Honor Borington

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Years ago I read three books in David Weber's "Honor" series. They were fine. The first is about a fresh no-nonsense spaceship captain sent to a backwoods post. She trains up the sloppy crews, roots out corruption, and gets enough staff behind her in time to stop a foreign invasion which thought this star sector would be easy pickings. In the next book she's promoted and does basically the same thing, but there are bigger space battles. The third is about the same, after she's promoted even more, but she has to deal with the only coward in the entire navy (who commands a spaceship since his daddy's a nobleman) and there's an even more epic space battle that wins the war. So yeah, the series was mostly competance porn, and was already going downhill. Even so, when I saw another in the series, "Toll of Honor", I figured "why not?" I didn't expect much, and got so much less.

I need to back up. The series went 9 books past the three I read -- more than even a Piers Anthony series. Then he spun-off a 5 book series about another beloved character. Then 5 more about an almost-as-beloved character. By then there were clubs about the "Honorverse" where members dress in uniforms of the Manticorian Space Navy. So of course he set two more books a hundred years earlier, about Honor Harrigton's ancestor who befriend the first tree cat (Honor has an intelligent cat riding on her shoulder, of course).

"Toll of Honor" is an even newer thing: retelling the first series from other characters' points of view. In other words, "Tool of Honor" is people talking about other people who did stuff, and occasionally boasting about how they once actually saw Honor Harrington across a room. And it's a book, in stores, without so much as a warning label.

Years ago I read a book called Kraken, enjoyed it, and later saw the author's name on a poster advertising an appearance (he has a distinctive name: China Mieville). I went and was amazed that a hundred people showed up. Many of the questions were whether he was going to write more in some 3-book series. He said he didn't know what more he could add. A hundred freaking people show up to a Borders in Minnesota, on a Thursday afternoon, practically waving money in their hands, and he talked about his artistic integrity.

Maybe that's shooting too high. OK, what about Jim Butcher? He wrote 17 books in The Dresden Files. That's a huge number, but they were all about the same guy at least. Then he kept himself to just two bonus books (and still the main guy, but short stories). Then he was done and started the fantasy series he always wanted to write.

I've talked to Weber's assistant at SciFi Cons. He does the military research (Weber's space navy is based on 1800's european navies) and rides in the terrible cabins on aircraft carriers to get a feel for all the little military details. He seems nice. I've almost met Weber, who also seems nice. So David, look at pictures of Butcher. See how happy he looks? You can look like that if you put a pause on your Honorverse and start a new steampunk series featuring a ramrod straight female ship caption named Constance.