Honor Among Enemies (Honor Harrington #6)

A magnificent read, but why oh why do so many sci-fi wargame designers seem obsessed with Q-Ships? I'll forgive Dave Weber this once, partly because this book does at least make clear that the damn things are death traps, but mostly because it's such a cracking read. In fact this is my personal favourite of the current 17 books in the Honorverse. "Honor among Enemies" is the sixth 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." These books are best read in sequence and I strongly recommend that you start with "On Basilisk Station" which is the first one. The Honor Harrington stories are full of parallels with the time of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. In particular, the Royal Manticoran Navy in which the heroine is an officer is clearly based on the Royal Navy at the time of Nelson. The technology of space travel and naval warfare in most of the Honor Harrington stories has been written so as to impose 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. In this book however, and unlike the rest of the series, Honor Harrington's ships are based on one of the most crack-brained concepts from the World War One era - and considering how many badly designed ships fought in that war, that's saying something! This book continues the pattern of thinly veiled (and amusing) hints in the stories that they are to some extent a tribute to C.S. Forester. The main heroine of the books, Honor Harrington, appears to owe more than just her initials to C.S. Forester's character "Horatio Hornblower." Indeed, at one point in this book one of the other characters actually gives Honor one of Forester's books to read. In this sixth book in the series, there is no sign of an end to the all-out war between Honor's home nation, "The Star Kingdom of Manticore," together with allies like Grayson in whose navy Honor has been serving, against the People's Republic of Haven or "Peeps." As the demands of the front line grow ever greater, Manticore has been forced to pull ships away from anti-piracy duties in other parts of the galaxy such as the Silesian Confederation. Naturally, space pirates have been taking full advantage of this and merchant losses have started to mount up alarmingly. A number of influential politicians and business people on Manticore who don't like Honor Harrington very much, but who recognise that whatever else they have against her, she is a first rate fighting commander, see an opportunity to use one problem to solve another. They let the Admiralty know that they will withdraw their opposition to Honor going back on active service in the Manticoran navy if they give her a squadron and send her to get rid of the pirates. There are no proper warships available, so all she can have is Q-ships. Whether Honor take

Note for people unfamiliar with David Weber series, this is the sixth book in the Honor Harrington series, which began with On Basilisk Station. While reading this book by itself is possible, you lose a lot of background.Now, for those who read the previous five books...A friend of mine once complained that all HH books (he had read until then) followed the same pattern: Honor gets a new command, her "home" enemies sabotage and undermine her, she finds herself fighting against huge odds, she saves the day. Well, this book most definitely fits this pattern.As the war with Haven comes to a stalemate, more and more ships are directed to the front or to patrol and pickets among Manticore's allies. This results in a big withdraw of forces from anti-piracy patrols in the Silesian Confederacy, and the pirates lose no time in taking advantage of it. Pressed by the merchant cartels, the Royal Manticore Navy sends some of Horrible Hemphill's new toys: armed merchant ships. But instead of the designed-from-the-scratch Q-ships Haven has, these are just normal merchant ships with weapons. Meaning it can't run and if anyone shoot at it, it is going to hurt.Our old friend Hauptmann, depressed with the prospects, decides to take the most advantage of it possible, and manipulates the opposition parties into giving the job to Honor Harrington. After all, he might not like her, but he is no fool either.Well, these armed merchants might give the pirates a good run for their money, when they actually find them, but the Silesian Confederacy is a big place, and Honor has only four ships under her command. Worse, some pirates are not exactly pirates, and some, unknown to Manticore, are actually Haven warships! Well, the rest, as they say, is history.BUT, that's not *all* that there is to this book. First, Hemphill's new toys, for a change, actually are quite good. These ships might hurt when hit, but they have a hell of a bite, and are the first active employment of some systems that will bring a *real* revolution in tactics later in the series.Second, while the people who brought Honor back to command these ships fully expect her to die in action, the Royal Manticore Navy has no intention of making this just a token and useless attempt at curbing piracy. While she has to complete her crew with the dregs other captains are all too willing to get rid of, the Admiralty also see fit to give her the cream of the people just out of the academy. Also, many experienced officers and nco who served with her before sign up for this tour.Third, another treecat!Fourth, parts of the book tell the story of some of the Havenite officers, given insight and background on people who will have very important parts to play in later books.So, while the story does have the same feeling as many of the previous books, it also adds a lot.

It is with trepidation that I pick up successive Harrington novels, wondering how it can possibly get any better and becoming more fearful of completing the series before this prolific author completes the next sequel. Honor Among Enemies is a strategic and tactical success as it sets the stage for escalation in both Honor's unique professional career and provides intriguing character development on myriad levels - the amorous 'cats, the underestimated Andermani, the Peep dynamic between captain and political commissar, Manticorean commercial moguls, and various heroes who don't need Captain's regalia to reach out to the readers' hearts and minds. Whether a sci-fi guru, a political intrigue afficionado, or a military buff, Weber delivers. Staging the novel in a galactic backwater, far from the frontlines, is deceptive as Honors reveals yet again that Clausewitz's maxims about war still bear truth. Political intrigue and commercial verities enmesh Honor in extracurricular learning curves, quite distinct from her naval training regime at Saganami. These grey areas reveal new dimensions of the 'enemy' and of 'duty' to one's nation. Most importantly, the human element of Honor (and her 'cat) and their interactions with aspiring privates, nefarious pirates, and competent foes reveals the depth of Weber's analysis into the human condition. Values remain core despite the awesome technologies and the geopolitics of the distant future. The battle scenes are fantastic but it is the communication and personal development between so many well-woven characters that makes this book impossible to put down. I pass on these books to my father when I'm finished and he passes it on to my brother. I don't know what we shall do when we've caught up to the current book in the series. We're totally hooked and we know it!

David Weber's Harrington series is probably the most fun set of stories i have ever read. I have read all 9 titles (up to Ashes of Victory) and the 2 anthologies. All have provided at the very least 4 star entertainment, and usually better. But this book was above even those standards. There were many intertwined storylines, and the depth he gives the characters makes you actually care about them. Do yourself a favor and read all books in this series. And David Weber, please, PLEASE keep 'em coming.

Deep space. A huge, lumbering merchant vessel is bound down to a world when it's jumped by pirates. Several megatons of freighter, carrying millions in cargo, is lost.Needless to day, the great commerical houses and trading cartels of the Star Kingdom of Manticore are not best pleased with this situation. Unfortunately, the People's Republic of Haven is pressing heavily against the Royal Manticoran Navy, and there are no more ships to spare for escort duty. So Honor Harrington is recalled to active duty, and handed a 'squadron'. Her mission: take a bite out of the pirates affecting the trade routes into the Silesian Confederacy. No problem for a seasoned combat commander, right?Wrong. Here's the problems: 1) the RMN can't spare regular warships, so it's taken some large freighters and fitted them out with weapons and military-grade sensors. Unfortunately, they don't have military spec acceleration or shielding, and won't stand up to much of a pounding. 2) Personnel shortages means Honor gets stuck with new, inexperienced personnel and the dregs of the fleet. 3) The pirates are getting organized...One of the nice things about this novel is that we get to see something of a couple of 'lower-deckers' (like me), and how they deal with the threats, both from pirates and from some of the scumbags aboard their own ship.For the record, this was the first Honor Harrington novel I'd read, and I was sufficiently impressed that I went and bought the other five (at the time) books in one fell swoop. For my money, David Weber is right up there with Heinlein, Sturgeon and Drake.