Well, we’re finally breaking into the Star Kingdom series, starting with the novel entitled “A Beautiful Friendship”. While they’re very related to each other, don’t confuse this novel with the short story by the same name contained in the first anthology we discussed a while back (“More Than Honor”). The short story and this novel were both written by David Weber, with this novel first published in October 2011 by Baen.
The first third (or so) of the novel covers the original 1998 short story. For those who read “More Than Honor”, this is a quick and very good refresh of the events of Stephanie Harrington and Climbs Quickly’s first meeting, and their subsequent “adoption” of each other—the first human-treecat pairing. For those who didn’t read the anthology, including the story here is an act of kindness on David Weber’s part, ensuring all readers have the necessary backstory to understand what happens after the news of the discovery of another sentient species spreads throughout the Star Kingdom of Manticore. We watch Stephanie and Scott MacDallan (the only other human a treecat has adopted at the time) struggle with how to deal with local attitudes, questions, and curiosities. I think it’s safe to say that Stephanie and Scott’s protectiveness not only comes from both of them being genuinely caring people, but also influenced by their new relationships with their treecats. This isn’t the caring or bond that a loving pet owner has with an animal. What we see, and along with the characters don’t fully understand, is this relationship between the human people and the treecat people is unique and deep. As a result, they struggle to manage just how much they share about what they know about treecats with the significant influx of scientists visiting Sphynx. Others come too, some with bad intent—and so the story unfolds. As with the original short story, we get to see both sides of the human-treecat relationship as both societies / cultures struggle with how to move the relationship forward. This dynamic would be interesting in general since we’re talking about two sentient species, but it’s made more complicated by the fact that two pairings have occurred. Like the other story arcs captured within various series, the Star Kingdom storyline informs us about human-treecat relationship and how it sits as a unique and central part of the Honorverse.
We rated “A Beautiful Friendship” with a 5, a 4 and a 5 (out of 5), for an overall rating of a 4.7.
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Next time on the Honorverse Today podcast, we’re moving straight into the second book in the Star Kingdom series: “Fire Season”. As always, be sure to grab your copy, invite a friend, and join us again next time!
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Now, let’s be about it!