fanfic character would be. But I found her character arc to be sort of the Ugly Duckling, it was just a matter of her realizing how awesome she'd always been more than anything else.
I was also, I'll admit, not even slightly a fan of her romance with Duke Whatshisname. The whole romance between older male mentors and young women bit comes up often in fiction and it rubs me the wrong way every time regardless of the author. Tamora Pierce, who I otherwise really like, is inordinately fond of that trope.
But if you like her I'm certainly not going to say you're wrong for liking her. Taste differs and what one person likes another doesn't.
posted by sotonohito at 6:16 AM on May 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
Especially since, early on, her other "flaw" was that due to the nature of their anti-aging treatments she had a prolonged adolescent "awkward" appearance phase. Which was the part that struck me as fetish fuel the way he kept talking about how to Graysons the Manticore ships looked like they were crewed by teenagers.
I never thought of the cyberware as fetish fuel, but I suppose it could be.
corb I’m kind of sincerely confused by people who don’t think she has depth, honestly.
Different taste perhaps?
I found Honor to be a bit of a Mary Sue type character. Omnicompetent, her only "flaws" being non-flaws (like her math thing that wasn't really a flaw because she had an intuitive math sense, or her belief that she was ugly because of her anti-aging treatments), people who hated her hated her because she was awesome, etc.
She's not a total Mary Sue, Weber isn't the best author but he's at least competent so she isn't as flat as a fanfic character would be. But I found her character arc to be sort of the Ugly Duckling, it was just a matter of her realizing how awesome she'd always been more than anything else.
I was also, I'll admit, not even slightly a fan of her romance with Duke Whatshisname. The whole romance between older male mentors and young women bit comes up often in fiction and it rubs me the wrong way every time regardless of the author. Tamora Pierce, who I otherwise really like, is inordinately fond of that trope.
But if you like her I'm certainly not going to say you're wrong for liking her. Taste differs and what one person likes another doesn't.
posted by sotonohito at 6:16 AM on May 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
Oh, and hte fact that boning Duke Olddude meant an accidental pregnancy, in a world with better than organic cybernetics, was just blah to me. Didn't like it at all. Would it really have killed him to have given the characters a planned, intentional, pregnancy if he wanted kids?
posted by sotonohito at 6:47 AM on May 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by sotonohito at 6:47 AM on May 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
Not that I want to derail my own thread but on the subject of Hornblower-esque series, Naomi Novik's Temeraire series is Hornblower with dragons/airforce and it's excellent.
Not quite! The Temeraire series is very explicitly the Aubrey/Maturin books with dragons, like as in it originated in a piece of Master and Commander fanfiction written by Novik. (But yeah it's excellent)
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:24 AM on May 3, 2018 [5 favorites]
Not quite! The Temeraire series is very explicitly the Aubrey/Maturin books with dragons, like as in it originated in a piece of Master and Commander fanfiction written by Novik. (But yeah it's excellent)
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:24 AM on May 3, 2018 [5 favorites]
Many years since I've read the books. I enjoyed the first few as space opera, though even from the beginning (and at a much younger age than now obviously) the "she doesn't realize she's beautiful" flaw grated on me.
The cyborg parts--well, since she's Lady Horatio Nelson, she kind of had to lose the eye and arm, didn't she?
The politics in the first few books struck me as a bit simplistic, even though I was a lot more conservative back then. I've been *told* he eases off a bit on the cartoonishness of the liberal villains and even accepts they have a point/role in the later books.
I have always found Weber to be unusual as a member of the Baen pantheon, which runs from pretty right wing (not atypical for hardcore military Science Fiction) to pretty reactionary to insane (eg Oh John Ringo No!).
This makes it sound like Baen's range starts at conservative and keeps going right, but it's worth noting that Baen also publishes folks like Bujold and Eric Flint, who's a pretty die-hard lefty.
posted by Four Ds at 8:32 AM on May 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
The cyborg parts--well, since she's Lady Horatio Nelson, she kind of had to lose the eye and arm, didn't she?
The politics in the first few books struck me as a bit simplistic, even though I was a lot more conservative back then. I've been *told* he eases off a bit on the cartoonishness of the liberal villains and even accepts they have a point/role in the later books.
I have always found Weber to be unusual as a member of the Baen pantheon, which runs from pretty right wing (not atypical for hardcore military Science Fiction) to pretty reactionary to insane (eg Oh John Ringo No!).
This makes it sound like Baen's range starts at conservative and keeps going right, but it's worth noting that Baen also publishes folks like Bujold and Eric Flint, who's a pretty die-hard lefty.
posted by Four Ds at 8:32 AM on May 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
The politics in the first few books struck me as a bit simplistic, even though I was a lot more conservative back then. I've been *told* he eases off a bit on the cartoonishness of the liberal villains and even accepts they have a point/role in the later books.
Yeah, it's really hard for me to separate the first few books from the rest of the series, so when I look at the politics of the series I'm looking at it as an arc? And I think one way it may suffer is if looked at through a US lens. It's very based on European-style party politics - so you have the Liberal Party and the Centrist Party as the two most serious wings of Parliament, and it's tempting to just map that onto D/R, but also the New Men Party, the Progressive Party, the Crown Loyalists, and the Conservative Association, and each of them have different interests - and there's a lot of coalitions put together from various members.
So for example, the High Ridge government, which is pretty villainous, was put together from a mix of the Conservative Association, the Progressive Party, and the Liberals. But also you don't get to the High Ridge government until iirc around book 8 or 9, so if you haven't followed that far, you won't really see that. Same with for example the focus on Haven's internal politics - as you learn more about Haven, you realize its problem isn't just 'lol socialism' but rather an incredibly complicated interaction - the Legislaturalists that the Committee for Public Safety replaced were actually terrible people! And when a particular member creates a coup against Oscar Saint-Just, the democratic traditions of Haven are restored and it's still super liberal by, say, Centrist Manticorean standards, but the atmosphere is very 'hurray, the excesses of the revolutionary and expansionist governments are gone' and then Haven and Manticore actually join forces against a foe. But even though you see the seeds of that early, the payoff doesn't actually come until even further along in the series, in Book 10.
I actually read the series a little out of order - starting with The Honor Of The Queen, Book 2, where Honor has to protect Grayson even though they're a bunch of raging sexists, and one of the things I love about the series overall is the way she is changing Grayson with her competence. So I read On Basilisk Station (Book 1) after I had already fallen in love with Honor in the second book. But there's a lot to love there - the fact that Honor is being shafted in her assignment by a military superior who tried to sexually assault her and is still working to attempt to sideline her career because he can't deal with not having succeeded rang very true to me.
So while I definitely think the whole thing is still worth reading, I also had the luxury of being able to read basically the whole thing when I got into it in relatively short order, so you can see things being built on things. I'm not sure I would like it as much as I did if I only read books 1-3 though.
posted by corb at 9:29 AM on May 3, 2018 [5 favorites]
Yeah, it's really hard for me to separate the first few books from the rest of the series, so when I look at the politics of the series I'm looking at it as an arc? And I think one way it may suffer is if looked at through a US lens. It's very based on European-style party politics - so you have the Liberal Party and the Centrist Party as the two most serious wings of Parliament, and it's tempting to just map that onto D/R, but also the New Men Party, the Progressive Party, the Crown Loyalists, and the Conservative Association, and each of them have different interests - and there's a lot of coalitions put together from various members.
So for example, the High Ridge government, which is pretty villainous, was put together from a mix of the Conservative Association, the Progressive Party, and the Liberals. But also you don't get to the High Ridge government until iirc around book 8 or 9, so if you haven't followed that far, you won't really see that. Same with for example the focus on Haven's internal politics - as you learn more about Haven, you realize its problem isn't just 'lol socialism' but rather an incredibly complicated interaction - the Legislaturalists that the Committee for Public Safety replaced were actually terrible people! And when a particular member creates a coup against Oscar Saint-Just, the democratic traditions of Haven are restored and it's still super liberal by, say, Centrist Manticorean standards, but the atmosphere is very 'hurray, the excesses of the revolutionary and expansionist governments are gone' and then Haven and Manticore actually join forces against a foe. But even though you see the seeds of that early, the payoff doesn't actually come until even further along in the series, in Book 10.
I actually read the series a little out of order - starting with The Honor Of The Queen, Book 2, where Honor has to protect Grayson even though they're a bunch of raging sexists, and one of the things I love about the series overall is the way she is changing Grayson with her competence. So I read On Basilisk Station (Book 1) after I had already fallen in love with Honor in the second book. But there's a lot to love there - the fact that Honor is being shafted in her assignment by a military superior who tried to sexually assault her and is still working to attempt to sideline her career because he can't deal with not having succeeded rang very true to me.
So while I definitely think the whole thing is still worth reading, I also had the luxury of being able to read basically the whole thing when I got into it in relatively short order, so you can see things being built on things. I'm not sure I would like it as much as I did if I only read books 1-3 though.
posted by corb at 9:29 AM on May 3, 2018 [5 favorites]
And I think one way it may suffer is if looked at through a US lens. It's very based on European-style party politics
Seen from Europe, all the military worship and disdain of people in academy is *so genuinely weird* that multi-party politics don't even register. My country spent more of the 20th century under military dictatorships than out of them and the last military coup was in 1981, so this regard of the army as incorruptible agents of all that is good and proper is kind of a small culture shock.
posted by sukeban at 10:01 AM on May 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
Seen from Europe, all the military worship and disdain of people in academy is *so genuinely weird* that multi-party politics don't even register. My country spent more of the 20th century under military dictatorships than out of them and the last military coup was in 1981, so this regard of the army as incorruptible agents of all that is good and proper is kind of a small culture shock.
posted by sukeban at 10:01 AM on May 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
It should be noted, along with the link above to the Baen Free Library, that Baen provided CDs of e-books along with many of their hardback editions, including permission to redistribute said CDs. There's a collection of them legally hosted at the Fifth Imerium, and the CD bound into _Storm from the Shadows_ has 11 of the Honor Harrington books and another 7 Honor-verse books included.
posted by hanov3r at 11:05 AM on May 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by hanov3r at 11:05 AM on May 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
I read and enjoyed several of the Honor novels until the politics eventually became too much to deal with. But I should note that if you really dig those long descriptions of space battles involving thousands of missiles, behold Saganami Island Tactical Simulator, which lets YOU chart the course of those thousands of missiles personally!
I played a game of this at Gencon 2017. I tell you, I’m not afraid of complex wargames—I’ve done my share of Star Fleet Battles and Advanced Squad Leader—but at no point during that 4-hour game of SITS was I ever able to wrap my head around what was going on. I’m glad it exists and that people enjoy it, but I guess I've finally found the line of game complexity that I cannot personally cross.
On the plus side, the wargame lets you skip the weird libertarian politics and cut right to the thousands of missiles!
posted by Byzantine at 11:06 AM on May 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
I played a game of this at Gencon 2017. I tell you, I’m not afraid of complex wargames—I’ve done my share of Star Fleet Battles and Advanced Squad Leader—but at no point during that 4-hour game of SITS was I ever able to wrap my head around what was going on. I’m glad it exists and that people enjoy it, but I guess I've finally found the line of game complexity that I cannot personally cross.
On the plus side, the wargame lets you skip the weird libertarian politics and cut right to the thousands of missiles!
posted by Byzantine at 11:06 AM on May 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
Metafilter: skip the weird libertarian politics and cut right to the thousands of missiles!
posted by hanov3r at 11:09 AM on May 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by hanov3r at 11:09 AM on May 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
Wait till you get to where the war starts for real and Weber starts describing the flight path of every of the 1,000,000 million missiles fired by each of the hundreds of dreadnoughts and super battleships that make up the fleet in this small encounter.
That was pretty much the first book for me. I tend to skip most action in books/tv/movies because it bores the shit out of me, and extremely detailed missile action is the worst!
I did read the first Tree Cat book for some reason, which was pretty cute. I think I would've liked that series a lot when I was a teen. It put me in mind of Andre Norton's Zero Stone.
posted by Squeak Attack at 11:16 AM on May 3, 2018
That was pretty much the first book for me. I tend to skip most action in books/tv/movies because it bores the shit out of me, and extremely detailed missile action is the worst!
I did read the first Tree Cat book for some reason, which was pretty cute. I think I would've liked that series a lot when I was a teen. It put me in mind of Andre Norton's Zero Stone.
posted by Squeak Attack at 11:16 AM on May 3, 2018
behold Saganami Island Tactical Simulator,
Oh man, I love this concept but I have no idea who I would ever get to play it with.
posted by corb at 1:59 PM on May 3, 2018
Oh man, I love this concept but I have no idea who I would ever get to play it with.
posted by corb at 1:59 PM on May 3, 2018
Like Four Ds, I assumed her injuries were an homage to Nelson.
posted by BrotherCaine at 3:33 PM on May 3, 2018
posted by BrotherCaine at 3:33 PM on May 3, 2018
kleinsteradikaleminderheit - i'm really disgusted that you named two dudes (one of whom writes women really fucking terribly) as the people who are going to "redeem the feminist credentials" of sff. Just sayin'. The feminist credentials of sff are, and have always been, fine, except if you're one of those people who likes to pretend women don't write it.
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:32 PM on May 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:32 PM on May 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
Are you referring to The Annihilation Score being a pretty awful installment of the Laundry series?
posted by Apocryphon at 7:48 PM on May 3, 2018
posted by Apocryphon at 7:48 PM on May 3, 2018
I'm referring to a whole lot of Stross' work. I gave up on the Laundry well before Score because of it.
posted by adrienneleigh at 8:19 PM on May 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by adrienneleigh at 8:19 PM on May 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
A couple of things: a friend of mine works at one of Webber's non-Baen publishers. She's no fonder of his politics than I am, but he's apparently a really great guy both personally and to work with professionally. My biggest issue with him is something that's missing in all his Honor books: anyone who isn't cis and straight, with two exceptions. One is the psycho lesbian in the Q ships book and the other is the too disabled to have sex wife of Duke CreepyMentor, who is bisexual. Somehow, even on the planet where women outnumber men 3 to 1, there are no functional same sex couples. And , even with all that incredible biotechnology, no one ever wants any kind of surgery to correct their body to their actual gender.
There's also the planet of not as bigoted as those other guys so they're ok and respect women by denying them rights men.
Webber seems to have crafted 1950s America in Space! (space space space...) with regard to his social politics. His economic politics are 1890s.
Despite all this and despite, like most Baen books, needing a competent and fearless editor to go through it with a chainsaw, the books are a guilty pleasure. I like the characters (well most of them) and the one true pairing of the series is Shannon Foraker and Thomas Theisman and you can't tell me otherwise.
posted by Hactar at 8:31 PM on May 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
There's also the planet of not as bigoted as those other guys so they're ok and respect women by denying them rights men.
Webber seems to have crafted 1950s America in Space! (space space space...) with regard to his social politics. His economic politics are 1890s.
Despite all this and despite, like most Baen books, needing a competent and fearless editor to go through it with a chainsaw, the books are a guilty pleasure. I like the characters (well most of them) and the one true pairing of the series is Shannon Foraker and Thomas Theisman and you can't tell me otherwise.
posted by Hactar at 8:31 PM on May 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
Yeah, i met David Weber once, briefly, and a more congenial and friendly and professional dude would be hard to come by. His politics are bad but they're worlds better than nearly everyone else in Baen's stable (Flint, Bujold, and a couple others notwithstanding). Under Weisskopf they've taken an even harder-right turn as far as new authors, too; Jim Baen had many faults, and he had been a reactionary old dude since well before i was even born, but he was never lying when he said the stories were what mattered to him. Weisskopf is … no Jim Baen.
posted by adrienneleigh at 8:35 PM on May 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 8:35 PM on May 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
My own experience of Honor Harrington: On Basilisk Station was good fun, the way a space opera should be. The final plot twist was a bit telegraphed, since I'd been waiting from the beginning for that detail to re-emerge, but, all in all, a good book.
Honor of the Queen also went for an interesting, lively "adventures in space and interactions with troubling cultures" thing that I could work with, but I was a bit disheartened by the constant presence of a cartoon cardboard liberal who is whiny and peaceful and doesn't understand sacrifice and who is of course wrong wrong wrong and Honor proves to him what a hard and courageous person can do. Oh well, guess he's just a blip.
Nope, whiny quisling liberal's evil cousin shows up in The Short Victorious War, and teams up with Honor's evil backstory sexual aggressor to form a coalition of malice that has basically no plot-relevance whatsoever but is an effective way of showing how dastardly and unscrupulous those liberals are. On top of that, TSVW can't muster up any societies nearly as compelling as those in the first two books. So I kinda noped out after that; if I want to hear about evil liberals and their evil sisters and cousins and aunts, I could just listen to AM radio.
posted by jackbishop at 4:56 AM on May 4, 2018 [3 favorites]
Honor of the Queen also went for an interesting, lively "adventures in space and interactions with troubling cultures" thing that I could work with, but I was a bit disheartened by the constant presence of a cartoon cardboard liberal who is whiny and peaceful and doesn't understand sacrifice and who is of course wrong wrong wrong and Honor proves to him what a hard and courageous person can do. Oh well, guess he's just a blip.
Nope, whiny quisling liberal's evil cousin shows up in The Short Victorious War, and teams up with Honor's evil backstory sexual aggressor to form a coalition of malice that has basically no plot-relevance whatsoever but is an effective way of showing how dastardly and unscrupulous those liberals are. On top of that, TSVW can't muster up any societies nearly as compelling as those in the first two books. So I kinda noped out after that; if I want to hear about evil liberals and their evil sisters and cousins and aunts, I could just listen to AM radio.
posted by jackbishop at 4:56 AM on May 4, 2018 [3 favorites]
One more thought for those who are still reading this and are comparing Bujold and Webber. Manticore is what happens when Komar isn't conquered by Barrayar. Earning it's money of location and not industry, profiting from tariffs instead of taxes. He never considers the fact that by charging customs on what is essentially the Straight of Malacca they can keep their taxes artificially low and still afford to build one of the largest navies in space. (Britain did this by colonizing and massacring and raping and robbing, but because they are good and enlightened, they can't have that.)
Also, the early versions of the audiobooks read by Madeline Bizzard (I think that's her last name, I can't find it online) are a wonderful thing to fall asleep to. Just put on an info dump section and set it to turn off in 30 minutes.
posted by Hactar at 6:30 AM on May 4, 2018 [3 favorites]
Also, the early versions of the audiobooks read by Madeline Bizzard (I think that's her last name, I can't find it online) are a wonderful thing to fall asleep to. Just put on an info dump section and set it to turn off in 30 minutes.
posted by Hactar at 6:30 AM on May 4, 2018 [3 favorites]
I just re-read On Basalisk Station and have been thinking a bit about Weber and politics.
I'm not aware of his current political beliefs, but clearly when he was writing the early Honor Harrington books he was advancing a sort of kinder and gentler conservatism. The sort that would view Trump as a vile sort of person, but might reluctantly vote for him because of taxes and the Supreme Court.
The economic conservatism of Weber's Manticore is very much in line with late 20th century Republican ideals: low taxes, low government services, a bustling economy where everyone has a good paying job, and almost all tax money going for military projects because the private sector takes care of everything else. Both in Manticore and Grayson (the "good" religious fanatics) political donations are explicitly defined as free speech.
The social side is, to me, a bit more interesting and telling. It's a sort of utopian depiction of the ideals of bourgeois late 20th century center leaning Republicans. And especially how the idea of being normal (that is, white, cis, het, Christian, male, and conservative) plays into it.
There's a melange of mixed ethnicity indicated by obviously ethnic (mostly Japanese with a few Spanish) names combined with UK style names, but everyone is more or less white except for a few exotic details (like Honor's vaguely almond eyes). There are a handful of black people, but they're normal black people, not scary black people who listen to weird angry abnormal music or watch BET. They're black people who differ from normal white people only in skin color. They're Ward and June Cleaver with extra melanin.
Everyone is Christian, but not the weird kind of Christian or the kind who makes religion a big deal. They all believe in God as a matter of course and have religious ceremonies sometimes but that's about the extent of it. They're Christmas and Easter Christians, not the fanatics who go to Church every Sunday or pray all the time. They're quietly Christian, they're normal Christians. Which in this case means nominal Christians. Aside from a few quirks of language "thank God", and the inevitable "mistress after God of the ship" sort of statements there really isn't any Christianity involved. But they aren't atheist or agnostic, because that wouldn't be normal.
Even the Graysons, the "good" religious fanatics, tend to be only nominally religious. They talk about it a little more, but they don't pray all the time or even really follow the dictates of their religion much beyond being paternalistically sexist.
Likewise in Manticore there is no feminism. There is no need for feminism because it's all settled perfectly and women are totally equal to men and that's that. No need to fuss or bring up the rape culture and inherent misogyny that would permit Lord Pavel Young to be a serial sexual predator. Nope, that was just a sort of thing that happened and had no relation to any sort of social problems. And it was really Honor's fault for not trusting that the men in charge would believe her. But it certainly wasn't systemic misogyny in the Star Kingdom. Nope. No need for feminism, we're all normal here.
Everyone is allowed to be whatever they want, as long as basically they act like cis, straight, white, nominally Christian, men from the late 20th century. They can play baseball, or go hiking, or go skiing, or join the military and blow up evil Space Commies! And they can do all that even if they're women, or not white, and unlike the women and not white people in the real world those people never complain about anything because they're normal. Like God intended, but don't fuss too much about God. Just believe in Him (because of course God is a straight white guy) and don't go overboard with it.
And, like they want to pretend is the case in the modern USA, the only real problem is that there's these awful Liberals and Progressives who make a fuss. Everything is fine. Everyone is normal. Anyone who says that there are problems, well, they're the problem because they're making a fuss. Those Liberals and Progressives invent fake problems to work themselves up about and that's why they are never happy and always getting in the way.
There's certainly swipes at the more isolationist, non-free trade believing, more xenophobic branches of conservatism, though such swipes are mostly a sort of tacked on afterthought with the real bile reserved for the libprogs and the Evil Space Commies.
It's the sort of conservatism that would be appalled at Trump's isolationism and tariff happy foreign policy. It's the bourgeois conservatism of Thomas Friedman. The sort of conservatism that quotes MLK about judging people by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin and prides itself on being colorblind, but hates Black Lives Matter because BLM is making a fuss and not being normal.
Which is probably why I'm able to tolerate it to the extent that I do. The more Trumpian explicitly white supremacist, as opposed to quietly and nicely white supremacist, sort of conservatism is what we see in John Ringo and why I can't really stand his stuff.
Basically, Weber tends to represent the Mitt Romney style of conservatism in SF.
posted by sotonohito at 8:45 AM on May 4, 2018 [9 favorites]
I'm not aware of his current political beliefs, but clearly when he was writing the early Honor Harrington books he was advancing a sort of kinder and gentler conservatism. The sort that would view Trump as a vile sort of person, but might reluctantly vote for him because of taxes and the Supreme Court.
The economic conservatism of Weber's Manticore is very much in line with late 20th century Republican ideals: low taxes, low government services, a bustling economy where everyone has a good paying job, and almost all tax money going for military projects because the private sector takes care of everything else. Both in Manticore and Grayson (the "good" religious fanatics) political donations are explicitly defined as free speech.
The social side is, to me, a bit more interesting and telling. It's a sort of utopian depiction of the ideals of bourgeois late 20th century center leaning Republicans. And especially how the idea of being normal (that is, white, cis, het, Christian, male, and conservative) plays into it.
There's a melange of mixed ethnicity indicated by obviously ethnic (mostly Japanese with a few Spanish) names combined with UK style names, but everyone is more or less white except for a few exotic details (like Honor's vaguely almond eyes). There are a handful of black people, but they're normal black people, not scary black people who listen to weird angry abnormal music or watch BET. They're black people who differ from normal white people only in skin color. They're Ward and June Cleaver with extra melanin.
Everyone is Christian, but not the weird kind of Christian or the kind who makes religion a big deal. They all believe in God as a matter of course and have religious ceremonies sometimes but that's about the extent of it. They're Christmas and Easter Christians, not the fanatics who go to Church every Sunday or pray all the time. They're quietly Christian, they're normal Christians. Which in this case means nominal Christians. Aside from a few quirks of language "thank God", and the inevitable "mistress after God of the ship" sort of statements there really isn't any Christianity involved. But they aren't atheist or agnostic, because that wouldn't be normal.
Even the Graysons, the "good" religious fanatics, tend to be only nominally religious. They talk about it a little more, but they don't pray all the time or even really follow the dictates of their religion much beyond being paternalistically sexist.
Likewise in Manticore there is no feminism. There is no need for feminism because it's all settled perfectly and women are totally equal to men and that's that. No need to fuss or bring up the rape culture and inherent misogyny that would permit Lord Pavel Young to be a serial sexual predator. Nope, that was just a sort of thing that happened and had no relation to any sort of social problems. And it was really Honor's fault for not trusting that the men in charge would believe her. But it certainly wasn't systemic misogyny in the Star Kingdom. Nope. No need for feminism, we're all normal here.
Everyone is allowed to be whatever they want, as long as basically they act like cis, straight, white, nominally Christian, men from the late 20th century. They can play baseball, or go hiking, or go skiing, or join the military and blow up evil Space Commies! And they can do all that even if they're women, or not white, and unlike the women and not white people in the real world those people never complain about anything because they're normal. Like God intended, but don't fuss too much about God. Just believe in Him (because of course God is a straight white guy) and don't go overboard with it.
And, like they want to pretend is the case in the modern USA, the only real problem is that there's these awful Liberals and Progressives who make a fuss. Everything is fine. Everyone is normal. Anyone who says that there are problems, well, they're the problem because they're making a fuss. Those Liberals and Progressives invent fake problems to work themselves up about and that's why they are never happy and always getting in the way.
There's certainly swipes at the more isolationist, non-free trade believing, more xenophobic branches of conservatism, though such swipes are mostly a sort of tacked on afterthought with the real bile reserved for the libprogs and the Evil Space Commies.
It's the sort of conservatism that would be appalled at Trump's isolationism and tariff happy foreign policy. It's the bourgeois conservatism of Thomas Friedman. The sort of conservatism that quotes MLK about judging people by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin and prides itself on being colorblind, but hates Black Lives Matter because BLM is making a fuss and not being normal.
Which is probably why I'm able to tolerate it to the extent that I do. The more Trumpian explicitly white supremacist, as opposed to quietly and nicely white supremacist, sort of conservatism is what we see in John Ringo and why I can't really stand his stuff.
Basically, Weber tends to represent the Mitt Romney style of conservatism in SF.
posted by sotonohito at 8:45 AM on May 4, 2018 [9 favorites]
No need to fuss or bring up the rape culture and inherent misogyny that would permit Lord Pavel Young to be a serial sexual predator. Nope, that was just a sort of thing that happened and had no relation to any sort of social problems.
I think, but am not entirely certain (I've been rereading too, I'm now on the Short Victorious War, and I think a lot of this stuff manifests later in the series though I've seen some of it in The Honor Of The Queen) that they do go the sexual mores of the Star Kingdom and the patriarchal problems inherent there quite a bit - Honor's mother, who is from Beowolf, talks a good bit about what she sees as dangerously repressive hypocrisy, and once Harrington becomes Steadholder Harrington she has to deal with that stuff a lot more - the fallout over Tankersley, her romance and child later, etc.
But it's also entirely possible - because these books take place over a number of years - that this wasn't planned out in advance, and just happened as David Weber himself changed his views - I don't know him well enough to know. On Basilisk Station was first published in 1993, which is now 30 years ago. It's very rare that people don't change their views over thirty years.
posted by corb at 1:33 PM on May 13, 2018
I think, but am not entirely certain (I've been rereading too, I'm now on the Short Victorious War, and I think a lot of this stuff manifests later in the series though I've seen some of it in The Honor Of The Queen) that they do go the sexual mores of the Star Kingdom and the patriarchal problems inherent there quite a bit - Honor's mother, who is from Beowolf, talks a good bit about what she sees as dangerously repressive hypocrisy, and once Harrington becomes Steadholder Harrington she has to deal with that stuff a lot more - the fallout over Tankersley, her romance and child later, etc.
But it's also entirely possible - because these books take place over a number of years - that this wasn't planned out in advance, and just happened as David Weber himself changed his views - I don't know him well enough to know. On Basilisk Station was first published in 1993, which is now 30 years ago. It's very rare that people don't change their views over thirty years.
posted by corb at 1:33 PM on May 13, 2018
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