Here we are, with the first seven novels in the main Honor Harrington series already behind us and taking our first detour to read More Than Honor, the first anthology in the Honorverse. As a reminder, we’re doing this based on a volume of recommendations and with the understanding that this anthology was published between the seventh and eighth novels on purpose.
You’ll notice our podcast format for the episodes that cover anthologies is slightly different. We’ll discuss/review each story or part of the anthology, and each of us will rate it with either a thumbs-up, thumbs-down, or a “neutral” vote. Then, at the end of the book, we’ll rate the entire volume with our standard numeric rating scale. And so, here we go!
There are four entries in this anthology: three short stories and one essay.
The first story is titled “A Beautiful Friendship,” written by David Weber. In this story we travel to Sphinx and join Richard and Marjorie Harrington, and their daughter, young Miss Stephanie. This story is in the early years of the human settlement on Sphinx, and we learn of the very first treecat-human bonding. Our main series hero, Honor Harrington (middle name Stephanie) is the descendant of Stephanie in this story. You may recall hearing the briefest of references to this in the first novel, On Basilisk Station. This is the set of events that constitute the first contact between treecats and humans, and specifically between a treecat named Climbs Quickly and Stephanie.
One of the more interesting aspects of the story is that it’s told from two perspectives. We see the circumstances and many of the events through the treecats’ eyes, who view themselves as “the People” and view humans (referred to as “two-legs”) as an alien species. We also see events through Stephanie and her parents’ eyes. Ultimately Stephanie and Climbs Quickly meet, though not intentionally. In that brief encounter, without warning or understanding, a bond forms between our two main characters. As the story progresses, it seems the bond has strengthened. Adversity and events bring them back together again, with both of their lives on the line. This results in a broader meeting between Climbs Quickly’s people and Stephanie’s people. As we already know, the relationship between humans and treecats grows and endures from there.
All three of us gave this story a “thumbs-up”, with Raul sneaking a second “thumbs-up” in for good measure.
The second story is titled “A Grand Tour,” written by David Drake. It was probably unfortunate that this story had to follow “A Beautiful Friendship.” First, having to follow such strong and engaging story writing by the creator of the Honorverse puts you at a slight disadvantage. Second, while Mr. Drake is an accomplished writer of military science fiction, we didn’t find his contribution here as particularly strong. The story seemed out of place and didn’t support much of what we’ve read in the main series so far. Across the fandom it seems to be the consensus that this story doesn’t have a strong relationship to the Honorverse. This is what we saw in our own reading. Instead, it was a bit disjointed and seemed to be more of a thought piece than an actual, integrated story.
Your hosts each rated this one with a “thumbs-down”.
The third story was titled “A Whiff of Grapeshot,” written by S.M. Sterling. Sterling is another accomplished science fiction and fantasy author with multiple series to his credit. Like the previous story, we have another guest author writing within the Honorverse. Unlike the previous story, this one was well-received by all three of us. Here, we join on some familiar characters and events within the People’s Republic of Haven; specifically Esther McQueen and Rob S. Pierre. The story occurs around the time of the Leveler’s Rebellion — something we’ve already seen references to in the main series. The story pulled all three of us in, was extremely well written, and fit very tightly within the Honorverse. There was a lot of content here, given the number of pages in this short story. Consistent with what David Weber does so well, S.M. Sterling did a great job of weaving historical events from the real world (The French Revolution and actions Napoleon took in Paris in 1795) into the fictional story.
We all gave this one a “thumbs-up”.
The fourth and final part section of the anthology was the essay titled “The Universe of Honor Harrington,” written by David Weber. Rather than giving us a story, David very concisely walks us through a series of things that until now, we’ve only pieced together. In this work, we learn about several important technological and political stages that the main story rests upon. If you want to know more about the creation of and physics behind Warshawski Sails or gravity waves, read it. If you want some focused background on how humanity set out and settled other systems, this is for you. If you want to know how and why the Star Kingdom of Manticore, the People’s Republic of Haven, and the Solarian League came to be, this essay is for you. There’s so much here — a surprising amount of very useful information somehow contained in what seems to be a short essay.
Once again, your hosts gave a unanimous “thumbs-up”.
Overall, we rated “More Than Honor” with a 4, a 4, and another 4 (out of 5), for an overall rating of 4.0.
Next up: we’re back to the main storyline, reading the eighth book in the series: Echoes of Honor. If you’ve read it before, grab your copy and refresh your memory. If you haven’t read it before, grab a new copy and dive in.
Heartfelt thanks to each of you who are on this adventure with us! Thank you for listening, and a special thank you to everyone who has taken time to send us your thoughts and comments. We truly enjoy hearing from you, whether you agree with our perspectives on things or not. After all, we’re all fans of this cool placewe call the Honorverse!
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!