The Mesan Alignment is revealed, and, for Honor Harrington and the Manticoran Star Kingdom, this means war!
Unintended Consequences
Sometimes things don’t work out exactly as planned.
The Mesan Alignment has a plan—one it’s been working on for centuries. A plan to remake the galaxy and genetically improve the human race—its way.
Until recently, things have gone pretty much as scheduled, but then the Alignment hit a minor bump in the road called the Star Empire of Manticore. So the Alignment engineered a war between the Solarian League, the biggest and most formidable interstellar power in human history. To help push things along, the Alignment launched a devastating sneak attack which destroyed the Royal Manticoran Navy’s industrial infrastructure.
And in order to undercut Manticore’s galaxy‑wide reputation as a star nation of its word, it launched Operation Janus—a false‑flag covert operation to encourage rebellions it knows will fail by promising Manticoran support. The twin purposes are to harden Solarian determination to destroy the Star Empire once and for all, and to devastate the Star Empire’s reputation with the rest of the galaxy.
But even the best laid plans can have unintended consequences, and one of those consequences in this case may just be a new dawn of freedom for oppressed star nations everywhere.
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mediocre fillerhad nothing new of importance the Czech and Polish words were distracting. It was slow and only marginally entertaining and did not advance any of the story arcs already going in the series.
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Not a Novel - SpoliersThe entire first 40 chapters could have been cut without losing much. It was all filler or deleted scenes that should have been in the previous 2 books. That might have made THEM better but here it was just out of place. The additional verge systems we're introduced to just don't matter and don't add anything to the story but more pages. I didn't connect to them at all. I don't speak chec, it was lake the Safehold spelling debacle all over again.
The second half of the book was better but even then a lot of things seems odd. Oversteen wasn't mentioned but once but was important before... What about the Torch wormhole. This was all fleshing out stuff that was discussed in previous books. At least stuff happened in this half even if it didn't really mater.
The plot of the Honorverse was not advanced by this book. It don't really seem to have a purpose. I'm not unhappy I read it but I wish I'd just waited until it came out. Not worth $15 fir the earc.
If this was the second or third book in a series I'd have just walked away. Only the strength of Honorverse and it's characters made it even remotely a worthwhile read.
I realize the last few books were rushed out but they needed to be edited hard. I don't expect this from a publishing house. This book should never have been written.Posted on
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Poor formHonestly I'd recommend strongly against buying this book. It's a filler book from an author who hasn't decided the story progression - at best a tenth of the story is new. The rest is just a rehash of earlier events with characters I've no interest in, or simply stating things we've seen in other (better) books from the series.
My suggestion is wait till the next book in the series and give this one a pass. I'm a big fan and buy them when the come out but this one I regret buying and sours my opinion somewhat on the author.Posted on
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DisappointedI am a great fan of David Weber. I have even all his books in hard cover. But this one... Endless stories of poor verge planets. Filling in details of earlier books that are nice to know but do not contribute to the main story lines. Also hardly any progresss at all on the main story lines. Where is the attack by the SL on Beowulf? What about the star systems (part of the alignment) that are supposed to seccede from the SL and form their own empire? How about the wormhole in Torch? The further developments in the Maya sector? How about Bolthole developments?
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DisappointedI have been a fan for years, but this book is a hard read. I felt disconnected throughout. The first 30 chapters, waiting for the entry of the threads about the League vs Manticore and actions against Mesa just weren't there. Good background, but it's hard to feel excited about.
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Very little new material.This is probably the lowest rating I have ever given a Weber novel, but it earned it. I feel like the first 60 chapters or so are a collection of the clipped out and deleted scene swept up from the editing room floor of the last 2 books and inserted as filler in this book. The first 3/4 of this book is just a rehashing of a previous book with more human interest stories behind the revolutionaries (who have horrible names for English readers). The last ~15 chapters do move the plot forward so it wasn't a total waste but I feel like I got maybe 100 pages of new book out of this. I won't give up on Honor (who barely appeared) but I expect more from the next novel.
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Have to agreeThere are still some "stand-up-and-cheer" moments in all of Weber's books, but you have to wade through twice as much detail to get to it as before. His editors need to beat him soundly until he starts writing books like the first 8 in this series...fast-moving and fun. This is not QUITE as bad as War and Peace.
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Oppression to the endAfter reading over 1/2 of the book I felt like a very oppressed resident of a Verge planet waiting for the RMN to arrive. Not a lot of hope for the second half..
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OK, I finished the book now, if you can call this collection of scraps and random edits from previous books, a book. it has a lot of words, some good, mostly not so much. Characters are created and killed off to make you care about those oppressed Verge folks etc. Firebrand skips in and out of planets at FTL speeds, lying, etc. OK, got it. Then enter every RMN character ever introduced, and not yet dead, and they ride to the rescue, again and again and again. OK, got it, again.
What about the bigger picture: does the Verge (and the Shell) explode in rebellion against the OFS? Do more and more core and shell worlds of the league tell Old earth to GTH? Does the SLN have its go at Beowulf and loose its ass, again? Does the grand alliance raid every SLN battle fleet base and Technodyne factory with LACs and blow them to plasma? You know, acting on the offense? Does Adm Gold Peak turn Firebrand over to tree cats who slice and dice him into talking about the Alignment? Does Honor Harrington Alexander die of terminal boredom while listening to "into the fire" yet again?
Well, maybe (in 5 or 10 years) the plot line will advance, please let me know.
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I give upMy first impression what a waste of money. My second impression the Editor should be sentenced to teach remedial English at a New Jersey junior high for 25 years to life. This book is disjointed, fragmented, and pretty much lacks a plot.
I suspect this is last David Weber I shall buy it was of money, the time spent reading it and the space on my hard drive. Mr Weber has spent to much time reading his own press clippings and not enough time writing. It 2 years to produce ..... This? I have read better fanfiction.Posted on