The Decline of Baen Books as a Respectable SF Publisher

[CaptainChewbacca]

I think its a bit more than 'paper mache', Jung. The Solarians are the living embodiment of 'entrenched bureaucracy' and not rocking the boat. Even with the incorporation of the Talbot cluster into the MSE, the Solarians still have orders of magnitude more money and manpower than Manticore and Haven combined, and neither of them has the ability to strike deep into Solarian territory. The most they can do is stave off destruction and become an expensive time-waster while a political solution is sought.

[Stark]

American book covers are often awful; the Watch books have absolutely apalling covers in the US.

[Batman]

Discworld US covers. Nuff said.
And while the Honorverse book covers are NOT good, I like the consistency. They all share a certain LAYOUT which makes it easy to identify them AS Honoverse books (didn't matter much to me as I bought all of them online anyway but I like that kind of thing), unlike, say, the US covers for the Classic BT or ShadowRun books (BOTH of which series were easily identifiable as belonging to their respective series with the GERMAN covers).

[Stark]

That's an interesting point; sometimes at the bookstore I can't tell where one series ends and another begins because the covers are so generic.

[Samuel]

I think its a bit more than 'paper mache', Jung. The Solarians are the living embodiment of 'entrenched bureaucracy' and not rocking the boat.

I think that was his complaint. They have a feature exagerated to the point of ridiculousness so that the author's pets can beat up upon it.

To be fair it would be boring to hear that the Solarian navy simply steamrolled over their opponents, but the best way to deal with that is to insure your enemies aren't that incredibly overpowered in the first place so they don't need massive flaws to bring down. Going off the honorverse wiki
Solarian League 1,784 member worlds, 200 protectorate worlds
versus
Haven 135 systems (previously around 335)
Manticore 19 worlds plus protectorates

[Simon_Jester]

Speaking of Baen's decline, I am now convinced that a very right-wing ideology was extremely prevalent in their products right from the start.

I mean, I am just reading some books from the Honorverse and it is more than annoying how much they are filled with "STUPID LIBRULS" nonsense. This is more than evident when you have a conversation between Mary Sue Honor and a "liberal". For example, the entire first chapters of Honor of the Queen read as if somebody had taken the worst liberal caricatures of Bill O'reilly and lined them up.

I remember thinking that when I read the Starfire novels. Every good guy was in the military, and every bad guy was a politician. No matter what side they were on - the books are written from the human perspective, yet Orion Khanate admirals were sympathetic, honourable foes, while the human government was filled with conniving, moustache-twirling villains.

The only exceptions were ex-military men who took up careers in politics, or the political appointees in naval staff posts. None of whom ever turned out to be hidden gems. At least (AFAIK) the odd 'blue-blooded' political appointee in the Honor Harrison novels might actually turn out to be useful in a fight.

Not true, really. There are plenty of good guy politicoes, though Weber didn't create all of them. The heads of state of Manticore and Grayson, quite a few of their political advisers, Pritchart (well, she might not count)... really, I think there are quite a few civilian politicoes.

It's probably a marketing thing. As a publisher, you want your product to be distinctive enough to draw the eye to it. That said I have three baen books (the first three Honor books) and they were obviously printed at different points, because only one of them has that 'garish' looking cover.

Yeah. That's why I liked the older Honor of the Queen cover. It's not self-consciously shiny CGI stuff.

Though the new Flag in Exile cover is, if anything, better than the old one and not full of flashy exploding starships. Amateurish, maybe, but at least a different flavor of it.

You know, I've never read any of the later Honor stuff so for all I know it's brilliant and I've completely misjudged it just going off the comments in this thread, but as I read all the explanations of how the Solarians' state totally makes sense a distinct picture is forming in my mind here: a picture of a papier-mache opponent that the author has carefully created to be so loaded with weakness and incompetence that it's just barely strong enough that the good guys can look all heroic and hard-core beating it up. In fact some of them remind me of the reasons given that it made perfect sense for the demons in Armageddon to be a bunch of weaksauce bronze age throwbacks, and if any of you have read that "Salvation War Criticism Thread" that I helped shit up you'll know what I think of that.

...That is totally fair and valid. It is vaguely plausible, but only in the sense that Qing China is plausible- it can exist but it's not a fair opponent in a fight.

Oh sure, if the whole thing is nonsensical on top of being blatant author favoritism that's icing on the cake, but the fundamental problem with such storytelling is with drama, not realism. When it's blatantly obvious the author is kneecapping and hamstringing the antagonist at every turn it tends to render the story boring, predictable, and masturbatory (since the author is basically creating a representation of something he hates and something he likes and tying up the former and presenting it on a silver platter to the latter all trusted and prepositioned and quivering for the imminent buttrape, which he then cheers on). No amount of realism is going to render that unobjectionable, because it's fundamentally objectional because it's shit storytelling not because it's unrealistic.

Again, that is totally fair and valid, and I think it goes right to the heart of the matter. The Sollies have a way they could win in theory (sheer numbers combined with a crash R&D program)... but we all know damn well they're not going to get it and that the decisive victory over the forces of darkness will be Plucky Little Manticore, now with Heroic Detotalitarianized Haven playing backup for it.

[Thanas]

Not true, really. There are plenty of good guy politicoes, though Weber didn't create all of them. The heads of state of Manticore and Grayson, quite a few of their political advisers, Pritchart (well, she might not count)... really, I think there are quite a few civilian politicoes.

The point is, there are no progressive politicians that are portrayed as even competent. At least not in the first four books. In fact, throughout the first books, there is a strong anti-parliamentary basis, with the "unrealistic and childish" politicians refusing the "brave and heroic" military's demand for a declaration of war.

[Junghalli]

Again, that is totally fair and valid, and I think it goes right to the heart of the matter. The Sollies have a way they could win in theory (sheer numbers combined with a crash R&D program)... but we all know damn well they're not going to get it and that the decisive victory over the forces of darkness will be Plucky Little Manticore, now with Heroic Detotalitarianized Haven playing backup for it.

On a side note, is it just me or is it really that in these kinds of books the enemies always seem to be some variation on the theme of a huge horde of shitmooks and this is getting a little annoying?

I think they do it because it makes it easy to give a superficial impression of mortal peril while at the same time making the good guys look badass by killing huge hordes of shitmooks. Which I suppose it's OK enough but it seems like writers are lazy and just keep using different variations of the same formula over and over. It would be nice if we could have some variety. I'd find it rather refreshing to see maybe instead the good guys defeat a qualitatively superior antagonist by the power of numbers and logistics for a change. Bonus points if the antagonist faction is some sort of racist/supremacist fucks who get to find out the hard way that their ubermenschen go down hard to 3X their number in plebs.

[Thanas]

Regarding the league - I am not buying the impression of disunity on their part.

For example, Weber describes the League earlier on as being in nearly complete accord with regards to domestic policy. I think that building dreadnoughts is a domestic issue first and foremost.

Even further, book 7 has the League military gaining rapidly in tech once they notice the developments. That was way before the war. So I am not buying any of Weber's reasons when earlier on the League showed no signs at all to not modernizing their forces. Sounds more like he forgot what he wrote earlier on.

[Thanas]

Ghetto edit:


All in all, I think Weber realized he had written himself in a corner and the Mantys would lose in any sane universe. His solution was not to make his Mary Sue actually lose - because Manticore can never ever lose - but to just continue.

**************

On another note, how the heck did Weber try to copy Horatio Hornblower without realizing what made that character attractive was his failings and struggles and the fact that he actually was defeated against superior odds? Instead, it does not matter what the enemy does, by contrivance of the plot Harrington will win. Unlike, Hornblower, who lost his command against superior orders/was captured not once, but three times.


*********

EDIT 2: God, I just read through that awful patronizing speech Honor "gives" to White Haven. What a sanctimonious passage.

[Samuel]

On a side note, is it just me or is it really that in these kinds of books the enemies always seem to be some variation on the theme of a huge horde of shitmooks and this is getting a little annoying?

I think they do it because it makes it easy to give a superficial impression of mortal peril while at the same time making the good guys look badass by killing huge hordes of shitmooks. Which I suppose it's OK enough but it seems like writers are lazy and just keep using different variations of the same formula over and over. It would be nice if we could have some variety. I'd find it rather refreshing to see maybe instead the good guys defeat a qualitatively superior antagonist by the power of numbers and logistics for a change. Bonus points if the antagonist faction is some sort of racist/supremacist fucks who get to find out the hard way that their ubermenschen go down hard to 3X their number in plebs.

The closest I can think of is the Lost Fleet series. Except for the first battle, the protagonist constantly outnumbers his enemy and the issue isn't winning, but winning by a large enough margin because they can't replace their loses. Even technology is about the same so it mostly comes down to tactics.

[Simon_Jester]

The point is, there are no progressive politicians that are portrayed as even competent. At least not in the first four books. In fact, throughout the first books, there is a strong anti-parliamentary basis, with the "unrealistic and childish" politicians refusing the "brave and heroic" military's demand for a declaration of war.

This is true. I was thinking more in terms of the later parts of the series, when the protagonist gets high up enough in rank to come into contact with her own politicoes; her friends get portrayed as The Competent Good Guys instead of The Stupid Evil Guys.

The only exception to the rule of "good military bad civilian" I can even think of from the first four novels is Protector Benjamin, the ruler of the planet Grayson.

On a side note, is it just me or is it really that in these kinds of books the enemies always seem to be some variation on the theme of a huge horde of shitmooks and this is getting a little annoying?

Now that you mention it, yes...

I think one big problem is that you can only have so many characters in a novel. That restriction tends to favor an "us against the world" approach where the protagonists have to meet and defeat credible opponents several times over the course of the story... which is a bit harder to justify if they don't have qualitative superiority, especially if you want to avoid a Slaughter of the Redshirts that leaves the protagonists suspiciously untouched.

I think they do it because it makes it easy to give a superficial impression of mortal peril while at the same time making the good guys look badass by killing huge hordes of shitmooks. Which I suppose it's OK enough but it seems like writers are lazy and just keep using different variations of the same formula over and over. It would be nice if we could have some variety. I'd find it rather refreshing to see maybe instead the good guys defeat a qualitatively superior antagonist by the power of numbers and logistics for a change. Bonus points if the antagonist faction is some sort of racist/supremacist fucks who get to find out the hard way that their ubermenschen go down hard to 3X their number in plebs.

Mmmmm. It is now a minor life ambition of mine to write this story.

Even further, book 7 has the League military gaining rapidly in tech once they notice the developments. That was way before the war. So I am not buying any of Weber's reasons when earlier on the League showed no signs at all to not modernizing their forces. Sounds more like he forgot what he wrote earlier on.

I believe that I missed this. Could you expand on that?

All in all, I think Weber realized he had written himself in a corner and the Mantys would lose in any sane universe. His solution was not to make his Mary Sue actually lose - because Manticore can never ever lose - but to just continue.

Which point in the books are you referring to?

On another note, how the heck did Weber try to copy Horatio Hornblower without realizing what made that character attractive was his failings and struggles and the fact that he actually was defeated against superior odds? Instead, it does not matter what the enemy does, by contrivance of the plot Harrington will win. Unlike, Hornblower, who lost his command against superior orders/was captured not once, but three times.

Now, this is definitely another good point. I think Weber (a bit childishly) fell in love with the heroics and forgot about the flaws.

[Thanas]

The point is, there are no progressive politicians that are portrayed as even competent. At least not in the first four books. In fact, throughout the first books, there is a strong anti-parliamentary basis, with the "unrealistic and childish" politicians refusing the "brave and heroic" military's demand for a declaration of war.

This is true. I was thinking more in terms of the later parts of the series, when the protagonist gets high up enough in rank to come into contact with her own politicoes; her friends get portrayed as The Competent Good Guys instead of The Stupid Evil Guys.

Yeah, but the dichotomy between good (her friends) and bad (anybody who refuses the military something or does not like her) continues. There is nolegitimate exchange of ideas.

That restriction tends to favor an "us against the world" approach where the protagonists have to meet and defeat credible opponents several times over the course of the story... which is a bit harder to justify if they don't have qualitative superiority, especially if you want to avoid a Slaughter of the Redshirts that leaves the protagonists suspiciously untouched.

The problem is however that the opponents of Honor have always been outmaneuvered or when they had her, just lost their courage and run, even when it made no sense for them to do so. Honor never gets caught unaware in a catastrophic mistake, her crew always catches everything in time wherease the Peeps are just line after line of incompetent idiots, with competent commanders not even able to win against Honor when they have 3:1 superiority. (Note: When Hornblower went up against the same odds, he lost. Heavily.)

It is quite bad when you know the enemy is not able to put up a good fight because anything that promises any kind of success gets eradicated by act of plot. Case in point: In the third novel, the Havenites have the smart idea to use overwhelming battlecruiser raids. However, their strongest force just happens to be caught by a single dreadnought, whereas the other raids only net a few cruisers.

I could swallow that if that was a one-off, but no, every engagement in the books (I am at number 7 now) is like this. The Havenites always lose due to luck/idiocy or because Honor is just that good. *Puke*.

Even further, book 7 has the League military gaining rapidly in tech once they notice the developments. That was way before the war. So I am not buying any of Weber's reasons when earlier on the League showed no signs at all to not modernizing their forces. Sounds more like he forgot what he wrote earlier on.

I believe that I missed this. Could you expand on that?

When talking about the embargo:

Equally apparently, the leak in the embargo spurted both ways, for a source within the League Navy reported that the League's R&D types were now experimenting with their own version of the short-range FTL com system which was one of the RMN's most valuable tactical advantages. Their success was extremely limited to date, but they were headed in the right direction, and the progress they'd made, not to mention the basic concepts upon which their efforts appeared to be based, suggested that someone had been sharing data with them. It was always possible that an agent within the Allies' own military had passed the information on, but the Peeps, who'd seen the system in action and undoubtedly had sensor readings on it (not to mention the possibility that they might have captured a transmitter sufficiently intact to permit them to reverse-engineer it), were more likely suspects. And if they could, in fact, provide information to help the League develop that sort of capability, then a quid pro quo that sent more capable military hardware back to Haven in return would seem only fair.
"We've got some confirmation of technology transfers from other sources, as well," Honor told her guest quietly. "The seeking systems in Peep missiles have gotten much better in a very short period of time. We had a thirty to forty percent edge when the war began; BuWeaps estimates that our superiority's dropped to no more than ten percent at present. Fortunately, our countermeasures and general electronic warfare capability have continued to improve at a faster rate than theirs, so the effective relative increase in their missile accuracy is 'only' on the order of twenty percent, but that's still not good. Also," her eyes darkened, "we've had unconfirmed reports that the Peeps have begun deploying missile pods of their own."

So we know that the league was more than willing to use R&D to catch up with FTL sensors. And we also know the heavenites most likely shared pod missiles with them. Even if they did not, how much sense does it make for the league to follow up on one development which gives a tiny tactical advantage to one that revolutionizes the way all of space combat is conducted?

All in all, I think Weber realized he had written himself in a corner and the Mantys would lose in any sane universe. His solution was not to make his Mary Sue actually lose - because Manticore can never ever lose - but to just continue.

Which point in the books are you referring to?

Pretty much all. Haven has more industrial capacity, more tonnage and still they lose hard. In ways that Revolutionary France never did.

It even gets more ridiculous when you factor the solies in.

[Master_Baerne]

Maybe, but it's not inconsistent. It's been state and shown throughout the series that HH's strength and reflexes are considerably suprior to a normal person's (the strength is the result of genetic enhancement, likely the reflexes are too). The duel was pretty much a showdown in style - both combatants were staring each other down prior to the single opening (and ending) stroke. As for noticing, Burdette did notice that Harrington was taking an unconventional stance - he just assumed it was useless (which is probably where the fact that he's used to fencing rules comes in, as presumably that stance won't allow you to hit your opponent without exposing youself first).

So why wasn't she dead then?

Sword fighting is just as much experience and years of training than raw potential. In fact, in my experience, training and experience beats raw abilities any time of the day.

And I also call BS to one of the best swordsmen not noticing a move that can be pulled off by a great amateur.

You know, there's a saying: "The best swordsman in the world does not fear the second-best swordsman - he fears the worst swordsman, because he has no idea what the idiot will do." To me, this sums up the Harrington/Burdette duel perfectly; I'm a fencer myself and have lost touches to horribly outmatched opponents in similar circumstances.

[Thanas]

You know, there's a saying: "The best swordsman in the world does not fear the second-best swordsman - he fears the worst swordsman, because he has no idea what the idiot will do." To me, this sums up the Harrington/Burdette duel perfectly; I'm a fencer myself and have lost touches to horribly outmatched opponents in similar circumstances.

Touches, maybe.

Somebody stepping into your guard, first gutting you, then cutting your head off?

Nope. Especially not when this would be a duel to the death.

And especially not with longswords or Katanas.

[Terralthra]

The problem is however that the opponents of Honor have always been outmaneuvered or when they had her, just lost their courage and run, even when it made no sense for them to do so. Honor never gets caught unaware in a catastrophic mistake, her crew always catches everything in time wherease the Peeps are just line after line of incompetent idiots, with competent commanders not even able to win against Honor when they have 3:1 superiority. (Note: When Hornblower went up against the same odds, he lost. Heavily.)

It is quite bad when you know the enemy is not able to put up a good fight because anything that promises any kind of success gets eradicated by act of plot. Case in point: In the third novel, the Havenites have the smart idea to use overwhelming battlecruiser raids. However, their strongest force just happens to be caught by a single dreadnought, whereas the other raids only net a few cruisers.

I could swallow that if that was a one-off, but no, every engagement in the books (I am at number 7 now) is like this. The Havenites always lose due to luck/idiocy or because Honor is just that good. *Puke*.

You mean, of course, other than the time she gets ambushed, out-maneuvered, the ship she's flag commodore of blown to shit, and she surrenders and is captured as a POW by StateSec?

[Master_Baerne]

I'd like to point out that Burdette is a sport fighter, who's reflexes would be worse than useless against a person actually trying to kill him, not score a touch. The mental hiccup caused by Harrington actually exposing herself to danger - if memory serves, it's mentioned in the book that her willingness to accept injury in exchange for victory is wildly divergent from typical Grayson swordsmen - would likely be enough for her to stab him. The shock of actual injury, to a man who in all likelihood hasn't be seriously injured in years, if ever, would probably be enough to end the fight right there.

Put bluntly, reflexes designed to score touches are not interchangable with fighting reflexes. Hell, my saber reflexes get me into trouble every time I fence foil, and those are much less different than lethal and nonlethal duels.

[Thanas]

You mean, of course, other than the time she gets ambushed, out-maneuvered, the ship she's flag commodore of blown to shit, and she surrenders and is captured as a POW by StateSec?

She did not get outmaneuvered. McKeon did.

In fact, this is one of the scenes which are most troubling - of all the senior officers, only Harrington knows that it is time to surrender.

And of course, then she makes the cell guards fear for her life, all by her own.

[Thanas]

I'd like to point out that Burdette is a sport fighter, who's reflexes would be worse than useless against a person actually trying to kill him, not score a touch.

Why?

The mental hiccup caused by Harrington actually exposing herself to danger - if memory serves, it's mentioned in the book that her willingness to accept injury in exchange for victory is wildly divergent from typical Grayson swordsmen - would likely be enough for her to stab him. The shock of actual injury, to a man who in all likelihood hasn't be seriously injured in years, if ever, would probably be enough to end the fight right there.

The problem of course is that she never even was touched or was injured - and defeated the swordmen after just fighting a fleet engagement and not having slept for over a day.

Right.

Also, we had another fencer already explain in this thread how her movement made no sense at all.

[Master_Baerne]

And my point is that reflexes trained to respond to things that do make sense for years and years will result in wrong actions against things that don't. Burdette lost because he simply wasn't prepared for someone to do something that stupid, and Harrington survived because she's a genetically-modified almost-superwoman with enhanced speed, strength, and reaction time.

With that said, the fact that it happened under the exact circumstances - no sleep, absurdly stessed, etc. - do break suspension of disbelief. I simply wanted to point out that it's not entirely outside the realm of possibility, just extremely unlikely. Fortunately for Honor, she's clearly made some sort of unholy pact with Lady Luck.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah, but the dichotomy between good (her friends) and bad (anybody who refuses the military something or does not like her) continues. There is nolegitimate exchange of ideas.

Yes.

The problem is however that the opponents of Honor have always been outmaneuvered or when they had her, just lost their courage and run, even when it made no sense for them to do so. Honor never gets caught unaware in a catastrophic mistake, her crew always catches everything in time wherease the Peeps are just line after line of incompetent idiots, with competent commanders not even able to win against Honor when they have 3:1 superiority. (Note: When Hornblower went up against the same odds, he lost. Heavily.)

This is indeed a pattern. Weber has occasionally dabbled in letting Honor lose (bad luck in Book Seven, to a superior naval force in Book Eleven), but he never made as much of a habit of it as he should have.

It is quite bad when you know the enemy is not able to put up a good fight because anything that promises any kind of success gets eradicated by act of plot. Case in point: In the third novel, the Havenites have the smart idea to use overwhelming battlecruiser raids. However, their strongest force just happens to be caught by a single dreadnought, whereas the other raids only net a few cruisers.

I could swallow that if that was a one-off, but no, every engagement in the books (I am at number 7 now) is like this. The Havenites always lose due to luck/idiocy or because Honor is just that good. *Puke*.

The Havenites kick ass and take names in Seven and Eight, actually... they get hit bad in some places, but they do land some really noticeable punches. I think Weber started to notice how stupid and mode-locked his pattern had become, and tried to write some more competent Havenites.

When talking about the embargo:

Equally apparently, the leak in the embargo spurted both ways, for a source within the League Navy reported that the League's R&D types were now experimenting with their own version of the short-range FTL com system which was one of the RMN's most valuable tactical advantages. Their success was extremely limited to date, but they were headed in the right direction, and the progress they'd made, not to mention the basic concepts upon which their efforts appeared to be based, suggested that someone had been sharing data with them.

OK, yes. The Sollies are experimenting with short-range FTL comms in 1911 (Honorverse calendar); the Manticorans first used the system in 1903 (at Grayson). Likewise, in 1921 we see that Technodyne has, ready for deployment, missile pods for single drive capital ship missiles, equivalent to what the Manticorans had deployed in 1905-1910.

This suggests that their technological lag time is about ten to fifteen years, factoring in the difference between "experimenting with" and "has deployable hardware." The problem is that Weber wrote his Solarian Navy as having essentially forgotten the need to update their ships, especially their capital ships. He has his reasons, but it does make for an inferior and predictable story.

"We've got some confirmation of technology transfers from other sources, as well," Honor told her guest quietly. "The seeking systems in Peep missiles have gotten much better in a very short period of time. We had a thirty to forty percent edge when the war began; BuWeaps estimates that our superiority's dropped to no more than ten percent at present. Fortunately, our countermeasures and general electronic warfare capability have continued to improve at a faster rate than theirs, so the effective relative increase in their missile accuracy is 'only' on the order of twenty percent, but that's still not good.

In this we observe that Solarian EW and missile technology is superior to prewar Haven technology; the Havenites only manage to outpace the Solarians after importing technology from them and undertaking crash research programs in a number of areas.

Also," her eyes darkened, "we've had unconfirmed reports that the Peeps have begun deploying missile pods of their own."

This, again, was a crash program on Haven's part, probably starting around the same time they started getting hit with missile pods (1905), and bearing fruit in 1910 or so. The Solarians have the system deployable by 1920... but they don't have crash priority for it because it's defense companies doing it on their own initiative.

Bleh.

So we know that the league was more than willing to use R&D to catch up with FTL sensors. And we also know the heavenites most likely shared pod missiles with them. Even if they did not, how much sense does it make for the league to follow up on one development which gives a tiny tactical advantage to one that revolutionizes the way all of space combat is conducted?

The Havenites, based on evidence from later books, did not share the pod technology, let alone the pod doctrine, with the League. League corporations were beginning to play around with the FTL comm technology, but we don't know how much prototyping and research it took to go from the idea of the system to a workable system before.

It's definitely frustrating that the actual units fielded by the Sollies show no sign of advances over the 1900-1920 period; we don't get an adequate idea of what's changed. I, for one, would be happier if they'd incorporated FTL comms into their doctrine, at least for flagships and such.

Pretty much all. Haven has more industrial capacity, more tonnage and still they lose hard. In ways that Revolutionary France never did.

It even gets more ridiculous when you factor the solies in.

Haven starts shaping up in Book Six (Warner Caslet is the first sign of the Peeps growing a brain); they do launch some fairly effective offensives in Seven and Eight. Unfortunately, then they start running into the next round of the Manticoran Superweapons... bleh.

[MKSheppard]

No. Baen covers are distinctly garish and amateurish.

Actually, they used to be pretty decent until the mid-1990s with a few exceptions. Look at the Hammers' Slammers series for example.

Some of the early Honor covers do look pretty good like Honor among Enemies LINK; since they were still in that period where book companies commissioned artists to paint covers.

But ever since they went all CG/Photoshoppery; it's been bad bad bad.

Not linked to Baen alone -- there's been an overall decline in artwork commissioned for book covers in other genres in favor of photoshoppery of five photos into one. Look at the hardcovers for Turtledove's Timeline 191 series. They start out with good impressionistic paintings for the WWI books; but then quickly degenerate into photoshoppery by the Blood and Iron series.

[MKSheppard]

Sheppard said "how diplomacy works in a MODERN setting" He was thus implying that he believes there are other methods of how diplomacy work. I was simply pointing out that this is the future, and thus cultural, political, and physical climates have moved on.

It's been my general impression that diplomacy in the age of the 1700s to 1800s was actually more complex than modern diplomacy; in that you could have secret clauses in treaties as a common event; and that wars could be turned on and off much easier; e.g. the so called Miracle of the house of Brandenberg.

Even into the 19th century you could still have secret treaties; but those became less and less useful as the world modernized and became more open -- no more secret clauses like in the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact dividing up Eastern Europe for example as regular diplomacy between two powers.

A sufficiently ruthless leader like Bismarck who knew how to manipulate the legislature could retain this option; but Bismarck was just one leader of many.

One of the major drivers I suspect was the increasing literacy of the populace and the rise of mass media -- you could no longer wave a treaty and outright lie about what it meant -- because people could then read the treaty and understand it, rather than taking at their word the local government official, etc.

Thus, the entire Manticore-Haven Pact at the end of the latest Honor book would not be unusual...if this was the 1700-1800s, when the ruling class in Europe had a lot more leeway in doing what they felt like; but this is an advanced setting where we have star spanning nations and advanced development of a Fourth Estate of journalists as well as a relatively high level of political consciousness in the masses.

Speaking of the advanced Fourth Estate of journalists -- I love how Weber has Mesa; a relatively small shitfuck world in the middle of nowhere -- manage to run a galaxy spanning conspiracy of doom that can influence events over quite a long period of time.

Apparently advanced social networking software that can find connections between people doesn't exist in the 40th Century.

I also like Weber's conception of how technology advances.

Apparently SPACE!RHODESIA (Mesa) can somehow field the basic in-universe equivalent of F-117As and B-2s (stealthed drives and ships), despite having absolutely tiny military and R&D budgets compared to Haven or Manticore.

Basically Weber's Honorverse is about as plausible as a Tom Clancy novel or Dale Brown novel -- except that unlike Brown or Clancy; he has the excuse of "it's in the FUUUUUTURRRREEE" to bullshit his way through.

[Thanas]

This is indeed a pattern. Weber has occasionally dabbled in letting Honor lose (bad luck in Book Seven, to a superior naval force in Book Eleven), but he never made as much of a habit of it as he should have.

Yeah, but no Havenite never outmaneuvered her on a one-to-one basis. I know she is supposed to be a good ship handler, but with the numbers of engagements one would think she'd be able to finally do much more.

Even competent Havenites like Theissman (sp?) always fail to perform when they are up against Honor. Heck, in book 2, Theissman had her perfectly ambushed....and for some reason split his fire instead of focusing on the more valuable target.

In book 6, he once again has her in his sights and knows he can take her SDs (albeit at the lost of much of his command), but the loss in forces would be worth it. Any commander would jump at this - but he suddenly lost his edge, despite being earlier on described as one of the most aggressive and competent commanders.

That is the most ridiculous about the series - when Hornblower went up against enemy forces, you actually knew he was in some kind of danger because Forester had earlier shown he would not bullshit his way out of inwinnable situations. With Harrington, there always just happens to be the tiny mistake made by her opponents that she always manages to catch.

The Havenites kick ass and take names in Seven and Eight, actually... they get hit bad in some places, but they do land some really noticeable punches. I think Weber started to notice how stupid and mode-locked his pattern had become, and tried to write some more competent Havenites.

Yeah, Tourville is great.

OK, yes. The Sollies are experimenting with short-range FTL comms in 1911 (Honorverse calendar); the Manticorans first used the system in 1903 (at Grayson). Likewise, in 1921 we see that Technodyne has, ready for deployment, missile pods for single drive capital ship missiles, equivalent to what the Manticorans had deployed in 1905-1910.

This suggests that their technological lag time is about ten to fifteen years, factoring in the difference between "experimenting with" and "has deployable hardware." The problem is that Weber wrote his Solarian Navy as having essentially forgotten the need to update their ships, especially their capital ships. He has his reasons, but it does make for an inferior and predictable story.

Yes, however it shows that earlier on the Solies were quite willing to modernize, something weber has forgotten now.

This, again, was a crash program on Haven's part, probably starting around the same time they started getting hit with missile pods (1905), and bearing fruit in 1910 or so. The Solarians have the system deployable by 1920... but they don't have crash priority for it because it's defense companies doing it on their own initiative.

Bleh.

Given the size of those companies, Defence companies could easily field a few dozen ships of the wall of their own, which would be enough to give the league enough to duplicate the technology within a year or so.

It's definitely frustrating that the actual units fielded by the Sollies show no sign of advances over the 1900-1920 period; we don't get an adequate idea of what's changed. I, for one, would be happier if they'd incorporated FTL comms into their doctrine, at least for flagships and such.

Which reinforces my earlier point - Weber's policy is to limit the enemies artificially, with limits that should not be existing. And the earlier point to Qin China is not really a valid analogy, given that the Solies do not enjoy dominion over their neighbours.

Haven starts shaping up in Book Six (Warner Caslet is the first sign of the Peeps growing a brain); they do launch some fairly effective offensives in Seven and Eight. Unfortunately, then they start running into the next round of the Manticoran Superweapons... bleh.

Yeah, another load of BS. Manticore is able to do what the league, despite its far higher potential, is not.....

[Lurks-no-More]

I've long since dropped the Honor books, despite being a great fan at one point, because of the increasing plot-invulnerability of the main character, and the worsening writing. (In the last books I read, I was completely cheering for the Peeps, and skipped over most of the Honor sections...)

It seems to me like Weber is setting up the Solarian League as the New Peeps But Bigger - a military force with considerable superiority of numbers, but with inferior tech and quality, to be summarily slaughtered by the Manticorean / Graysonian / whomever heroes. Except that we don't even get the amusement of the faux-Revolutionary France In Spaaaaace!


Edited to add:
Surely, I'm not the only one who was bothered by Weber's treatment of starship classes? In the real world, as technology and doctrines have changed, the class names have shifted; the modern frigates, for example, are very different from WWII-era frigates, which in turn are completely different from the Age of Sail frigates. In Honorverse, though, these classes are absolute, so battleships end up being these inferior, second-line rubbish ships! Generally speaking, nothing smaller than a dreadnought seems to be worth anything. I kept expecting him to bring out hyperdreadnoughts, superhyperdreadnoughts and ultradreadnoughts as the books progressed...