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 give it four stars to encourage Mr. Weber to keep writing more like this. The main storyline was carried forward with some good action, and the inevitable conference expositions were shorter and less frequent than in many recent books. If he would cut them even more that would make a better read, and stopping the multiparagraph rants which end exactly where they began would be wonderful. Most of us started this series for the great action writing, and want to see Mr. Weber go back to that. The criticisms in the other reviews are all acurate and it would benefit the series if the author would pay attention to them. We know he can do this since he is writing better in his Safehold series.
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Product ReviewSad to give this only 3 stars as I love this series, but it does feel more like an episode than an complete book. Like some of the other reviewers, I was frustrated by chapters 6 and 20 being lifted in their entirety from previous books. Focused out in the Talbott Quadrant and the verge, we see snapshots of OFS oppression, a Mesan plot against the Star Empire and Mike Henke's response, however I do not feel there is enough action for it to rank among the best in the series and I am left a bit frustrated. Come on Mr. Weber, we know you can do better and no one writes better than you at your best!
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Product ReviewThis book had too much verbatim from Rising Thunder, and Rising Thunder had too much verbatim copied from Mission of Honor. It almost seems like he's trying to stretch out these books. In general I love the series and I do not mind having a book without Honor in it, but whenever I get a new addition I always reread the previous book to get into the little details. It is very annoying to have so much directly duplicated from one book to the next.
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Product ReviewSome good some bad. I usually accept the extended armchair chats masquerading as military and political analysis as a cost of the good overal story. As much as there was of a story was good and the action dealt with as well as usual. But overall I felt a bit short changed on the amount of story. The insurrection fragments were small and thin and wider plot movement jerky and like the sudden decisions to take off for the Meyer system and then Mesa. Are you really telling us David that no one flagged this at a higher level? I can't help feeling you barely took your attention of the Safehold and other interest to toss this off. You can do so much better. I'm surprised that no one mentioned that two of the chapters were lifted straight from Rising Thunder. I agree with the comments that said, 2/3 of a book for a 2/3 increase in price. Not quite a placeholder because it does move the saga forward but not much better.
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Product ReviewA good read but disappointing. I read this over 1 weekend, but I am not sure if it was because it was a "page turner" or because I kept expecting the "story" to advance.
I was very disappointed that this book did not advance the main story line.
I really did not like that two of the chapters were exact copies from Rising Thunder.Posted on
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Product ReviewI was pleasantly surprised by this book; a nice action-packed change of pace after the last couple of plodding entries to the series. Just don't be fooled by the cover--despite featuring Honor and Nimitz and proclaiming this to be "A new Honor Harrington Novel," said warrior and treecat are nowhere to be found in its pages. Still well worth the price of admission, though: a fast-paced page-turner.
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Product ReviewWhile the main character of the Honerverse series does not appear in this book, it covers the same timeline as the last two books and provides some insight into the side campaigns going on while Honor was doing her thing in Haven or post-Haven visit. Mike Henke leading her Tenth Fleet. This amplifies the role of Mike Henke and the Tenth Fleet and brings into light some of what was mentioned in The last two books bringing the Verge 'into' the Star Empire. I would have liked to have seen a bit more fleshed out in the book but all parties from the 'independent' planets to the Mesan Alignment got a little bit of word time. Lots of fill-in/background which is normal for Mr. Weber. It will be interesting to see the next book to see how This one and 'A Distant Thunder' tie back together as the showdown with Mesa (more than the Solarian Alliance) builds.
I would say the biggest flaw in this book for me is that it shows more 'finesse' towards Manticorian behavior and, for the most part, more of a brutal mindset towards the OFS personnel, though the Mesan personnel are a bit more intelligent.
A good read by itself.Posted on
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Product ReviewHaving just re-read all the Honor Harrington Books, I put this one in the lower middle of the pack. Far lower. It's ok compared to scifi in general, but at best 2 stars compared to the rest of the books. At first i was interested that this was not an "Honor" book, but it never really gave me anything new about Mike. Kind of scattershot as to characters and nobody really got enough time.
And while I approve of Baen making money, the new pricing structure for an electronic book does not encourage me to purchase more.
However, to be clear, my rating is for my review of the book, not pricing.Posted on
