Honor Harrington - Should I pick it up?

[Cikomyr]

Eh, I'm sure you're worried about nothing. It's not like people in Honor's immediate vicinity experience a statistically abnormal uptick in mayhem, murder, and chaotic destruction or anything.

Oh man, i cant believe it. Anton is dead. Oh noes.

And Yard is borderline, maybe dead. Who could have seen this coming?

[The Glyphstone]

It may be telling that I tend to have a very good memory of even the minor side characters, and I couldn't remember who Arthur Yard was until I looked him up on the wiki.

[Gnoman]

I couldn't find him on the wiki, I had to go grab my copy to figure out who Cikomyr was talking about.

[Cikomyr]

Little surprise. He shows up as replacement for an established character. Doesnt get a single line, and then is knocked out (possibly killed, the jury is still out) before the ship lands.

[Cheesegear]

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'Oops' is indeed right up there. It's one of the greats alongside "Goodbye, Citizen Chairman"

I like the two lines that come before that one.

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So now what? A big show trial before my execution? Proof of my 'crimes' for the Proles and the newsies?
No. I think we've had enough of those sorts of trials.

[Cikomyr]

I have to say, i found Greyson's political crisis resolution a bit disapointing. They only won because of contriving coincidence and stupid actions by the bad guys.

Also, it was a bit streching that Harrington defeated a Swordmaster. But i can't fault the overall arguments. I accepted that The Player of Games beat a grandmaster of Azad while being a neophyte because his life experience shaped his reasoning into naturally becoming a fantastic player. The same way, Harrington's personal lifr experience, study and outlook on the topic of fights can justify her victory over a bloodless master.

The spesh battle of the 4th Battle of Yelstin was AWESOME tho. More than made up for it.

[Gurston]

Also, it was a bit streching that Harrington defeated a Swordmaster. But i can't fault the overall arguments. I accepted that The Player of Games beat a grandmaster of Azad while being a neophyte because his life experience shaped his reasoning into naturally becoming a fantastic player. The same way, Harrington's personal lifr experience, study and outlook on the topic of fights can justify her victory over a bloodless master.

I know it isn't stated in the book but I always assumed the talk about detecting the crease implied she sensed it through Nimitz giving her the advantage

[gomipile]

I have to say, i found Greyson's political crisis resolution a bit disapointing. They only won because of contriving coincidence and stupid actions by the bad guys.

Their stupidity was quite stupendous.

Also, it was a bit streching that Harrington defeated a Swordmaster. But i can't fault the overall arguments.

Having learned a fair bit of eastern empty hand martial arts and some kobudo, then taking kenjutsu classes after, I don't think it's a stretch. I know some military and police members who studied empty hand with me, and that factors into my opinion as well. If it matters, we also sparred using a kenjutsu philosophy with kendo equipment.

Empty hand combat experience can definitely give one a significant boost in sword skill in real life. Now, I've seen people who that didn't apply to, but anecdotally, they learned their empty hand from schools with a fairly "closed minded" philosophy. The school we were in openly borrowed from any martial art or source if the teachers thought a technique was useful based on their experience.

I started reading the Honorverse years after I started learning martial arts, and the martial arts practice and philosophy in these books mostly was very correct according to my sensibilities. I say "mostly" because I remember mindfully nodding along with a lot of it specifically, but it's been long enough that I don't remember whether or not I read any of it as dodgy. The philosophy and practice of the main martial art I studied is eerily similar to Weber's description of the history and practice of coup de vitesse, as it turns out.

I have no issue if you disagree, since my experience is anecdotal rather than science proven by large sample repetition. My experience is only based on interactions with maybe a few dozens of martial artists, probably no more than seventy even counting people I only meet once each at tournaments or seminars.

[Cikomyr]

I know it isn't stated in the book but I always assumed the talk about detecting the crease implied she sensed it through Nimitz giving her the advantage

....

Goddamnit, it makes so much sense now that I think of it.

It was all about reacting at the perfect time when you know the enemy would attack. The "crease", and she admits that she never really knew why she knew. She just did.

Nimitz sensed it, and allowed her to react in real-time.


Thats brilliant.


Edit: i also like your interpretation, Gomipile, and like i said i didnt reject it. It just made a bit of strech.

The Nimitz's empathic link just takes the cake

[Gnoman]

Also, it was a bit streching that Harrington defeated a Swordmaster. But i can't fault the overall arguments. I accepted that The Player of Games beat a grandmaster of Azad while being a neophyte because his life experience shaped his reasoning into naturally becoming a fantastic player. The same way, Harrington's personal lifr experience, study and outlook on the topic of fights can justify her victory over a bloodless master.

Also don't forget that she has been training in the sword for a full year, and prolong makes relative age interesting. The duel takes place in 1907 and Harrington was born in 1859, making her 47 or 48 at the time, while sixty is a venerable age for a Grayson. It is very likely that her thirty years of martial arts training is greater than Burdette's training to become a swordmaster. Add in the blatantly foreshadowed (in her "on-screen" training session, where she accepts a touch that in real life would be a minor wound in order to deliver a deadly blow) element that she knows real battle and he does not, and I don't find it stretching at all.



Rereading the series, I'm struck by the way the first three books go out of their way to emphasize the power of the weapons available, almost to the point where situations are contrived to allow it.

[Rodin]

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'Oops' is indeed right up there. It's one of the greats alongside "Goodbye, Citizen Chairman", "Do you want this man crippled or dead?", and "Why do people like you always think they're more ruthless than people like me?"

I'm drawing a blank on that last. Who said that, and when?

[gomipile]

The empathic link explanation for Honor knowing when Fitzclarence was going to attack does make a lot of sense.

Rereading the series, I'm struck by the way the first three books go out of their way to emphasize the power of the weapons available, almost to the point where situations are contrived to allow it.

I've spent several minutes reading and rereading this line of yours, and I'm thoroughly confused. I can think of mutually exclusive ideas you might be trying to convey, but I can't decide what you meant. It feels like you're expressing several sentences of meaning here, but left out the words that would let me understand it the way the thoughts were in your mind.

[Cheesegear]

I'm drawing a blank on that last. Who said that, and when?

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"Oops." is Shannon Foraker, obviously
"Goodbye, Citizen Chairman." is Theisman shooting Saint-Just in the head.
"Do you want this man crippled or dead?" is Honor herself, in her role as Champion to Protector Benjamin.

"Why do people like you..." is Terekhov in Shadow of Freedom.

[Rodin]

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"Oops." is Shannon Foraker, obviously
"Goodbye, Citizen Chairman." is Theisman shooting Saint-Just in the head.
"Do you want this man crippled or dead?" is Honor herself, in her role as Champion to Protector Benjamin.

"Why do people like you..." is Terekhov in Shadow of Freedom.

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Ah, that's why I don't remember it - that book was after I stopped reading the series when I was turned off it by Mission of Honor.

Those other three are, of course, in my top 3 as well.

[Gnoman]

I'm drawing a blank on that last. Who said that, and when?

It's from Shadow Of Freedom.

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Aivars Terekhov said it to the commander of the Solarian Intervention Battalions on Mobius who was threatening to execute a soccer stadium full of civilian hostages if Manticore didn't withdraw. Right before a megaton-range kinetic strike struck the roof of her headquarters.

I've spent several minutes reading and rereading this line of yours, and I'm thoroughly confused. I can think of mutually exclusive ideas you might be trying to convey, but I can't decide what you meant. It feels like you're expressing several sentences of meaning here, but left out the words that would let me understand it the way the thoughts were in your mind.

I'm having a hard time articulating it, but it seems like in the first few books, situations are contrived in order to showcase just how powerful weapon systems of the twentieth century Post-Diaspora can be. In Basilisk Station, there are several scenes where it shows pulsers wreaking far greater havoc than a machine gun would in that scenario, and when when that fails to stop the Medusan-wave attack they bring in the pinnaces that don't fail. In Honor of the Queen, the naval engagement where Madrigal is killed but manages to take out the nominally formidable Masadan navy with almost contemptuous ease - showcasing just how massive being on the right side of a tech disparity can be, particularly since there's references to Greyson/Masadan tech being pretty close to early-to-mid eighteenth century (PD, of course) standards for everyone else. Finally, in A Short Victorious War the early scene where a squadron of battlecruisers (until this point the most powerful ship we've seen in action, and one which seemed ludicrously tough and dangerous in the last book) drop in on a superdreadnought and get popped like soap bubbles seems to be for the primary purpose of showing just how much a SD overmatches anything else.

Any narrative purpose to these scenes could have been done in a great many ways - particularly the last. It really seems like Weber was trying very hard to show-not-tell just how much power the weapons in his universe have. Which is honestly a very good thing overall.

[Slayn82]

I love how, for all the disdain solarians use when referring to neo barbarians, it was Grayson's crude but innovative technology - Fission piles - that gave the Manticoran Alliance the way out to beat the accepted military Strategic doctrines of the space conflicts.

Missiles couldn't employ more than a single drive and the targeting electronics of the level still employed by the solarian league because they relied on large capacitors to provide energy to their systems, limiting the amount of power available. There wasn't any incentive to create more sophisticated systems, because you couldn't power them long enough.

Meanwhile, Grayson developed a tech that employs the radioactive isotopes abundant in their system to generate power. Other planets would consider this kind of technology environmentally hazardous, and very dangerous to be used by civilians, compared with clean fusion - that is easier to regulate because of the equipment size. Since in Grayson you start learning about proper NCB procedures at kindergarten, that wasn't an issue.

So the fission pile was included in the missile design, without much penalty to Warhead output, and suddenly Manticore could power multiple missile drives, improve their missiles electronics, and increase missile range and accuracy by a huge margin, displacing grasers as main class of warship armament. Not bad .

[The Glyphstone]

Remember that the Solarians also consider Manticore to be neo-barbarians. Basically, if you're not from the Old League, you're primitive backwards scum. If you're not from the Old League and you have the temerity to be an economic powerhouse like Manticore without meekly knuckling under to the corrupt bureaucrats and transtellar corporations, you are super primitive backwards ultra scum.

[Gnoman]

-snip-

This is incorrect.

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Fission piles were used in the new-generation Manticoran LACs, but Manticoran first-generation MDMs were capacitor-powered. They were able to fit in 3 missile drives not because of any new power technology, but because they were willing to accept massive missiles, primarily because the next generation of capital warships were going to be pod-based, and thus the size of the missiles weren't as big a handcap. Later generations used miniaturized onboard fusion reactors instead. Grayson's primary contribution to Alliance technology was their inertial compensator, which worked on slightly different principles to everyone else's and was more efficient as a result.

Also, SPOILERS.

[Douglas]

This is incorrect.

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Fission piles were used in the new-generation Manticoran LACs, but Manticoran first-generation MDMs were capacitor-powered. They were able to fit in 3 missile drives not because of any new power technology, but because they were willing to accept massive missiles, primarily because the next generation of capital warships were going to be pod-based, and thus the size of the missiles weren't as big a handcap. Later generations used miniaturized onboard fusion reactors instead. Grayson's primary contribution to Alliance technology was their inertial compensator, which worked on slightly different principles to everyone else's and was more efficient as a result.

Also, SPOILERS.

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Speaking of inertial compensators, I was rereading some of the early Manticore/Solarian "battles", and was amused by certain Solarian officers commenting that the Manticoran force must be trying to impress them, because why else would they be running their compensators so hard? I'm pretty sure the Manticorans in question were simply going at standard by-the-book acceleration rates and still had the standard margin in reserve.

It seems Weber has a lot of fun pushing the "Solarians are oblivious" theme.

[Gnoman]

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Speaking of inertial compensators, I was rereading some of the early Manticore/Solarian "battles", and was amused by certain Solarian officers commenting that the Manticoran force must be trying to impress them, because why else would they be running their compensators so hard? I'm pretty sure the Manticorans in question were simply going at standard by-the-book acceleration rates and still had the standard margin in reserve.

It seems Weber has a lot of fun pushing the "Solarians are oblivious" theme.

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It was more than that - in order to preserve secrets for later tactical use, and also in an attempt to avoid pushing the Solarians into a panic, Gold Peak ordered her captains to run well below the old 80% where Sollies could see them, just as she specifically forbade any live fire exercises with MDMs and any routine use of FTL coms.

[The Glyphstone]

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Speaking of inertial compensators, I was rereading some of the early Manticore/Solarian "battles", and was amused by certain Solarian officers commenting that the Manticoran force must be trying to impress them, because why else would they be running their compensators so hard? I'm pretty sure the Manticorans in question were simply going at standard by-the-book acceleration rates and still had the standard margin in reserve.

It seems Weber has a lot of fun pushing the "Solarians are oblivious" theme.

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No so much oblivious as arrogant, I think. It's mentioned elsewhere in the series that 'victory disease' is the worst thing a military can succumb to - becoming so accustomed to their successes that they stop considering the possibility of failure. The Solarian League, and the League Navy, hadn't fought a serious battle in over two hundred years, let alone lost a battle of any kind. They were so used to thinking of themselves as the biggest gorilla in the living room, with the shiniest toys, that the idea 'neobarbs' could have innovated past them was unthinkable.

[brionl]

It's from Shadow Of Freedom.

I'm having a hard time articulating it, but it seems like in the first few books, situations are contrived in order to showcase just how powerful weapon systems of the twentieth century Post-Diaspora can be.

That's actually pretty standard for the "violence pr0n" genre. Hammer's Slammers, Belisarius or the Leary & Mundy books by David Drake, the Ring of Fire series by Eric Flint & others and many more.

[The Glyphstone]

...It's mildly off-topic, but I'm intensely curious how you justify the Ring of Fire books as 'violence pr0n' alongside Drake's books. Flint doesn't gloss over how ugly 17th-century warfare gets, particularly when it's turned upside-down by 19th-century weapons and 21st-century tactics, but he doesn't glorify in it or go into unnecessary details either.

[Gnoman]

That's actually pretty standard for the "violence pr0n" genre. Hammer's Slammers, Belisarius or the Leary & Mundy books by David Drake, the Ring of Fire series by Eric Flint & others and many more.

I never actually got that feeling from the RCN books, oddly enough - I can't think of a single situation where the weapons of that series were emphasized by the situation as more dangerous than their modern equivalent. There's a lot of comment on the weapon's power in the narration, but never anything like, for example, the NPA aircar in Basilisk Station. Nor do I recall anything in Redliners that would fit the bill. I have yet to read much of Hammer's Slammers, as I've have a really hard time finding a copy of those stories.

[brionl]

I never actually got that feeling from the RCN books, oddly enough - I can't think of a single situation where the weapons of that series were emphasized by the situation as more dangerous than their modern equivalent. There's a lot of comment on the weapon's power in the narration, but never anything like, for example, the NPA aircar in Basilisk Station. Nor do I recall anything in Redliners that would fit the bill. I have yet to read much of Hammer's Slammers, as I've have a really hard time finding a copy of those stories.

If you want to get Hammer's Slammers you can get the ebook collections from www.baen.com fairly cheaply.

[Foeofthelance]

...It's mildly off-topic, but I'm intensely curious how you justify the Ring of Fire books as 'violence pr0n' alongside Drake's books. Flint doesn't gloss over how ugly 17th-century warfare gets, particularly when it's turned upside-down by 19th-century weapons and 21st-century tactics, but he doesn't glorify in it or go into unnecessary details either.

I don't think it's necessarily a matter of detail - Weber doesn't often linger on every drop of blood very much either - so much as the lopsided nature of the fights. After a certain point what gets described is effectively butchery until the opponent's either surrender or no longer exist. Then again, most of these authors work for Baen, where the company past time is trying to fit in as many Joe Buckley kills as possible, with either John Ringo or Michael Williamson currently in the lead, depending on whether you count AIs vs off-screen deaths.

[The Glyphstone]

I don't think it's necessarily a matter of detail - Weber doesn't often linger on every drop of blood very much either - so much as the lopsided nature of the fights. After a certain point what gets described is effectively butchery until the opponent's either surrender or no longer exist. Then again, most of these authors work for Baen, where the company past time is trying to fit in as many Joe Buckley kills as possible, with either John Ringo or Michael Williamson currently in the lead, depending on whether you count AIs vs off-screen deaths.

I guess we're just operating on different definitions of the term then. And as far as the Buckley Death Count, Ringo's AIs are disqualified due to being multiple iterations of essentially the same root person - as Gimli would say, "It still only counts as one!". I think Eric Flint has the record if you count wounding a Buckley as a partial kill, with 2.5 across all his works. Otherwise Flint, Williamson, and Weber are all tied at 2 confirmed kills of Joe Buckley.

[gomipile]

Yeah, I don't really think the Honorverse qualifies as "violence porn." That's like classifying Randomly Selected Big Budget October Horror Movie X™ as "torture porn" when things like A Serbian Film and the Hostel series exist.

[Foeofthelance]

Yeah, I don't really think the Honorverse qualifies as "violence porn." That's like classifying Randomly Selected Big Budget October Horror Movie X™ as "torture porn" when things like A Serbian Film and the Hostel series exist.

Yeah, I wouldn't have classified them that way either. It was just the only interpretation I could see where the stories might fit into that sort of description.

[Cikomyr]

Oh come on, Weber. I thought you could have a layer of subtlety in your writing.

I could accept The Royal Manticorian Kingdom as the undersize nation with a huge advanced Navy and Parliament.

I can accept their main ennemy being a dictatorial Republic with a Reign of Terror and a leader named Rob S. Pierre.

But now, you have an Empire whose capital is New Berlin, being courted as an ally against rhe Republic, and whose original leader dressed in Prussian style because he believed to be the reincarnation of Frederic the Great?!

The Aldermani Empire sure is interesting and cool so far. But couldnt Weber have been less... Blatant?