Honorverse Today

This time, we dive right into the final book in the Saganami Island series:  Shadow of Victory.

This chunky novel weighs in at 756 pages and hit the streets in November 2016.  The story covers a date range from February 1921 PD through October 1022 PD.  For those tracking dates, you’ll realize this is one of those times when David covers events we’ve already seen, but from a different perspective.  There’s also some new info in here, too.

The major things that happen reflect the continuing exposure of, or for some, the revelation of, the Mesan Alignment...

As promised, in this episode we discuss the second novel in the Manticore Ascendant series:  A Call to Arms.  Written by David Weber, Timothy Zahn and Tom Pope, the story of Travis Long continues after he’s completed his training to become a commissioned officer.  We join him back in the fleet with a few years of commissioned time under his belt and wearing the bars of an ensign.

In many ways Travis has grown and matured through the passage of time, the challenges of training, and more years under his belt as an officer.  Even so, we can...

Lately there are times it seems we’re getting close to the end of our adventure through the Honorverse and then a little reminder like this happens:  we’re discussing the first book in another four-book story arc!  In this episode we’re talking about A Call to Duty, kicking off the Manticore Ascendant series.  This novel was authored by David Weber, Timothy Zahn and Thomas Pope.

You’ll remember a while back we read a story by Timothy Zahn that took place early in the life of the Star Kingdom of Manticore, revolving around an interesting character n...

Now it’s time to dive right into the third book in the Crown of Slaves series:  Cauldron of Ghosts, co-authored by David Weber and Eric Flint.  It won’t be a surprise to any of our regular listeners, but this book ties to the previous book we covered based on publication order.  That said, this is a particularly tight coupling as this book is often considered a literal and direct continuation of the story in Shadow of Freedom.

As a result, we’re still seeing events occurring in 1922 PD, now featuring our two super-spies:  Victor Cachat and Anton...

This time we’re looking at the third book in the Saganami Island part of the Honorverse story arc:  Shadow of Freedom.

We’re solidly in the year 1922 PD and Admiral Michelle Henke takes care of yet more trouble presented by the Solarian League.  This is tied to a scenario set up to make the Star Empire of Manticore look bad in a way that would cost them the trust of independent star systems moving forward.  She exercises her command authority in the absence of specific guidance about this unforeseen and non-standard scenario confronting her, and does so in a...

What a surprise!  Due to a quick turn of events we’re able to interrupt our regularly scheduled program for a very special treat.  Instead of discussing Shadow of Freedom, we were privileged to have Jane Lindskold join us, along with another visit by David Weber.  As far as we can tell, there’s no better reason to interrupt the plan than this.  This was the first time we’ve had the chance to enjoy Jane’s company, and the last time we were able to spend time with David was back in episode 22.  Grab your favorite beverage, sit down and join...

We move into the third book in the Star Kingdom series: Treecat Wars, by David Weber and Jane Lindskold.  Published by Baen, this 376-page gem first hit the street in September 2013.   With the brutal fire season over, Stephanie and her friend Anders are heading off to Manticore after being selected to attend Forestry Service ranger school.  Stephanie’s story, along with her three friends Anders, Jessica and Karl, is one of two central storylines.  The second (and arguably the primary) follows the troubles that fall upon a handful of treecat clans revolving around the displacement of one clan after their...

Beginnings is the sixth (and second to last) book in the Worlds of Honor anthology set.  It contains five short stories, penned by four talented authors:  David Weber, Charles E. Gannon, Timothy Zahn, and Joelle Presby.  Each of these stories brings us to interesting and important beginnings for many events that we’ve become familiar with in the Honorverse but have often gone with little or no explanation.

This collection of writings comes in at 377 pages and was first published by Baen in June 2013.

Charles E. Gannon brings the first story to us:  By the Book.<...

“A Rising Thunder” basically picks up where “Mission of Honor” left off, with events that begin in April 1922 PD and span about five months.  We’re back in the main sequence, and it seems hard to believe that this novel is the second to the last of the core novels!  But we’re not close to being done with the Honorverse content, with lots of material from the related series and anthologies still to cover.   And don’t forget the newest Honor Harrington novel “Toll of Honor” is out there to be enjoyed now.  Technically it’s a stand-alone novel, but that doesn’t...

We are jumping right into the second book in the Star Kingdom series, this one titled Fire Season.  This one’s a joint venture between David Weber and the now-familiar Jane Lindskold.  Published by Baen, it came out at a comfortable 287 pages in October 2012.  In the previous Star Kingdom novel, we met an 11-year-old Stephanie Harrington in part 1, then moved forward in Stephanie’s life, approximately 16 months in Part 2.  Here in Fire Season, Stephanie is now 14, turning 15 years old.

While this is another “treecat novel” and the treecats are featured characters, the story really focuses on Stephanie, her schoolma...

Well, we’re finally breaking into the Star Kingdom series, starting with the novel entitled A Beautiful Friendship.  While they’re closely related to each other, don’t confuse this novel with the short story by the same name contained in the first anthology we discussed a while back (More Than Honor).  The short story and this novel were both written by David Weber, with this novel first published in October 2011 by Baen.

The first third (or so) of the novel reprises the original 1998 short story.  For those who read “More Than Honor”, this is a quick and very good...

“In Fire Forged” is the fifth anthology in the Honorverse, containing three short stories and another technical writing.  We see the return of two favorite co-authors:  Jane Lindskold bringing us the short story “Ruthless” and Timothy Zahn who hits us hard with his short story “An Act of War”.  David Weber brings us the third short story entitled “Let’s Dance”, which is really a novella disguised as a short story.  Then he brings us home with the technical essay “An Introduction to Modern Starship Armor Design”, brought to us through the character Hegel DiLutorio, a retired officer in the Royal Manticoran Navy...

Although the timing wasn’t openly discussed, you all knew we had a second interview with David Weber in the works.  Well, our calendars finally aligned, and we are excited to drop the second interview with the creator of the Honorverse into the feed.

We covered somewhere between 15 and 20 questions, including quite a few listener questions.  Even so, it shouldn’t surprise any of you that we still have a list of questions we couldn’t get to this time.  If you’ve sent us questions that weren’t addressed in either interview, don’t give up hope.  We didn’...

Mission of Honor brings us back to the main series/sequence, as we look at the twelfth novel in that line of the Honorverse story.  The events in this ~600-page gem occur between late 1921 through the middle of 1922 PD.  Having developed the breadth and depth of some significant events in the overall storyline, David moves away from the technique he’s used across several previous books to layer and unfold important - and different - perspectives of key events.

Events continue to spiral in a manner quickly approaching out of control and absolutely not to the benefit of t...

As promised, here we are, back in the Crown of Slaves series talking about “Torch of Freedom”, another essential book assisting us in our passage through the Honorverse. This is the second of the novels that comprise the Crown of Slaves series or set of books within the Honorverse. As with the others in this set, Eric Flint was David Weber’s co-author.  The influence of his writing style and perspectives absolutely help us delve into some of the ugly issues associated with the genetic slavery storyline.

This is another in what we’ll call the “stacked” novels, in th...

Swinging back to the Saganami Island series, in this episode we discuss the second book entitled “Storm from the Shadows”.

Similar to the previous novel, this is another of several that cover certain key events in the 1921 PD timeframe, but from a different perspective.  This time a lot of what we see is through Admiral Michele Henke’s eyes. 

We made this point in the podcast and want to re-enforce it here:  this isn’t just a repeat of what we the readers already know.  Yes, certain key events are covered again, but we’re seeing those e...

We’re back in the “main series” to discuss the eleventh novel, “At All Costs”. While this is the eleventh of fourteen novels here, we’re only about halfway through all the Honorverse content. So, if you’re enjoying the podcast don’t worry, there’s lots more to come!

The timeframe of this novel has us overlapping some of the events we saw in “The Shadow of Saganami.” Again, this is in no way a rehash of events. What David Weber is doing here (and in the next novel we’ll read) is to provide an incredible amount of ful...

We’ve already put out toes in the water of the Wages of Sin series (more commonly known as the Crown of Slaves series), and we’ll return to it soon enough. In this episode we discuss the first book in the Saganami Island series, entitled “The Shadow of Saganami”.

Events in this novel overlap with and complement, to some extent, events we read about in “Service of the Sword”, “War of Honor” and “Crown of Slaves”. Don’t worry though, there is zero redundancy. What David Weber is doing is giving us more depth and breadth than what we already h...

With this series and novel, our adventure shifts away from the story featuring Honor Harrington as the main character or even seeing her as the focal point.  Even so, she’s not gone and appears in the periphery quite often.  Remember, this “related” storyline doesn’t mean we’re shifting away from the “main” storyline.  As you’ll see, we are not.  The Wages of Sin series, and this first novel in it, are absolutely a part of the core narrative that is The Honorverse.    We’ve seen the stories in this series foreshadowed and now we’re going to see why the Wages of Si...

Here we are, already discussing the fourth Honorverse anthology entitled The Service of the Sword.  This collection of six short stories written by six authors was originally published in April 2003 by Baen.  While we’ll call them “short” stories, two of them are novella-length (or arguably longer), so if you haven’t read this collection yet, be aware that a couple of these stories are lengthy.  The book is long, and since we’re talking about six stories, this summary is longer than usual too.

The first story in this anthology is Promised Land by Jane Lindskold, an author we’...

Here we are, already discussing the tenth novel in the Honor Harrington main series: War of Honor, and if you’re counting the overall number of books we’ve covered in the Honorverse, this would be the thirteenth.

For those who read this in the past, you may remember what the rest of us new readers discovered: we thought the previous novel was lengthy at 672 pages; this one buries that one and comes in at a substantial 869 pages! For story continuity, the events in this novel occur approximately three years after the events captured in the short stor...

(Be sure to listen all the way through the closing credits. There may be a small surprise...)

Time is flying as we work our way through the Honorverse! Here we are on the third anthology in the Worlds of Honor set: Changer of Worlds. It was first published in January 2001, comes in at 469 pages and contains four short stories.

As with the previous anthology, the title is apt, given these stories capture key people and events at various times that truly changed the worlds we’ve grown to know and love in the Honorverse. Three of...

At the end of the last episode, we told you our next episode would be to discuss the anthology “Changer of Worlds”. Well surprise! What you’re about to hear is our interview with the man himself: Mr. David Weber.

We had a list of questions of our own as well as some that several of you have submitted. In the interest of respecting David’s time, we paired the list down and took the opportunity to ask him about several things.

The conversation was fantastic. We were blown away by two things. First, David didn’t j...

In this episode we discussed the ninth novel in the Honor Harrington main series: Ashes of Victory. It’s the direct follow-on to Echoes of Honor. And if you keep listening through the end credits you might find a bit of extra “Oops!”

At 672 pages (the trade paperback edition), it’s slightly shorter than Echoes of Honor, but not by much and with no complaints from your hosts about the length. The story is large, requiring equally substantial books to capture all that’s going on, and it picks up right where Echoes left off. Ashes of Victory wa...

This episode, we find ourselves reading and discussing the second anthology. This one is entitled Worlds of Honor. It was published in 1999 and contains five stories.

Aptly named, these stories are as much tied to Honor’s worlds, as to the characters we read about. Through the pens of several authors, we travel to Sphynx, Manticore, Gryphon, and Sylvestria.

First comes the story The Stray, written by Linda Evans. Linda brings us to Sphynx for the second bonding between a human and treecat: that between Dr. Scott MacDallan and Fisher, just 15 months after Stephanie Harrington is...

After our jaunt over to the first anthology in the Worlds of Honor set, we’re back to the main series and discussing book 8: Echoes of Honor. This seemed like two books that were woven together through the way this novel was assembled.

At 718 pages, this is the largest novel yet in the series, and was published by Baen Books in September 1998—a year after In Enemy Hands. The events in this book occur just short of a year (approximately 10 months) after Honor and her colleagues destroy the Tepes and head to the surface of Hell; not as p...

Here we are, with the first seven novels in the main Honor Harrington series already behind us and taking our first detour to read More Than Honor, the first anthology in the Honorverse.  As a reminder, we’re doing this based on a volume of recommendations and with the understanding that this anthology was published between the seventh and eighth novels on purpose. 

You’ll notice our podcast format for the episodes that cover anthologies is slightly different.  We’ll discuss/review each story or part of the anthology, and each of us will rate it with either a...

DEAR LISTENER: There were technical issues with portions of the recording quality. We considered re-recording the episode, but we would never be able to re-create the spontaneity that we got on this show. We hope the quality of the content will make up for the quality of the recording. The issues have been fixed and should not happen again.

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We’re officially halfway through the original set of Honor Harrington stories already!  How did we get here so quickly?  The individual novels are flying by, and the larger Honorverse story is unfolding.  It’s hard to beli...

Book 6 is the topic of our discussion today as we continue our journey through the Honorverse!

“Honor Among Enemies” is a robust 544 pages, published by Baen Books in June 1996.  In some ways we return to some of the events that happened in “On Basilisk Station”, specifically Honor’s actions against an enemy Q-ship.  What’s a Q-ship, you ask?  Well, if you want to know more, this is your episode!  The purpose and use of Q-ships in combat abounds in this novel.

Two things come into play at the same time in this story.  First, the war with Have...

Today our discussion turns to book 5 in the Honorverse. Let’s continue our journey!

“Flag in Exile” is 443 pages, published by Baen Books in September 1995. I’m not sure it’s quite accurate to say Honor takes a break after her duel with Pavel Young. Our hero is forced into retirement from the Royal Manticoran Navy due to the political fallout and consequences of lawfully killing Young. Honor takes the opportunity to move to Grayson (sort of an exile) to fully establish and settle into her leadership and business responsibilities as a Steadholder. In this role, she’s the newest...

Here we are, kicking off the discussion of the fourth book in the Honor Harrington main series. Let’s continue our journey into the Honorverse!

“Field of Dishonor” is 416 pages of pure military adventure. It was published by Baen Books in late 1994. Events in this book take place shortly after the events in the previous novel. This book is reportedly the only one in the original 14-book series that doesn’t contain any combat in space. Don’t be discouraged though; the story is full and satisfying.

The phrase “field of dishonor” appears once, in Chapter 13. T...

Welcome to the third book in the Honor Harrington main series. Let’s continue our journey into the Honorverse!

“The Short Victorious War” is 376 pages of pure military adventure. It was published by Baen Books in 1994. The events in this story take place approximately a year after the events that occurred in “The Honor of the Queen”.

Of note, the title of the book is a historical reference to the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905. The quote the title originated with Russia’s Minister of the Interior V.K. Plehve, on the eve of the war, who stated...

Welcome to the second book in the Honor Harrington main series of books. Let’s continue our journey into the Honorverse!

The second book in the series is titled “The Honor of the Queen”. Like the first book, it was also published in 1993 by Baen Books. This one ran 422 pages. The events in this story take place approximately three years after the events that occurred in “On Basilisk Station”.

After a strong setting of the stage in the first novel, David Weber tosses us right into the action in this second book—and that’s almost an unde...

Our amazing journey through the Honorverse begins now!

The first book in the series is titled “On Basilisk Station”. Published in 1993 by Baen Books, it ran 458 pages and leads a series that David Weber originally thought might only be five books or so. For those not familiar, it grew into a 14-book series, with a number of related, spin-off sets of books. All that aside, “On Basilisk Station” is where the adventure begins. For a time reference, this story takes place sometime in the 41st Century (using our calendar). In the book there’s a primary timeline used, orie...

Welcome to the Honorverse Today podcast! We’re glad you found us. We’re excited to have you enjoy the adventures of Honor Harrington with us as we work our way through this 14-book series written by David Weber. Styled after the classic Horatio Hornblower series, we’ll experience the naval adventures of exploration, military service, and combat—all brought into deep space. As the series begins, we meet Commander Honor Harrington, an already seasoned officer, and the captain of one of the Queen’s combat ships in the Royal Manticoran Navy. As the series progresses, we’ll watch Honor accept...