Beginnings is the sixth (and second to last) book in the Worlds of Honor anthology set. It contains five short stories, penned by four talented authors: David Weber, Charles E. Gannon, Timothy Zahn, and Joelle Presby. Each of these stories brings us to interesting and important beginnings for many events that we’ve become familiar with in the Honorverse but have often gone with little or no explanation.

This collection of writings comes in at 377 pages and was first published by Baen in June 2013.

Charles E. Gannon brings the first story to us: By the Book.

In this story we join the crew of Earth Union Customs Patrol ship Venerated Gaia commanded by Lieutenant Lee Strong in 250 PD. Their mission: board and recover a hijacked ship named Fragrant Blossom, a ship they’ve located and seized near the Sol System asteroid belt. Once the ship is captured and under their control, a series of non-standard events results in Lieutenant Strong coming into contact with an administrator working for the Outbound Operations Administration, a somewhat quiet and shadowy man named Perlenmann. Mr. Perlenmann seems to have been effectively benched professionally and is sent to his current post on Jupiter’s moon Callisto, primarily due to what those holding (somewhat authoritarian) political power deemed to be his radical views. It’s from this position of relative obscurity we learn that Mr. Perlenmann is an influential member of an organization plotting to bring the current political elite and their parties to their knees by causing an economic collapse across the Earth Union and Sol system. He recruits Lieutenant Strong to deliver the necessary computer program, causing a catastrophic collapse, which results in the related loss of power of the controlling political parties and the disintegration of the Earth Union. With the passage of time, the collapse is eventually referred to as the Economic Winter of 252 PD. When the economy recovered as a much freer and open economic system, it spawned powerful growth that enabled the remarkable beginning of the movement of humanity out of the Sol system and into the stars.

Your hosts gave this story two ‘thumbs-up” and one “neutral” vote.

Next we discussed Timothy Zahn’s short story A Call to Arms.

We move forward in time now, over a thousand years, to 1543 PD. Following the recovery from the Economic Winter of 252 and the subsequent expansion, we see a Solarian Axelrod Corporation plan unfolding to attack the Manticore System through the use of mercenaries. At the same time, we join a young Lieutenant Travis Long onboard the HMS Phoenix. When he writes up a subordinate for substandard performance, he finds himself the one who’s in trouble and he’s transferred to a different ship, the HMS Casey. It turns out the poor performer is from a politically and militarily powerful family. What appears to be bad news for Lieutenant Long turns into a blessing as the mercenaries arrive in the Manticoran system. Now confronting the enemy, his strength as a tactician shines as he’s key in defeating the threat. The “misstep” while onboard the Phoenix quickly and quietly moves to the background as his new captain nominates him for the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal. He also learns a powerful lesson from Captain Heissman about being aware of and getting used to the existence of internal politics within the RMN.

Of note, this story is the beginning of more time we’ll spend with Lieutenant Travis Long. Our introduction to him here sets up seeing a lot more of him in the “Manticore Ascendant” series of novels, by the dynamic writing duo of David Weber and Timothy Zahn.

This one received “thumbs-ups” from each of your hosts, with a bonus “two thumbs up” from Raul.

Beauty and the Beast is the third...

“A Rising Thunder” basically picks up where “Mission of Honor” left off, with events that begin in April 1922 PD and span about five months. We’re back in the main sequence, and it seems hard to believe that this novel is the second to the last of the core novels! But we’re not close to being done with the Honorverse content, with lots of material from the related series and anthologies still to cover. And don’t forget the newest Honor Harrington novel “Toll of Honor” is out there to be enjoyed now. Technically it’s a stand-alone novel, but that doesn’t mean it’s not an integral part of the Honorverse. When published, “A Rising Thunder” hit the streets at 458 pages in March 2012.

Even though we’ve reviewed and discussed three other books since “Mission of Honor”, when we picked this one up, it was as if we had just finished “Mission” the day prior. It took no effort to fall right back into the events that we left off with in the previous main sequence novel. As a reminder for those who may be new to this journey, we’re reading all the Honorverse writings in their order of publication, knowing that the books and stories that are outside of the main sequence are truly not just side stories. In fact, they constitute a significant building out of the main storyline and should be read as such. If the Honorverse was a river, these other writings represent the places where the river widens. They are not separate but related stories.

As we jump into “A Rising Thunder”, the war between Haven and Manticore is truly over and we see these two former enemies form a significant military alliance in order to face a new and shared threat together. More accurately we should we say threats since the wolf closest to the sled appears to be the Solarian League, but the very real and greater danger is the Mesan Alignment. In this story, Honor and the alliance do what they can to minimize or eliminate their vulnerability to another strike by the Alignment while specifically addressing the Solarians as the League violently maneuvers to take advantage of what they believe to have been a be significant and terminal blow to the military and economic health of Manticore and Haven. Both nations are truly damaged. It takes reading this novel to find out just how significant that damage is, and just how effectively they’re able to counter the Solarian threat. To bring us back to the beginning of this summary and to leave you with a taste of the unknown, don’t forget we’re just one novel away from completing the main sequence. We’ll leave it to you to read along with us to find out just how David Weber might be wrapping this part of the story up.

All three of your hosts rated “A Rising Thunder” with a 5 (out of 5), resulting in an overall rating of another perfect 5.

We continue to appreciate the support everyone who takes the time to join us in this voyage through the Honorverse—new listeners as well as the folks who have been with us early on. Special thanks for those of you who like and/or comment on our posts, and even reach out and send us a note. We truly can’t say how much the feedback means to us.

Next time we’re going to discuss the sixth anthology in the Worlds of Honor collection, entitled “Beginnings”. It contains five short stories authored by David Weber and three others. No doubt this collection is going to be a good read and time well spent.

As always, please grab your copy, invite a friend, and join us again next time!

You can find us, and all our episodes at http://honorverse.net, and email us at honorverse@tpenetwork.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Now, let’s be about

We are jumping right into the second book in the Star Kingdom series, this one titled Fire Season. This one’s a joint venture between David Weber and the now-familiar Jane Lindskold. Published by Baen, it came out at a comfortable 287 pages in October 2012. In the previous Star Kingdom novel, we met an 11-year-old Stephanie Harrington in part 1, then moved forward in Stephanie’s life, approximately 16 months in Part 2. Here in Fire Season, Stephanie is now 14, turning 15 years old.

While this is another “treecat novel” and the treecats are featured characters, the story really focuses on Stephanie, her schoolmates, her parents, and several other adults central to her life, and a team of scientists who arrive on Sphinx with a more official charter to study the treecats. We learn a lot more about Stephanie and the changes she’s going through as she’s maturing from a child into a young adult. Given she’s growing up on a frontier world, it’s exciting to see just how much she and some of her friends are trusted with and expected to do as they become contributors to the society around them. Or perhaps “societies” would be more accurate since the events of the novel certainly include the treecats. The combination of the impact of fire season along with the visiting scientists leads to an action-packed, dramatic story that adds some beautiful depth to several characters, as well as richness, history and complexity to the Honorverse.

One thing we reinforce in the podcast is that while this series is written for young adults, there are no punches pulled in terms of the story. If you tend to shy away from “YA” novels, do yourself a favor and be sure to read all of them in the Star Kingdom series. As you know from our second interview with David Weber, he doesn’t avoid complex, heavy or dark issues that need to be a part of the broader story just because some of his books are written for our young adult Honorverse family members. These novels were written for the rest of the more “seasoned” adults out there, too. We’re confident you won’t be disappointed.

We rated Fire Season with a 5, a 4.5 and a 5 (out of 5), for an overall rating of 4.83 from your hosts.

As always, thank you for listening and big thanks to those of you who also take the time to like and follow us on social media, to comment on our posts even reach out through a longer note.

Next time on the Honorverse Today podcast, we’re back into the main storyline, jumping into the novel A Rising Thunder. As always, be sure to grab your copy, invite a friend, and join us!

And yes, the blooper reel this time is from a previous show. We'll let you figure out which one!

You can find us, and all our episodes at http://honorverse.net, and email us at honorverse@tpenetwork.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Now, let’s be about it!