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Our amazing journey through the Honorverse begins now!
The first book in the series is titled “On Basilisk Station”. Published in 1993 by Baen Books, it ran 458 pages and leads a series that David Weber originally thought might only be five books or so. For those not familiar, it grew into a 14-book series, with a number of related, spin-off sets of books. All that aside, “On Basilisk Station” is where the adventure begins. For a time reference, this story takes place sometime in the 41st Century (using our calendar). In the book there’s a primary timeline used, oriented on an event called Post Diaspora. Based on that calendar, the events take place from 1900-1901 PD.
We meet Commander Honor Harrington as the new captain of the HMS Fearless. Her first act as the captain is to take her Battle Cruiser and crew into fleet exercises, armed with a new type of weapon that has taken traditional (and proven weapons) off of her ship. Along with this new weapon, she attempts a new tactic that makes best use of its capabilities. This requires her to place the ship closer than would normally be acceptable to the “hostile” force but allows a great surprise advantage. It works…once, then the fleet quickly adjusts its tactics to account for the new threat. What follows is a successive set of losses for the Fearless, and a demoralized crew who loses confidence (or perhaps never establishes confidence) in their new captain.
Following the exercise, the Fearless is assigned to a relatively isolated part of the Star Kingdom, to support a place called Basilisk Station. The assignment is commonly considered a relegation to less-than-important duties, further demoralizing the crew. Making things worse, when Harrington and crew arrive, the local senior officer takes his ship and departs, claiming he needs repairs that can’t wait, and leaving Honor in charge. As a loyal and capable officer of the Queen’s Navy, she accepts the cards she’s dealt, and begins to address long-standing deficiencies in terms of what the Navy is supposed to provide to the local system.
She pushes the crew to their limits in many cases but begins to make a positive impact in the system, and with her crew. The result: her successes fuel the failures of a cartel that had grown accustomed to conducting illegal ops. What should have been a boring, quiet, and frankly horrible assignment quickly turned intense. With the relationships Honor had established within the system early on, she confronts the cartel, begins damaging their operations, and draws the attention of the wrath of the cartel’s leader, who attempts to intimidate Honor into submission. It doesn’t work. Her crew sees her professional loyalty to the Crown and her orders, how she leads, and also relies on her crew to accomplish what quickly became an almost impossible mission.
When the dust settles, Fearless has engaged in combat action. As they dealt with the cartel, they also exposed secret operations being conducted by Manticore’s enemy, the Peoples’ Republic of Haven, in an attempt to eventually take control of the wormhole junction (and therefore trade) through the area. Haven was hiding combat capability in the form of a significantly armed Q-Ship, which Fearless engages. The enemy ship is destroyed and Fearless is critically, perhaps fatally, damaged. Honor and crew receive recognition from the military, and from the Queen as the story ends.
In this first book, the stage is set for the epic story that follows. We learn a lot about Honor Harrington and her leadership. We also get insights into her weaknesses and flaws. While very capable, she’s not a fictional, perfect officer. We also meet a significant cast of characters, many of whom we’ll see in other books as the series continues. Don’t worry about memorizing who they are—within a few books, you’ll recognize the ones David Weber needs you to focus on and be familiar with.
In addition to some amazing descriptions of combat and what that’s like for the crew, we start to recognize and track “themes” that may continue through the series. In this book we see some clear lessons about civil-military relations and civilian control of the military; political influence on the military; the relationships between someone in command and their crew; the authorities and responsibilities of command; and finally, what could be “the big three”: duty, honor, and integrity.
We rated “On Basilisk Station” with a 3.5, a 4 and a 4 (out of 5), for an overall rating of 3.83.
Next, we’re reading “The Honor of the Queen”. Please grab a copy and read it before the next episode. If you’ve already read it, now’s the time to freshen up your memory. We look forward to having you join in the conversation and the adventure!
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!