How far did you make it in the Horatio Hornblower series? I started them at one point with the intention of reading them all, but I think I only made it through the first six. And as I recall I was reading them chronologically in universe rather in the order they were written in. If you have read the entire series do you recommend it?
I've read the whole series -- as far as I recall, it was some time ago -- and liked them. They're not as good as the Aubrey/Maturin series, but then again, what is?
OK I know why I don't like Patrick O'Brian; He's too erudite for me. (Hopefully I've used erudite in the wrong way.) If 1% of the word you use are words I don't know, then I'm either guessing at meaning or breaking the story and going to look it up. Patrick O, with active links to all the obscure phrases /words would work for me.
I haven't actually read the entire series - I read several books of it years ago, out of order and liked them. But I never actually got around to reading the whole series.
I've read them all many times. I love CS Forester. I'm going to say that the best way to read them is in the order they were written. Which means starting with "Beat to Quarters", then "Ship of the Line" and "Flying Colours" Titles from US editions.
I don't care for the Harrington series, but for different reasons, I think. I picked up one of them years and years back, and saw Harrington involved in a war against a republican society called Haven. One of its leaders was named Rob S. Pierre! And between that, and the physics and the astrography being carefully contrived to produce an analog of Age of Sail naval warfare, I felt that the events of the story had been dictated in advance by the real history for which Weber was writing fanfic, and thus NOT derived logically from the world that Weber had invented, and therefore what I was reading was not proper science fiction, though it wore the costume.
That discouraged me from reading any more of Weber for years and years. I picked him up again when one of his later books was nominated for the Prometheus Award, as a story about antislavery efforts; and it was more readable, but I still found it hard to be involved with the characters. They seemed more like figures in a historical pageant than real people with actual conflicts and hard choices to make.
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!
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.)
Interesting! Yes, Weber does portray the military and military-political relationships in Manticore very well. I couldn't say much myself about their realism, but they felt to me like something that easily be realistic, so I'm not surprised to hear you say they do feel realistic to you. I'll be very interested if you do write something on that score.
And I'm not faulting Weber's infodumps either! I'm definitely a more infodump-friendly reader; I pour eagerly through all of Tolkien's appendices.
About Hornblower's character... He's definitely the sort of person who can be irritating. I expect he'd be irritating if I met him in reality, and I'm not surprised to hear you find him irritating on the page of a book too. But, that comes from a strong character trait of his. He might be irritating, but he certainly isn't bland. I didn't find him irritating, but I'd rather take someone with an irritatingly strong character trait than someone who's bland.
How far did you make it in the Horatio Hornblower series? I started them at one point with the intention of reading them all, but I think I only made it through the first six. And as I recall I was reading them chronologically in universe rather in the order they were written in. If you have read the entire series do you recommend it?
I've read the whole series -- as far as I recall, it was some time ago -- and liked them. They're not as good as the Aubrey/Maturin series, but then again, what is?
So I read the first two books in the series and started the third, but it didn't work for me. I'd love to try again. Which book should I try?
Maybe you could try the 4th -- The Mauritius Command
Thx, I'll give it a read.
OK I know why I don't like Patrick O'Brian; He's too erudite for me. (Hopefully I've used erudite in the wrong way.) If 1% of the word you use are words I don't know, then I'm either guessing at meaning or breaking the story and going to look it up. Patrick O, with active links to all the obscure phrases /words would work for me.
I haven't actually read the entire series - I read several books of it years ago, out of order and liked them. But I never actually got around to reading the whole series.
I've read them all many times. I love CS Forester. I'm going to say that the best way to read them is in the order they were written. Which means starting with "Beat to Quarters", then "Ship of the Line" and "Flying Colours" Titles from US editions.
That's how I like reading most series - I can't think right now of any series that's really read better in another way.
I don't care for the Harrington series, but for different reasons, I think. I picked up one of them years and years back, and saw Harrington involved in a war against a republican society called Haven. One of its leaders was named Rob S. Pierre! And between that, and the physics and the astrography being carefully contrived to produce an analog of Age of Sail naval warfare, I felt that the events of the story had been dictated in advance by the real history for which Weber was writing fanfic, and thus NOT derived logically from the world that Weber had invented, and therefore what I was reading was not proper science fiction, though it wore the costume.
That discouraged me from reading any more of Weber for years and years. I picked him up again when one of his later books was nominated for the Prometheus Award, as a story about antislavery efforts; and it was more readable, but I still found it hard to be involved with the characters. They seemed more like figures in a historical pageant than real people with actual conflicts and hard choices to make.
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!
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.)
Interesting! Yes, Weber does portray the military and military-political relationships in Manticore very well. I couldn't say much myself about their realism, but they felt to me like something that easily be realistic, so I'm not surprised to hear you say they do feel realistic to you. I'll be very interested if you do write something on that score.
And I'm not faulting Weber's infodumps either! I'm definitely a more infodump-friendly reader; I pour eagerly through all of Tolkien's appendices.
About Hornblower's character... He's definitely the sort of person who can be irritating. I expect he'd be irritating if I met him in reality, and I'm not surprised to hear you find him irritating on the page of a book too. But, that comes from a strong character trait of his. He might be irritating, but he certainly isn't bland. I didn't find him irritating, but I'd rather take someone with an irritatingly strong character trait than someone who's bland.
Well, I got around to writing on the realism issue, covering not just Weber but Star Wars and a couple of other series, too:
https://www.navalgazing.net/The-Flavor-of-the-Military