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James J. Heaney's avatar

Everything you said here is correct and, as of Book 7, none of these problems improve. Some of them worsen! Weber seems to try to address some of them but clearly just doesn't know how -- and, at this point, couldn't do it without compromising the fundamental flavor of the series. The books are bad literature.

HOWEVER!

I still enjoy reading the Honor books, and I usually treat myself to one per year.

The pleasure of an Honor Harrington book does not come from the character development (there is often drama but never development). Instead, they are puzzle boxes. Early in the book, Honor finds herself in a Situation. We explore the dimensions of that situation with her, and, as we learn about the situation (through worldbuilding, which, as you agree, Weber is pretty good at), the situation deteriorates. Eventually, it reaches a critical point where I throw up my hands and say, "Welp, she's gotta be toast. There's no way out of this one."

Honor, who is perfect, then solves the puzzle.

She plays by the rules: we, the reader, have already been told what resources are available to her. Through worldbuilding, we have been told how these resources can be put to use. During whatever passes for a plot, Honor has flawlessly developed some resources (usually her personnel) against the critical moment, and we have seen her do it. We usually even know several things Honor doesn't, thanks to scenes from the enemy perspective. Yet I see no solution. Honor does, and the fun is watching her unspool it. It's like a Hercule Poirot climax, except with sidewalls and laser-nuke warheads, plus a lot of blurry background characters dying glorious deaths.

So, the good news is, if you abandon your expectations of getting literature out of this, there is fun to be had. You might miss that fun if you are looking for the kinds of interesting human choices that make literature, but it's there. (Of course, this kind of fun might not be your cuppa.)

The bad news is, you have already all three of the best books in the series (at least as of Book 7). Weber becomes more distracted, later in the series, with showing us what I call "Honor's trophy room": here's all the stuff Honor's accomplished in past books! Here are all these people showing her respect! Go Honor! This does NOT create a Situation and functions as mere throat-clearing, which takes longer and longer to get through in each successive book.

Also, Weber thinks I remember or care about literally anyone on literally any of Honor's crews. Like, there's always a moment where some crewmember shows up and we're clearly supposed to go, "Oh! It's Ensign Blurry McGunnerstan! Good ol' Blurry! But look! He's a full-bird Lieutenant now, and he's back on Honor's crew to whip the newbies into shape! Aw, Blurry, we knew you'd make it!" I just stare blankly at these passages.

Sitting here, right now, the only non-Honor characters I can remember are her steward, McGuiness (?) who is stereotypically a steward; Admiral White Haven, because he has an outrageously long title I like to chuckle about with my sister; one of her former X.O.'s, who I call "John Harriman" in honor of the Star Trek character he resembled but I'm pretty sure that's not his name; Pawel Evilpants, the villain for several books; Honor's love interest, who certainly existed; Rob S. Pierre, because that's an even more incredible name for the bad guy than Pawel Evilpants and I made that one up; and her treecat, Sprouts. Or Boots. Or something. No wait! Nimitz! Got there in the end.

But I keep reading them, so there's something there that keeps pulling me back!

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bean's avatar

Interestingly, I have the exact opposite view on this. I would rank the Honorverse books among my favorite Sci-Fi, although a lot of that is for worldbuilding and general plot, while I tried to read Hornblower and bounced hard because I just could not put up with his constant negativity. I'm not really disputing your characterization of Honor (although it does get a bit better in later books), but what you say makes Hornblower interesting struck me as deeply irritating and unrealistic. Some of this may just be what Forester writes in terms of characters. The Ship was good, as it didn't linger too long on anyone, while The Good Shepard was tolerable given the circumstances, but I'm just not a fan of that kind of depression.

(My major pluses about Harrington are that the society and military feel very realistic in a way that isn't common in SF and that I should probably talk about more, and Weber shows his work enough that I can relax and not run around checking for perpetual motion machines the way I find myself compelled to do a lot of the time. Yes, I am defending the infodumps.)

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