Honorverse Today

As promised, in this episode we discuss the second novel in the Manticore Ascendant series:  A Call to Arms.  Written by David Weber, Timothy Zahn and Tom Pope, the story of Travis Long continues after he’s completed his training to become a commissioned officer.  We join him back in the fleet with a few years of commissioned time under his belt and wearing the bars of an ensign.

In many ways Travis has grown and matu...

Lately there are times it seems we’re getting close to the end of our adventure through the Honorverse and then a little reminder like this happens:  we’re discussing the first book in another four-book story arc!  In this episode we’re talking about A Call to Duty, kicking off the Manticore Ascendant series.  This novel was authored by David Weber, Timothy Zahn and Thomas Pope.

You’ll remember a while back we read a ...

Now it’s time to dive right into the third book in the Crown of Slaves series:  Cauldron of Ghosts, co-authored by David Weber and Eric Flint.  It won’t be a surprise to any of our regular listeners, but this book ties to the previous book we covered based on publication order.  That said, this is a particularly tight coupling as this book is often considered a literal and direct continuation of the story in Shadow o...

This time we’re looking at the third book in the Saganami Island part of the Honorverse story arc:  Shadow of Freedom.

We’re solidly in the year 1922 PD and Admiral Michelle Henke takes care of yet more trouble presented by the Solarian League.  This is tied to a scenario set up to make the Star Empire of Manticore look bad in a way that would cost them the trust of independent star systems moving forward.  She exerci...

What a surprise!  Due to a quick turn of events we’re able to interrupt our regularly scheduled program for a very special treat.  Instead of discussing Shadow of Freedom, we were privileged to have Jane Lindskold join us, along with another visit by David Weber.  As far as we can tell, there’s no better reason to interrupt the plan than this.  This was the first time we’ve had the chance to enjoy Jane’s company...

We move into the third book in the Star Kingdom series: Treecat Wars, by David Weber and Jane Lindskold.  Published by Baen, this 376-page gem first hit the street in September 2013.   With the brutal fire season over, Stephanie and her friend Anders are heading off to Manticore after being selected to attend Forestry Service ranger school.  Stephanie’s story, along with her three friends Anders, Jessica and Karl, is...

Beginnings is the sixth (and second to last) book in the Worlds of Honor anthology set.  It contains five short stories, penned by four talented authors:  David Weber, Charles E. Gannon, Timothy Zahn, and Joelle Presby.  Each of these stories brings us to interesting and important beginnings for many events that we’ve become familiar with in the Honorverse but have often gone with little or no explanation.

This collec...

“A Rising Thunder” basically picks up where “Mission of Honor” left off, with events that begin in April 1922 PD and span about five months.  We’re back in the main sequence, and it seems hard to believe that this novel is the second to the last of the core novels!  But we’re not close to being done with the Honorverse content, with lots of material from the related series and anthologies still to cover.   And don’t ...

We are jumping right into the second book in the Star Kingdom series, this one titled Fire Season.  This one’s a joint venture between David Weber and the now-familiar Jane Lindskold.  Published by Baen, it came out at a comfortable 287 pages in October 2012.  In the previous Star Kingdom novel, we met an 11-year-old Stephanie Harrington in part 1, then moved forward in Stephanie’s life, approximately 16 months in Pa...

Well, we’re finally breaking into the Star Kingdom series, starting with the novel entitled A Beautiful Friendship.  While they’re closely 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.

...

“In Fire Forged” is the fifth anthology in the Honorverse, containing three short stories and another technical writing.  We see the return of two favorite co-authors:  Jane Lindskold bringing us the short story “Ruthless” and Timothy Zahn who hits us hard with his short story “An Act of War”.  David Weber brings us the third short story entitled “Let’s Dance”, which is really a novella disguised as a short story.&nb...

Although the timing wasn’t openly discussed, you all knew we had a second interview with David Weber in the works.  Well, our calendars finally aligned, and we are excited to drop the second interview with the creator of the Honorverse into the feed.

We covered somewhere between 15 and 20 questions, including quite a few listener questions.  Even so, it shouldn’t surprise any of you that we still have a list of questions w...

Mission of Honor brings us back to the main series/sequence, as we look at the twelfth novel in that line of the Honorverse story.  The events in this ~600-page gem occur between late 1921 through the middle of 1922 PD.  Having developed the breadth and depth of some significant events in the overall storyline, David moves away from the technique he’s used across several previous books to layer and unfold important - and ...

As promised, here we are, back in the Crown of Slaves series talking about “Torch of Freedom”, another essential book assisting us in our passage through the Honorverse. This is the second of the novels that comprise the Crown of Slaves series or set of books within the Honorverse. As with the others in this set, Eric Flint was David Weber’s co-author.  The influence of his writing style and perspectives absolutely help us del...

Swinging back to the Saganami Island series, in this episode we discuss the second book entitled “Storm from the Shadows”.

Similar to the previous novel, this is another of several that cover certain key events in the 1921 PD timeframe, but from a different perspective.  This time a lot of what we see is through Admiral Michele Henke’s eyes. 

We made this point in the podcast and want to re-enforce it here:  this isn’t...

We’re back in the “main series” to discuss the eleventh novel, “At All Costs”. While this is the eleventh of fourteen novels here, we’re only about halfway through all the Honorverse content. So, if you’re enjoying the podcast don’t worry, there’s lots more to come!

The timeframe of this novel has us overlapping some of the events we saw in “The Shadow of Saganami.” Again, this is in no way a rehash of events. What David Weber i...

We’ve already put out toes in the water of the Wages of Sin series (more commonly known as the Crown of Slaves series), and we’ll return to it soon enough. In this episode we discuss the first book in the Saganami Island series, entitled “The Shadow of Saganami”.

Events in this novel overlap with and complement, to some extent, events we read about in “Service of the Sword”, “War of Honor” and “Crown of Slaves”. Don’t worry though...

With this series and novel, our adventure shifts away from the story featuring Honor Harrington as the main character or even seeing her as the focal point.  Even so, she’s not gone and appears in the periphery quite often.  Remember, this “related” storyline doesn’t mean we’re shifting away from the “main” storyline.  As you’ll see, we are not.  The Wages of Sin series, and this first novel in it, are absolutel...

Here we are, already discussing the fourth Honorverse anthology entitled The Service of the Sword.  This collection of six short stories written by six authors was originally published in April 2003 by Baen.  While we’ll call them “short” stories, two of them are novella-length (or arguably longer), so if you haven’t read this collection yet, be aware that a couple of these stories are lengthy.  The book is long, and...