On Basilisk Station

"On Basilisk Station" is the first book in a truly wonderful space opera series about a space navy set 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 this one. Despite the futuristic setting, there are strong parallels with Nelson's navy. The assumed technology in the Honor Harrington stories imposes constraints on space navy officers similar to those which the technology of fighting sail imposed on wet navy officers two hundred years ago. Aand 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: a number of 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 a little to C.S. Forester's character "Horatio Hornblower." In this first book of the series, the newly promoted Commander Honor Harrington takes up her first command of a significant fleet unit, the old light cruiser "H.M.S. Fearless" which has just been rebuilt with a very unusual armament. Honor Harrington comes from a middle-class family with no naval tradition - both her parents are doctors - and has worked her way up the officer ranks of the navy of the Star Kingdom of Manticore on pure ability with no influential family friends to support her. At times it seems that her only friend in the navy is her "Treecat" Nimitz. Treecats are six-legged creatures similar in size and shape to terran cats, who are fully telepathic among themselves and empaths with humans - e.g. they can read a human's emotions and sometimes form a unique bond with a specific human within which the exchange of emotions is two-way. Some people make the mistake of assuming that Nimitz is just Honor's pet cat: it will become clear during the series just how much more than that he is. After a short spell with the fleet, HMS Fearless is assigned to Basilisk station. The senior officer on the station turns out to be an enemy of Honor's going back to their time at Naval academy, and promptly takes his ship back home for repairs leaving her with orders to look after the Basilisk system and the completely inadequate force of one light cruiser with which to do so. As if that were not bad enough, a powerful and unfriendly neighbouring star nation, the "People's Republic of Haven" is casting greedy eyes at Basilisk and looking for an opportunity to grab the system. This is a really clever story with wonderful and believable characters, brilliantly described space battles, and a well crafted set of explanations of how the tactical situations which the characters find themselves in relate both to the technology their ships use and the political dynamics which set up the confli

What happens when you are given command of a ship that has been "gutted" in a naval experiment and are sent out to wargame against the big boys? Furthermore, what happens when you use your new system to take them all by surprise, ONCE, and then get demolished each time after that because everyone is now ready for the trick? Just to make matters worse, you embarass the admiral who came up with the one time gimmick. The answer is that you get sent off to a post no one wants where you will be out of sight and out of mind. That's what happens to Honor. Honor's task is virtually impossible and her enemies want her to fail. She dissapoints them in that she succeeds magnificnetly. Along the way, she becomes a naval hero in the tradition of Horatio Hornblower. Weber does a great job adapting the institutions of the Royal Navy from the Napoleonic wars into space opera. This is true in terms of politics and culture as well as in strategy and tactics. In its context, it is believable and fun. No one should expect a lesson in physics. That is not what this story is about. Instead, it is about, courage, leadership and, yes, Honor. It is a fun read and I am looking forward to the reset of the series.

Excellant Military Sci-Fi. But it's much more. Intrigue, gun-play, treachery, galactic politics, broadsides, covert ops, exotic alien life-forms, and Commander Honor Harrington, if you need something else, you're just being picky;) As usual for me, I bought a new paperback which caught my eye at the local bookseller, read the first chapter, put the book down utterly impressed (which is not usual), and sought out the rest of the series waiting to finish it in order. I was not disappointed, in fact; Weber is officially on my list of "Favorites", along with Steven Brust (though I stay away from his Dumas retellings), David Drake, and Robert Asprin. This book is a gem of the genre, and I finally found the 2nd book in the series today (Honor of the Queen) so I've got to cut this short (and start reading:)

This books marks the beginning of the Honor Harrington series. David Weber has managed to translate the napoleonic wars into a space setting, justifying it all with careful detail on the technology that makes it possible. The details are legion: ships and detachments months out of communications range, broadside battles, and the interspace war between a monarchy and a corrupt republic.But that isn't all. Although Weber spends some time (and written word) on establishing his world, he does not forget to let us get to know his main characters. The hero is Honor Harrington, Commander in the Manticoran Space Navy, commanding a light cruiser. But other characters, which will continue to reappear as the series goes on, also populate the pages, giving us glimpses (from the brief look into the merchant magnate Hauptmann to the breaking and remaking of Alistair McKeon) of characters whose complexity is clear and will only continue to develop. And of course, there is tension, both military and interpersonal, giving it all a nice sense of balance for those interested in characters and those interested in hardware. Weber also takes a lot of care to portray the military discipline of life aboard a ship of war realistically.I have recommended this book to a number of friends, and they all became hooked on the series. If you like science fiction with a good mixture of both hardness and space opera, then this book is definitely what you should read.

While I would rate Weber and Honor Harrington slightly below Lois McMaster Bujold and her continuing stories of Miles Vorkosigan that still leaves room for most other current SF to fall below the standard set here. (It's interesting that Bujold, a woman, writes about a male protagonist and Weber, a male, has a female hero.) And I haven't read the rest of the Honor series, so I still might have to revise my overall estimation. But, based on this one book, I have to say Weber and Honor deserve more than honorable mention! This is high quality space opera - a female Horatio Hornblower in outer space. I'm hooked. I've already bought the second book and I'm thinking about ordering a couple more so they'll be here by the time I finish the next one. And maybe I'd better stock up on some celery sticks for Nimitz, Honor's adopted tree-cat