The Honor Harrington Series by David Weber - Book Review

David Weber is a prolific writer of science fiction and fantasy. He has written over 30 books and collaborated on several others with Eric Flint, Steve White and John Ringo. This review covers the first book On Basilisk Station in the Honor Harrington series and a general review of the whole series.
On Basilisk Station

This is the first book of the Honor Harrington series. In it we meet Honor as she is about to take command of her first cruiser. With one hyper-capable command under her belt and a second one about to begin she has finally got her foot on the command ladder. But both her life and career are about to take a turn for the worse.

First, the weapons on her new ship have been gutted to make room for a new weapon. Second, her next in command can't get past his jealousy and work with her. Third, when the new weapon turns out to be a dud an embarrassed Admiral finds it easier to exile Honor and her crew to Basilisk Station then to admit the mistake. Fourth, her whole crew would rather complain then get on with their jobs. And if that isn't enough, an old adversary already assigned to Basilisk finds her arrival an excuse to return to Manticore for unnecessary repairs, leaving her holding the proverbial bag.

For years Basilisk Station has been the place that the Navy sent their screw ups. Nobody seemed to care if the job that they were there to do got done or not.

Unfortunately for a lot of people no one explained that to Honor. Left with an impossible job she sets about solving it. If her unhappy crew won't follow her then she will just have to get behind them and push. If the civilian traffic doesn't like her confiscating their contraband then they had better start following the regulations. And if the People's Republic of Haven thinks that taking Basilisk Station and its wormhole junction away from Manticore will be easy, they are in for a big surprise.

The Rest of the Series

The first six books in the Honor Harrington series are the best. These are tightly written, well plotted and stand alone. This changes when we get to In Enemy Hands. This is the first book that leaves you hanging, and it's a real cliff hanger. Although the books written after this one aren't 'cliff-hangers' they all lead you into the next book. They can be read without the background of the rest of the books but not easily.
We see another major change in the books after "In Enemy Hands." They are not only much longer but they are also much more loosely written. All of them suffer from a serious lack of editing. There are fewer battles, more politics, plot lines which go every-which-way, and confusing story lines. Echoes of Honor, the follow up to In Enemy Hands, jumped back and forth between story lines so often that it was difficult to read. I actually used post-it notes to mark the chapters according to which story-line it fit into and read the book in sections.

If you like military space opera then I highly recommend the first six books in this series.

They are:

1 On Basilisk Station


2 The Honor of The Queen


3 The Short Victorious War


4 Field of Dishonor


5 Flag in Exile


6 Honor Among Enemies

In Enemy Hands is also very good, but I left it off the favorites list because of its ending. I don't like books that leave you hanging.

The rest of the books in the series are:

7 In Enemy Hands


8 Echoes of Honor


9 Ashes of Victory


10 War of Honor


11 At All Costs

There are also four books, edited by David Weber, containing short stories which take place in Honor's Universe. Some of the stories are written by Mr. Weber and others by other well known science fiction authors. If you like this series then you will also like the stories contained in these books. They are:

1 More than Honor


2 Worlds of Honor


3 Changer of Worlds


4 The Service of the Sword

Two full length books, Crown of Slaves written with Eric Flint and the Shadow of Saganami full out the series.