The Short Victorious War

Honorverse #3 sees the Big Show kick off, as Manticore and the People’s Republic of Haven finally start the war that they’ve been dancing around-and as always Honor is right in the center, commanding the state-of-the-art Battlecruiser Nike in defense of a critical forward base. Good intelligence on the part of the peeps and command errors above leave Honor’s squadron badly outgunned by Dreadnoughts, and it’s up to her tactical brilliance and guts to save the day.

That said, this is where the series starts to bloat. The main action is short, almost too short, and the narrative wanders between Honor commanding starships, falling in love, and facing down old enemies, and ‘big picture’ strategy discussions on Manticore and Haven. The Haven perspective, with its tottering regime halfway between Communism and ancien regime France is pretty good, but Weber goes right for the obvious historical parallels, including one of the worst pun names in all of scifi.