Second in the excellent Honor Harrington series: introducing the Graysons

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	• The Honor of the Queen (Honor Harrington) David Weber Baen, 2002 - 464 pages average customer review:based on 59 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Not Free SF Reader

Having triumphed in the face of banishment and dodgy new technology, Harrington is given something else to do. She is sent into a sticky
political situation between the planets of Haven and Manticore. Being diplomatic is hard when they do not respect women, so that plays a part.

Some running ship battles and other sorts of shooting ensue, amidst all the political skullduggery.

Second in the excellent Honor Harrington series: introducing the Graysons

"The Honor of the Queen" is the second book in a wonderful space opera series set some three thousand years in the future and featuring David Weber's best fictional heroine, "Honor Harrington." The books are best read in sequence and I strongly recommend that you start with "On Basilisk Station" which is the first one.

Despite the futuristic setting, there are strong parallels with Nelson's navy. Assumed technology in the Honor Harrington stories imposes tactical and strategic constraints on space navy officers similar to those which the technology of fighting sail imposed on wet navy officers two hundred years ago. The galactic situation in the novels contains strong similarities to the strategic and political situation in European history at the time of the French revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.

This seems to be quite deliberate: many thinly veiled (and amusing) hints in the books indicate that they are to some extent a tribute to C.S. Forester, while the main heroine of the books, Honor Harrington, appears to owe more than just her initials to C.S. Forester's character "Horatio Hornblower."

This book introduces the planet Grayson which is to become immensely important in future stories. When Honor Harrington first meets the inhabitants of Grayson in this book, they appear to be boorish, male chauvinist dinosaurs, and she has great difficulty dealing with them. However, it is a challenge which she eventually surmounts with flying colours.

A large number of important characters are also introduced in this book: and not just among Honor's Manticoran compatriots and her new Grayson allies. The two captains who the enemy "Peeps" have sent to stir the pot in Grayson will also feature in most of the forthcoming books - but not necessarily on the same side.

In this second book of the series, Honor Harrington has been promoted after her victory in Basilisk, and given command of the brand new heavy cruiser "H.M.S. Fearless." She is also the senior officer of the military force escorting a diplomatic mission under her old mentor, Admiral Raoul Courvisier, to persuade the planet Grayson to ally with her home country, Manticore, against the looming threat from the People's Republic of Haven (Peeps.)

Grayson, in the Yeltsin system, was settled by religious fanatics. It turned out to have a highly poisonous ecosystem, which forced their descendants to amend some of their principles in order to survive. But their remaining prejudices, especially against women, initially make them difficult to deal with.

However, the Graysons are sweetness and light compared with the male rulers of the planet Masada in the neighbouring Endicott system. Descended from Graysons who went into exile after refusing to make the compromises necessary to prevent the planet killing them, the Masadans' ruthless sexism and intolerant bigotry make the Taleban look like a bunch of Episcopal feminists. They are still bent on revenge - and the People's Republic of Haven is only to happy to help them secure it.

Honor Harrington is going to have to go into battle against horrendous odds - again ...

This is another clever story with wonderful and believable characters, brilliantly described space battles, and a well crafted set of explanations of how the tactical situations in which the characters find themselves relate both to the technology their ships use and the political dynamics which set up the conflicts between them.

Many people read Weber for the space battles, and this book scores very highly here. In some of the later books of the series when describing major fleet actions, Dave Weber sometimes writes a bit too much like the wargame designer he once was, but he is superb when describing single-ship or squadron-level actions such as those in "The Honor of the Queen."

Two aspects of this book may make some readers a little uneasy. At this stage of the series Weber gives full vent to his distrust of politicians, especially left-wing ones.

In later books, apparently to broaden the appeal slightly, he creates some extreme ultra right-wing reactionary politicians who he can criticise from the left so as to counterbalance his criticisms of socialists and liberals from the right. Weber thereby places the views of most of his sympathetic characters in the moderate centre of the Manticoran political spectrum. From book ten he also writes in one or two sympathetic liberal politicians! However, when he wrote "The Honor of the Queen" he had not made these adjustments.

Anyone with liberal or left wing views about economics or defence and security issues and who isn't willing to put them aside to enjoy a novel may be irritated by the political slant of the book. However, this slant is not as strong as that taken by some other military SF writers such as John Ringo.

The other aspect of the book which may be slightly uncomfortable for a minority of readers is the role of men and women. In respect of Grayson, the novel looks from a viewpoint totally committed to absolute equality between men and women at how a society which has gone down a different road can be persuaded to reform. In respect of Masada, their status as the bad guys is confirmed by their horrible crimes against women.

If you like this book, you will want to read the rest of the series. At the time of writing there are thirteen full length novels and four short story collections in the "Honorverse" as the fictional galaxy in which these stories are set is sometimes known. The main series which tells the story of Honor Harrington herself currently runs to eleven novels; in order these are

On Basilisk Station
The Honor of the Queen
The Short Victorious War
Field of Dishonour
Flag in Exile
Honor among Enemies
In Enemy Hands
Echoes of Honor
Ashes of Victory
War of Honor
At All Costs

The four collections of short stories set in the same universe, not all of which feature Honor Harrington herself, are

More Than Honor
Worlds of Honor
Worlds of Honor III: Changer of Worlds
Worlds of Honor IV: The Service of the Sword

The two spin-off novels are "Crown of Slaves" (with Eric Flint) which is a story of espionage and intrigue featuring a number of characters first introduced in earlier Honor Harrington books or short stories, and "The Shadow of Saganami" which is a kind of "next generation" novel featuring a number of younger officers in the navies of Manticore and her ally Grayson.

For amusement, if you want to try to look for the parallels to nations and individuals from the French revolutionary period and the Hornblower books, one possible translation would be:

People's Republic of Haven during books 1 to 3 = Bourbon France
People's Republic of Haven from book 4 onwards = Revolutionary France
Star Kingdom of Manticore = Great Britain
Gryphon = Scotland
Grayson = Portugal

Prime Minister Alan Summervale = Pitt the Younger
Hamish Alexander, later Earl White Haven = Admiral Edward Pellew
Honor Harrington = Horatio Hornblower
Alistair McKeon = William Bush

Crown loyalists and Centrists = Tory supporters of Pitt
Conservative Association = isolationist/hardline High Tories
New Kiev Liberals = Whig Oligarchists
Progressives and traditional liberals = Whig radicals

Anderman Empire = Kingdom of Prussia
Silesia = Poland
Solarian republic = United States of America

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Anything and everything David Weber is good!

Having read through the entire Honor Harrington, plus a number of other books that Weber either authored or co-authored, I can readily say that he is one of the best writers in the business today.

Every character gets developed so that you feel like you really know them. He carries their lives through each of the books in the series with amazing continuity, including the development of their personalities, the way in which they age, and the development of their relationsnips.

This book, as the others, is just a joy to read.

The continuation of a great series

After Basilisk Station, you might have wondered, but Honor of the Queen confirms that whenever Honor Harrington is assigned some sort of mission she will accomplish at least two things: 1) just about completely destroy whatever ship is under her direct command (not on purpose - it's just an inevitable outcome of being led by her), and 2) she will absolutely devastated her opponents, emerging not unscathed, but completely victorious and more than likely snag a promotion or two in the mix, as well as the uninhibited gratitude of all around her.

Harrington is being sent with a diplomatic mission to the planet of Grayson - who should know by the fact that Honor is coming that something catastrophic and horrendous is about to happen to their society. Not to mention that the Graysons are pretty close to being religious zealots who have completely denied women in their society any and all rights to women. How long will that last with Honor on the way? Oh, and throw in a mix of even more religious zealots who want to completely wipe out and suppress the Graysons. Any bids on who ends up standing up to them for Grayson?

In Honor of the Queen Webber has once again struck a near perfect balance of relentless action against political intrigue. In a few places it starts to get monotonous, but if you just persevere a little bit more you find the release of the action completely worth the build of the intrigue.

The most wonderful part of the book is another chance to spend more time with Harrington and see her develop more as a leader as well as discovering more depths of her character and passions. And the raw power residing in her person is just incredible. One of my favorite scenes is where she and Nimitz almost singlehandedly take out a crew of assassins.

Contrary to how my first paragraph may have sounded, I do absolutely recommend this book. I highly recommend you read Basilisk Station first - but do yourself a favor and grab as many of these Honor Harrington books as you can and curl up for a looooong time with some incredible writing.

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A Quality Follow-Up

This second book in the series has a lot right going for it, and is a solid follow up to 'On Basilisk Station'. While it falls a little short from its progenitor, it is still a solid read.

Honor, who is a little one dimensional, is still the strong, hyper-capable commander that Weber seems to prefer. It is a little tedious that she can do no wrong, so the fact that he allows her a small misstep is nice to see. The side characters, especially the Graysons are also welcome additions. It's nice to see so many supporting characters from the previous book make their way back here.

Unfortunately, Weber mitigates this some by making an enemy even more intractable and stubborn then the previous book, this time in the form of the Massadens. Their evil is a little to extreme for me, and I would much rather see some shade of gray in the actions and responses. Also, Weber continues to have Honor face off against un-believable incompetent allies and superiors. While this can be interesting, Weber tends to go to this well a bit to much.

The story itself is good, well paced, with satisfying battle scenes. The ground combat scenes are a bit week, as Weber is clearly more comfortable with the more strategic distant space combat. There is thankfully less time spent with detailed and tedious explanations of tech, although there is still a significant amount of time spent with one character giving long winded explanations to another, explanations that would seem out of place anywhere but in a novel.

Overall, this is an excellent read and one I recommend to fans of the series.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

On the planet Grayson to participate in diplomatic talks between the Kingdom of Manticore and the Republic of Haven, Honor Harrington discovers that she is stuck on a fiercely patriarchal, misogynist planet.

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