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3.78 AVERAGE
3.78 AVERAGE
After years of promising to read a Honor Harrington book, I have finally finished the first in the series. I enjoyed it and looked forward to reading/listening to audiobooks of the rest in the series.
ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh how does one manage to make space combat so.....so......so like watching someone narrate a game of battleship in the middle of a u.n. summit
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
I have to start by saying I am a naval officer, and Horatio Hornblower is probably about 15% of the reason I am. So I'm predisposed to like Honor Harrington. Which I did! She is a complete badass, though like the original HH, she spends a fair amount of time embroiled in self-doubt and fretting over things like her fitness for command or the political factors that affect her career. She also has an awesome six-legged space cat best friend (just like HH had his one-legged BFF Mr. Bush!) The descriptions of her life on the ship and the subplot about gaining the respect of her wardroom struck me as very true to life, and by the end I liked most of the officers.
My least favorite part of sci-fi is when the author is really proud of whatever space magic they invented, and feel the need to share every minute detail they've worked out so you know just how goddamn smart they are, but Mr. Weber was kind enough to preface every instance of this with some line like "Honor thought about what she knew about impeller drives" so you know you can skip the next ten pages without missing any plot. Hypocritically, I do love when authors come up with an ultra-complicated political situation and explains all the minutiae behind it, so that didn't bother me at all. Basically, this book falls prey to the classic sci-fi problem: the graceless infodump. This is actually baffling because there is an appendix that explains the date/time/year cycle of Manticore, and I don't know why things like how Warshawski sails work or principles of astrogation couldn't also be thrown back there. Luckily it steers clear of the other classic sci-fi (or any genre fiction) problem of the graceless turn of phrase. There were no lines that made me physically put the book down and say to an empty room, "Did this guy not have an editor or what?" (In contrast, I had to do this every 10 pages in Game of Thrones.)
I dug this book, probably because it hit a couple of my niche interests, and I intend to read more of the series. I'd probably give it 4 stars, but I don't like rating sci-fi on goodreads because I don't want them to recommend me sci-fi.
My least favorite part of sci-fi is when the author is really proud of whatever space magic they invented, and feel the need to share every minute detail they've worked out so you know just how goddamn smart they are, but Mr. Weber was kind enough to preface every instance of this with some line like "Honor thought about what she knew about impeller drives" so you know you can skip the next ten pages without missing any plot. Hypocritically, I do love when authors come up with an ultra-complicated political situation and explains all the minutiae behind it, so that didn't bother me at all. Basically, this book falls prey to the classic sci-fi problem: the graceless infodump. This is actually baffling because there is an appendix that explains the date/time/year cycle of Manticore, and I don't know why things like how Warshawski sails work or principles of astrogation couldn't also be thrown back there. Luckily it steers clear of the other classic sci-fi (or any genre fiction) problem of the graceless turn of phrase. There were no lines that made me physically put the book down and say to an empty room, "Did this guy not have an editor or what?" (In contrast, I had to do this every 10 pages in Game of Thrones.)
I dug this book, probably because it hit a couple of my niche interests, and I intend to read more of the series. I'd probably give it 4 stars, but I don't like rating sci-fi on goodreads because I don't want them to recommend me sci-fi.
adventurous
lighthearted
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
i didn't make it far into this book. I love space opera and see this recommended everywhere but there are such long winded explanations in this book. Then the first space battle happened and so little was explained I was left scratching my head. The POV switches and I feel like those two characters have barely spoken and all Honor seems to be able to say is "I see." I'm putting this down and moving on. Not what I was expecting.
Enthralling space opera. I like my heroes smart and with integrity.
3.5 stars. I really enjoyed the actual story, but felt the author got a bit sidetracked sometimes by unnecessary details. I get that people like science in their science fiction, but I ended up skipping whole pages on weaponry/technology and sometimes politics. The book also suffers some of the generic pitfalls of a male author writing a female protagonist. Some of his descriptions sexualize Honor in a way I think is unnecessary and a little gross. Unfortunately, it gets even worse in the next book, which I just started reading. I get it, Weber was writing in the early nineties...but it still makes me cringe. Really hoping this type of language tapers off as the series goes on.
adventurous
emotional
informative
mysterious
tense
fast-paced