Authors’ Note
The Star Kingdom novels and the world of Stephanie Harrington are part of a much larger literary universe. The Honorverse, as it’s come to be called, consists (so far) of well over twenty-five novels and seven anthologies of shorter fiction. Most of those other works occur chronologically long after Stephanie Harrington’s time, although she makes cameos in several of them as a historical figure and the direct ancestor of Honor Stephanie Harrington, the central character from which the Honorverse takes its name.
The collaborative novels of the “Manticore Ascendant” series, by David, Tom Pope, and Tim Zahn, are set very shortly after Stephanie’s day. Most of the rest occur several centuries later and have no direct bearing on the Star Kingdom series. Readers who have read those other novels will find the stories about Stephanie and her friends filling in a lot of essential foundation on how the relationship between humans and treecats ultimately evolves, but for the most part, no one needs to read them to appreciate and enjoy the Star Kingdom books.
There are, however, short stories in some of the anthologies which are contemporary to or even predate Stephanie’s adventures, including two novellas by David which form quite a bit of A Beautiful Friendship and A New Clan. There are others which provide additional background, which the characters in the novels are aware that readers who haven’t read the short stories may miss. So, we thought it would be a good idea to provide a list of all the short stories which precede or take place simultaneously with the Star Kingdom novels.
They are:
“A Beautiful Friendship,” set in 1518 PD,
included in More Than Honor (1998)
“Honorverse Tech Bu9,” set in 1519 PD,
included in Free Stories 2011
“The Stray,” set in 1520 PD,
included in Worlds of Honor (1999)
“Deception on Gryphon,” set in 1520 PD,
included in What Price Victory? (2023)
“Heart of Stone,” set in 1522 PD,
included in Give Me LibertyCon (2020)
We hope that those of our readers who look up the stories we’ve listed above will enjoy some of the other stories in those anthologies, of course. We’re happy and gratified that you’ve come with us this far in Stephanie’s adventures, but we’d like to think we might have tempted you into poking a little further into the rest of the Honorverse, as well.
Happy reading!