At All Costs by David Weber
May. 5th, 2008 07:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snugglekittyThis book (which is the twelfth in the Honor Harrington series) describes the continuation of the titanic struggle between two galactic empires, the Kingdom of Manticore and the People's Republic of Haven. Unfortunately, I feel that reading it was also a titanic struggle. I think this was the fourth time I had to take it out of the library in order to finish it. At 827 pages, not counting the afterword and appendix, I'm pretty sure it's the longest Weber I've read.
The Kingdom of Manticore is in a serious pickle. Their intelligence was flawed, and the People's Republic of Haven has achieved a vast superiority in the strength of their fleet. Meanwhile, Honor Harrington is in a bit of a pickle herself - she is accidentally pregnant with the child of her married boss. (Oh nos!) In the background, puppetmasters are pulling invisible, and dangerous, strings. Can even the Salamander master the challenges ahead?
At this point in my life, I have realized that I actually prefer it when David Weber is writing with a co-author. When he uses a co-author (or, perhaps, let's face it, a ghost writer?) they tend to bring richer characters into the fold, and technical descriptions of space battles, while not necessarily easier to follow, are at least short. With all that being said, I think that Weber may be learning from his co-authors. The focus on Honor's personal life in this book was a pleasant surprise. (Of course, that means that somewhere between twenty and fifty pages out of the 800+ were devoted to it.) However, the space battles and descriptions of improvements in spaceship weaponry were still very long and hard to follow, and it continued to be fairly easy to confuse one character with another, even for someone who has read all previous eleven books (not to mention the anthologies and side stories). Some of the coincidences are also a bit hard to believe. Overall, it's very typical of Weber. Three stars, barely.
The Kingdom of Manticore is in a serious pickle. Their intelligence was flawed, and the People's Republic of Haven has achieved a vast superiority in the strength of their fleet. Meanwhile, Honor Harrington is in a bit of a pickle herself - she is accidentally pregnant with the child of her married boss. (Oh nos!) In the background, puppetmasters are pulling invisible, and dangerous, strings. Can even the Salamander master the challenges ahead?
At this point in my life, I have realized that I actually prefer it when David Weber is writing with a co-author. When he uses a co-author (or, perhaps, let's face it, a ghost writer?) they tend to bring richer characters into the fold, and technical descriptions of space battles, while not necessarily easier to follow, are at least short. With all that being said, I think that Weber may be learning from his co-authors. The focus on Honor's personal life in this book was a pleasant surprise. (Of course, that means that somewhere between twenty and fifty pages out of the 800+ were devoted to it.) However, the space battles and descriptions of improvements in spaceship weaponry were still very long and hard to follow, and it continued to be fairly easy to confuse one character with another, even for someone who has read all previous eleven books (not to mention the anthologies and side stories). Some of the coincidences are also a bit hard to believe. Overall, it's very typical of Weber. Three stars, barely.