New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal and international best-selling phenomenon David Weber delivers book #18 in the multiple New York Times best-selling Honor Harrington series.
Wrong number? There are two sides to any quarrel . . . unless there are more.
Queen Elizabeth of Manticore's first cousin and Honor Harrington's best friend, Michelle Henke, has just handed the "invincible" Solarian League Navy the most humiliating, one sided defeat in its entire almost thousand year history in defense of the people of the Star Empire's Talbott Quadrant. But the League is the most powerful star nation in the history of humanity. Its navy is going to be back—and this time with thousands of superdreadnoughts.
Yet she also knows scores of other star systems—some independent, some controlled by puppet regimes, and some simply conquered outright by the Solarian Office of Frontier Security—lie in the League's grip along its frontier with the Talbott Quadrant. As combat spreads from the initial confrontation,the entire frontier has begun to seethe with unrest, and Michelle sympathizes with the oppressed populations wanting only to be free of their hated masters.
And that puts her in something of a quandary when a messenger from Mobius arrives, because someone's obviously gotten a wrong number. According to him, the Mobians' uprising has been carefully planned to coordinate with a powerful outside ally: the Star Empire of Manticore. Only Manticore—and Mike Henke—have never even heard of the Mobius Liberation Front.
It's a set up . . . and Michelle knows who's behind it. The shadowy Mesan Alignment has launched a bold move to destroy Manticore's reputation as the champion of freedom. And when the RMN doesn't arrive, when the MLF is brutally and bloodily crushed, no independent star system will ever trust Manticore again.
Mike Henke knows she has no orders from her government to assist any rebellions or liberation movements, that she has only so many ships, which can be in only so many places at a time . . . and that she can't possibly justify diverting any of her limited, outnumbered strength to missions of liberation the Star Empire never signed on for. She knows that . . . and she doesn't care.
No one is going to send thousands of patriots to their deaths, trusting in Manticoran help that will never come.
Not on Mike Henke's watch.
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Product ReviewI'm left wondering if I read the same book as some of the other people who reviewed. In order:
The repeat material was a very small component of the book. Frankly I think the main reason Weber puts these bits in is to help the reader keep track of when events in the different books are happening to each other.
It's not as long as some of his recent Honorverse novels but it's not exactly short either - it represented 6 or seven solid hours of reading time for me.
There's plenty of action too, although most of it is the sort of ground combat that featured in 'The Service of the Sword', although there's a nice slice of small ship combat relatively early on. Personally I found more excitement in this installment of the Honorverse than I did in Mission of Honor or A Rising Thunder. Actually, I was reminded of the short stories about the failed revolutions in Nouveau Paris more than anything when the ground combat scenes came up.
And yes, there are some amazingly stupid Sollies in this book (there are also some Sollies who aren't stupid jackasses so we do get a cross section), but their actions take place within a certain context and make sense in that context. They also aren't any dumber than some real life military commanders and bureaucrats in the historical models Weber draws inspiration from.
Finally, this book *does* advance the plot. It may not advance the chronology, but it shows the other side of the war between Manticore and the League, where Tenth Fleet is clashing with OFS and Frontier Fleet. And there are some significant developments taking place in that theatre of the war.
(which leads to an interesting and amusing situation in which an alignment agent outsmarts themselves pretty badly without having a clue they've done so.)
One thing I do agree with is that these cliffhangers are getting obnoxious as hell. And it shows that this book was carved out of A Rising Thunder for length reasons. In a lot of ways I think they would have made a better read if they'd been kept as one book and trimmed down, which doesn't mean there isn't a lot of good stuff here.
A disclaimer of sorts: I *like* all the political and social worldbuilding Weber does in these books and his Clancy-esque style. Personally I enjoyed his portrayals of what is actually happening in the verge instead of just hearing characters say that things are tense there as well. And finally I like Abigail Hearns and Helen Zilwicki and Terekhov so it was nice to see all of them getting some page time.Posted on
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Product ReviewRight off the bat, let me make this clear: a David Weber book that rates a 3 is still better than an awful lot of other books. I am not going to take the Honorverse off my "OOOOH, A NEW ONE, MUST HAVE!" list just yet. But I may not buy the ARC for the next one. I finished it about 10 minutes ago now, and this is the first book of his that I ever found myself absent-mindedly putting down to go do other things during the first read-through. Looking back, it went something like "People I don't care about someplace I have never heard of before doing things that don't really matter to me: oh look, people I DO care about whoops, wait, more people I don't know and some really obvious telegraphing of the Next Big Plot Twist, something briefly interesting, short screen time for the Big Mean Villains, just so I don't forget who they are, GREAT BIG BUILD UP......that ends on a massive (and massively annoying) cliffhanger. Afraid my major reactions are: 1. "Well, that was kind of disappointing." and 2. profound Bookus Interruptus. It just doesn't feel finished, which is really upsetting when it may be another whole year before the next book!
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Product ReviewVery solid read. Of the three "Shadows" I would put this one in the middle. One thing that I find interesting is the series was to be more about the tactically side of the HH verse, but has just become pretty high level as well. Hope it goes back to the starship bridge again.
As a side note, read some of the more negative reviews and can't for the life figure out if they got this book mixed up with the latest mainstream HH. Their was very little "copy and paste" that some reviewers commented on.Posted on
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Product ReviewNot a fan of books that don't advance the story arc (one of the reasons I gave up on the Wheel of Time) and am a firm believer that any series should have a best before date. I know this is an Honorverse story and should stand alone but still. For me personally it has become a bit difficult to keep track of all the players without reviewing past books which is a bit of a pain since I read these to escape out of my head not go deeper into it.
Just my perspective and feel free to disagree but I would old off and wait for the $6 version.Posted on
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Product ReviewA really good book but I dont think it should be sorted in the main storyline(or maybe it isent already) since it take place 95% in the Talbot Quadrant.
Still a really good book, definetly worth getting if u like Weber or Sci-Fi in general.
Still u might want to read the others in the series first if u havent already might be a bit confusing otherwisePosted on
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Product ReviewI thought it was a good book and well written. I am not bashful about slamming books which in my estimation are not worth the $15 eARC price (example-Tiger by the Tale by Ringo), but I don't feel badly about paying that for this book>
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