New Honor Harrington novel

[mr friendly guy]

Ok, its been a while since I read Honor Harrington and was wondering what the hell is going to happen with the war against the Solarian League and the Mesans with their different tech. Hopefully we find out a bit more in David Weber's latest instalment after five years.

Amazon

Uncompromising Honor (Honor Harrington) Hardcover – October 2, 2018
by David Weber (Author)

FIRST NEW HONOR HARRINGTON NOVEL IN FIVE YEARS! New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal and international best-selling phenomenon David Weber delivers book #19 in the multiple New York Times best-selling Honor Harrington series, the first new Honor Harrington novel since 2013's Shadow of Freedom.

HONOR'S FINISHING WHAT SHE STARTED

The Solarian League's navy counts its superdreadnoughts by the thousands. Not even its own government knows how enormous its economy truly is. And for hundreds of years, the League has borne the banner of human civilization, been the ideal to which humanity aspires in its diaspora across the galaxy.

But the bureaucrats known as the "Mandarins," who rule today's League, are not the men and women who founded it so long ago. They are corrupt, venal, accountable to no one . . . and they've decided the upstart Star Kingdom of Manticore must be destroyed.

Honor Harrington has worn the Star Kingdom's uniform for half a century and served her monarch and her people well. In the course of those years, the woman the newsies call the Salamander has grown from a tactically brilliant but politically naïve junior officer to supreme fleet command and a seat on the highest military and political councils of the Grand Alliance.

Very few people know war the way Honor Harrington does. Very few have lost as many men and women, as many friends, as much family, as she has. Yet despite that, hers has been a voice of caution. She knows the Mandarins and the Solarian League Navy are growing increasingly desperate as the truth of their technological inferiority sinks home, but she also knows the sheer size of the League. And she knows how its citizens will react if the Grand Alliance takes the war to the League, attacks its star systems, destroys its infrastructure . . . kills its civilians. Today's victory, bought on those terms, can only guarantee a future war of revenge against a resurgent Solarian League and its navy.

Honor knows the Grand Alliance must find a victory that doesn't require incursions deep into Solarian space, doesn't leave a legacy of bottomless hatred, and the strategy she supports has been working.

The League is sliding towards inglorious defeat as it steadily loses ground in the Protectorates and the Verge. As its central government teeters towards bankruptcy and even some of its core systems opt to secede in the face of the Mandarins' corruption. As the Solarian Navy finally realizes it cannot face an Alliance battle fleet and win.

But the Mandarins have embraced a desperate new strategy, and in pursuit of that strategy, the SLN has committed atrocities such as the galaxy has not known in a thousand years. The League have violated its own Eridani Edict against mass civilian casualties, violated the Deneb Accords prohibition on war crimes.

And they have finally killed too many of the people Honor Harrington loves.

Hers is the voice of caution and compromise no longer, and the galaxy is about to see something it has never imagined.

The Salamander is coming for the Solarian League, and Hell is coming in her wake.

I must say, I am kind of interested.

[Q99]

Interested but wary. I hope it's got better editing than the last few! It does sound like stuff is happening, which is what I really want.

[B5B7]

Will everyone (including the Manticorians as happened in prior novel) continue to be moronic dupes of the Mesans, or will someone with brains appear?

[Q99]

Will there be pods?

Logically the structure should go- 1) Alliance rolls Solies 2) until Solies/Mesans finally get MDM and Pods to fight back with and start rolling them out.

Will we start to see any of the counter-technologies deployed or will it just be rolling?

[Batman]

Still working my way though the book but the Sollies have developed something similar to the Haven Donkey Trail so they can tow an inordinate amount of pods per ships, and some of those pods have impellers, which means a) they don't degrade ship acceleration all that much and b) can be forward-deployed to warships under their own power without them having to rendezvous with the ammunition ships

[mr friendly guy]

I will most probably pick this up later, however I have read the summary on the Honorverse wikia and am reasonably satisfied with the story. I do have a question for more well versed Honorverse fans.

According to the Wikia
The republic of Haven has 56 star systems.
http://honorverse.wikia.com/wiki/Havenite_star_systems

The Manties have twenty member systems, thirty-four protectorate systems ie 54 systems.
http://honorverse.wikia.com/wiki/Star_E ... _Manticore

What? The Manties are almost as large as the Havenites?

Going on, the Solarian league has 2000 member and protected worlds. They lost Beowulf which joined the alliance, so lets say they have 1999 worlds.

They would still outnumber the alliance like 18 to 1. But from memory the economy of the alliance will catch up to the Solarian league in a few years. Like what? Are their GDP / capita 18 times that of a nation with presumably high standard of living already.

[Crazedwraith]

What? The Manties are almost as large as the Havenites?

The Manties were initially much smaller than the Havenites. Originally only having the home system and the other ends of the wormholes as territory. They got a bit bigger with the alliance and after/during the second Haven war, they swallowed up massive chunks of territory with the Talbott cluster joing and Silesia getting annexed. That's when they made the shift from Star Kingdom to Star Empire

[SpottedKitty]

From the Solarian POV, keep in mind that the whole region is named "the Haven Sector", because Haven was historically the 800-kilo gorilla out of all the other nations on that side of the League. Even after everything that's happened recently, it seems to be taking the Solarians a little while to realise just how much their thinking might have to change.

[aerius]

Interested but wary. I hope it's got better editing than the last few! It does sound like stuff is happening, which is what I really want.

Editing? What editing? If you took the first & last 50 pages in the last novel and added 500 pages of filler, you pretty much have the latest novel. To me it felt like Weber had totally run out of plot lines, so let's magic some Mesan alignment shit, a bunch of Manty moralizing, and 300 pages of Solarian bumblefuckery. If you thought John Ringo was becoming a bad parody of himself, man, just watch Weber take it to the next level here.

[mr friendly guy]

Interested but wary. I hope it's got better editing than the last few! It does sound like stuff is happening, which is what I really want.

Editing? What editing? If you took the first & last 50 pages in the last novel and added 500 pages of filler, you pretty much have the latest novel. To me it felt like Weber had totally run out of plot lines, so let's magic some Mesan alignment shit, a bunch of Manty moralizing, and 300 pages of Solarian bumblefuckery. If you thought John Ringo was becoming a bad parody of himself, man, just watch Weber take it to the next level here.

So buy an electronic copy rather than the hardback then?

[aerius]

So buy an electronic copy rather than the hardback then?

Either that or borrow it from the local library when they get copies. One of the libraries in my city has a Sci Fi reference collection, and let's just say boy am I glad I read it there first. I mean, I've read every John Ringo novel so it's not like I have high standards here, but man, I struggled to get through Uncompromising Honor.

[Crazedwraith]

I've got the first nine in pre-owned paperback and up to Mission from the online cd collection in mobi.

Been doing a re-read and getting through War Of Honour is a slog. Not read later than the first saganami book.

I'd recommend the Manticore Ascendant prequels. Collaborating with Tim Zahn seems to lead to a much tighter story.

[mr friendly guy]

Reading through a copy of the novel now. Or rather skimming through it, mainly to see the Solarian League get rekt wrecked and the viewpoints of important characters. I do have a question.

From memory, the Manties are sort of the British in space (Queen, parliament, Honor Harrington is a space version of Horatio Hornblower), the Graysons are sort of like Japan pre Meiji restoration, but what would (if any) world powers the Andermani, Solarian League or the Havenites be. The Havenites used to have what sounds a communist economy, so perhaps Soviet Union or France (being the British nemesis for a lot of history), and for some reason I think of the Andermani as one of the German polities with emperor and all, mostly because they speak German. Would the Solarian league be the United States?

[Mr Bean]

Reading through a copy of the novel now. Or rather skimming through it, mainly to see the Solarian League get rekt wrecked and the viewpoints of important characters. I do have a question.

From memory, the Manties are sort of the British in space (Queen, parliament, Honor Harrington is a space version of Horatio Hornblower), the Graysons are sort of like Japan pre Meiji restoration, but what would (if any) world powers the Andermani, Solarian League or the Havenites be. The Havenites used to have what sounds a communist economy, so perhaps Soviet Union or France (being the British nemesis for a lot of history), and for some reason I think of the Andermani as one of the German polities with emperor and all, mostly because they speak German. Would the Solarian league be the United States?

The comparison does not really hold since the Solarian league is split into member worlds who hold pretty much dominion over their own local areas and an central government where elected figures are placeholders and the bureaucracy holds complete control. Heck the power brokers are called the "Mandarins" in universe. It's a combination Qing Dynasty/UN setup with the central government being toothless because everyone sits on the security council and the bureaucracy controls all since the central government can't do anything.

[Q99]

The comparison does not really hold since the Solarian league is split into member worlds who hold pretty much dominion over their own local areas and an central government where elected figures are placeholders and the bureaucracy holds complete control. Heck the power brokers are called the "Mandarins" in universe. It's a combination Qing Dynasty/UN setup with the central government being toothless because everyone sits on the security council and the bureaucracy controls all since the central government can't do anything.

Basically the only way things normally could get done when anyone could veto is the threat that it takes only 2/3rds to kick someone out, so you can't have one minor planet block stuff without, gasp, being thrown to the wilds back in the day! .... which really isn't much of a threat any more when there's other advanced power blocks around.

[The Romulan Republic]

Reading through a copy of the novel now. Or rather skimming through it, mainly to see the Solarian League get rekt wrecked and the viewpoints of important characters. I do have a question.

From memory, the Manties are sort of the British in space (Queen, parliament, Honor Harrington is a space version of Horatio Hornblower), the Graysons are sort of like Japan pre Meiji restoration, but what would (if any) world powers the Andermani, Solarian League or the Havenites be. The Havenites used to have what sounds a communist economy, so perhaps Soviet Union or France (being the British nemesis for a lot of history), and for some reason I think of the Andermani as one of the German polities with emperor and all, mostly because they speak German. Would the Solarian league be the United States?

Its been a while, and I haven't read the most recent books, but IIRC Haven is initially a Right-wing straw-welfare state, becomes a combination of Stalinist USSR/Revolutionary France around Book Three, and then becomes a US-style Constitutional Republic later in the series. Grayson has echoes of both Fundi-America and old Japan. Andermans are basically a weird mishmash of China and Prussia, and the Solarians could be seen as either a very cynical take on the US as global hegemon, or a Right-wing straw man of the UN or EU.

Edit: Manties are basically Napoleonic Britain in space, yes, save for being considerably more culturally/socially liberal.

[Batman]

Not touching the national anologies subdebate but as a 'reading for entertainment' book goes it was pretty blergh. WAY to much of the Solarian League being stupid for the sake of being stupid, the Mesan Alingnment being evil for the sake of being evil, and the arrest of the Mandarins and surrender of the League pretty much came out of nowhere

[mr friendly guy]

Because I like talking geopolitics, even in fictional settings lets talk about the political status at the end of the book.

The Republic of Haven and Manticore will try and integrate their economies and militaries. I wonder will it end up like England and Scotland, or the EU or the USSR type union. This new association would presumably have around 110 worlds. The old Solarian league has 2000 or so worlds, but its not clear how many of them are protectorates. Its clear a lot of the income was derived from the proctectorate worlds. I imagine if they largely secede, the Solarian league would most likely still be larger than Haven and Manticore combine but I have a feeling the GDP of the new union would be larger. Mainly because its said that earlier that the GDP of Haven/ Manticore and Aldermani would beat the league in 5 years.

Now the League still might have the larger national wealth though. GDP is analogous to income and national wealth is analogous to wealth if we use nations vs individuals. So a person just retired has lots of assets but low income, while someone just graduated and works in a high paying job has lot of income but not much assets. The league most probably has the most assets (given they have more worlds), but if they can't mobilise it, I query how useful it is. To elaborate, a country could have a gold mine but not the means to extract it. Its clear from the novel the league can't mobile even its GDP very well due to tax laws.

I think this new polity of Haven and Manticore would be the new super power and hegemon.

****************************************************
Also now that they are working on tech, they should start by working out how to deal with the Mesans and start hunting them down.

[Lonestar]

Didn't Weber at some point say he had originally planned on Harrington's kids being the ones who defeated Mesa?

So (if) there is a new book series, would it be them that tie up that plot?

[Batman]

IIRC that idea was predicated on Honor being killed of and there being a time jump forward to where the kids are grownups. That idea was discarded after the fans cried havoc over the death of Honor and the whole Mesa plot was moved forward so Honor would have to deal with it.