The Honor of the Queen

David Weber has created Science fiction's equivalent of C.S. Forrestor's Horatio Hornblower saga with his ongoing saga of his heroine, Honor Harrington. With her faithful, and empathic, treecat Nimitz, this series is a true delight. This is swashbuckling, space opera sci-fi at its best, with excellent characters, a vibrant universe, complete with an intriguing socio-political plot which drives the overall plot of the background of this fascinating universe."The Honor of the Queen," the 2nd novel in the Honor Harrington weries, takes place a couple of years after the events of "On Basilik Station." Honor has command of the cruiser Fearless, an up-to-date modern heavy cruiser, and is given command of a small squadron of ships to take on a dilpomatic mission to the planet Grayson in the Yeltsin system. Honor's Star Kingdom of Manticore is seeking allies against the People's Republic of Haven (Peeps) which has been funding its welfare-state economy by conquering and looting worlds.The good news for Honor is that the diplomatic mission is commanded by her mentor, Admiral Raoul Courvosier, detached from the Navy to the Foreign Office for this mission. The bad news: Grayson is a feudal planet, a planet founded by religious zealots, a planet where women don't even have the right to vote, and equality of the sexes is unheard of. to say nothing of the idea of women serving in the military. And no one's told the Graysons that the Manticoran commanding officer is a woman.It's bad enough that Honor has to deal with sexism form the Graysons, but even worse, Grayson's long standing war with the far more extreme and repressive zealots who live on the planet Massada is heating up, dramatically. Even worse, the Peeps are attempting to take advantage of the situation.This is a truly enjoyable novel, with a high fun factor. Mr. Weber does a nice job of portraying the conflicted nature of much of the Grayson high command, and he takes the relationship between Honor and Nimitz even further than before. Mr. Weber's chaacters are fascinating, and a number of characters introduced in this novel will be recurring characters throughout this series.

It's fair to call this (the second in the series) a very pivotal book, because the main character's entire future is completely transformed by its events. While the books are designed to stand alone well enough, the only way to understand some of the key relationships is to read them in sequence.Religious and gender issues come to the forefront here, with Honor experiencing attitudes almost unheard of in her homeland. This is the only part of the book that is questionable in its consistency: Honor's emotional reaction to the situation is a little too emotional for someone supposedly raised in such an egalitarian society. Even allowing for a couple of very bad experiences in her career, and that words can hurt some people more than pulser fire, I can't see a character as strong as Honor taking her ball and going away--even briefly--just because the nasty sexists are rude to her. She's too strong a woman for that. However, that said, the remainder of the personal interaction picture in the book is creative, sensible and richly interesting. Weber is not afraid to have permanent consequences to characters and no one's future and health, not even Honor's, are certain.Although Weber takes an awkward turn once in awhile, this is still some of the most engrossing space opera out there--especially in terms of a well-developed heroine who enjoys a growing position of authority and respect. This series will be of special interest to persons of the Christian faith; while the opening pages of this book make you think that you're on the way down the path of stereotyping, as the portrait of Grayson develops, even someone of entirely different beliefs (such as myself) comes to respect and like a lot about Graysons and their faith. Good stuff.

As I stated in my title I feel sorry for the Peeps as once again they are pitted against our very formible and lovable Honor Harrington.Honor Harrington this time must stop them from conquering the peaceful but backward planet of Grayson and she and Nimitz foil a assasination attempt on Grayson's leader in a gripping and very violent action sequence.This novel like the other ones in the series has all the right ingredients:above average universe-crafting and characterization.Weber's military action sequences are first-rate!

This book is an excellent piece of work, both from the perspective of character development and from the perspective of technical details. Weber develops highly enjoyable characters of considerable depth, but manages to include enough data regarding technological considerations to actually provide a plausible "guesstimate" of what future military personnel may face as humanity goes out into space. He also includes some interesting speculative sociology, as the star nation Honor Harrington is trying to help are the descendents of extremely conservative fundamentalist Christians, with some very outmoded and counterproductive ideas regarding the "proper place" of women in society. One of the most interesting themes in the book revolves around the mutual discomfort that Harrington and her prospective allies feel toward each other, and how this gradually evolves to respect. Do yourself a favor and read this book!

I was pleasantly surprised that the second book in this series was better than the first (which was awesome). The character development of Honor Harrington in the book is solid and deep. Action packed, good story. I passed this and other Honor Harrington books because of the female lead character. I made a BIG MISTAKE. The is one of the best sci-fi book I have read in a LONG time. Honor Harrington makes other space heros (Cpt. Kirk and company) look like whimps! But read On Basilisk Station first.