# Any Honor Harrington fans? At All Costs **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 3, 2005, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-honor-harrington-fans-at-all-costs/329229 "2005-11-03T02:56:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Coil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Coil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coil)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2005, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-honor-harrington-fans-at-all-costs/329229/21 "2005-11-03T11:31:40Z")
Oh, is it out now? _open up another window and check fave bookstore_ Seems I need to pick up something after work. šŸ™‚ Iā€™m reading Shadows of Saganami right now, Iā€™m only a couple of chapters into that on right now though. ---
**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2005, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-honor-harrington-fans-at-all-costs/329229/22 "2005-11-03T13:10:06Z")
Does that mean The Spirit of Saganami is in paperback? Brian ---
**Author:** ![MilTan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@MilTan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MilTan)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2005, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-honor-harrington-fans-at-all-costs/329229/23 "2005-11-03T13:46:13Z")
> [@N9IWP](#): > > Does that mean The Spirit of Saganami is in paperback? What is this _Spirit of Saganami_ book that everyone is talking about? I thought it was the _Shadow of Saganami_? ---
**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2005, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-honor-harrington-fans-at-all-costs/329229/24 "2005-11-03T15:26:03Z")
It is indeed _Shadow of Saganami_ and my limited search didnā€™t find it in paperback. Brian ---
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2005, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-honor-harrington-fans-at-all-costs/329229/25 "2005-11-03T15:43:59Z")
Iā€™m occasionally a cheapass, and for that Iā€™m glad the first 13 books in the series are available at [http://www.baen.com/library/](http://www.baen.com/library/) although some digging is necessary for anything past the first nine. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2005, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-honor-harrington-fans-at-all-costs/329229/26 "2005-11-03T15:51:40Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Well, Eric Flint is another of my up and coming favorites these days (if heā€™d just get on with writing/publishing the \*\*next damn Ring of Fire \*\* book already!) > -XT [hijack] [April 2006](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1416520600/qid=1131033020/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-0811009-6167959?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2005, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-honor-harrington-fans-at-all-costs/329229/27 "2005-11-03T15:57:47Z")
> [@N9IWP](#): > > It is indeed Shadow of Saganami and my limited search didnā€™t find it in paperback. Yesā€¦sorry about that everyone. Shadow not Spirit. It was late last night. šŸ™‚ Afaik its not in paperback yetā€¦but then I never bother to wait for the paperbacks on series Iā€™m dieing to read. > [@hildea](#): > > Iā€™ve read several of the Honor Harrington books (not all yet, so I darenā€™t look at the black boxes), and mostly like them, but I find it annoying that sheā€™s so darn perfect. In everything. Send her through a time warp to the viking age, and sheā€™ll wipe the deck with Olav Tryggvason in a dancing-on-the-oars-while-the-longship-is-being-rowed-contest and beat Egil Skallagrimsson in swordfighting and poetry, while navigating the peculiarities of local honour codes flawlessly. Send her to Victorian England, and sheā€™ll kick ass in an embroidery contest. Sheā€™s best, always, and sheā€™s always right. As others have said, she most definitely has flawsā€¦some minor, some major. She is far from perfect. One other thing I really like is that, while something like 70% of humans (IIRC) are able to regenerate, Honor isnā€™t one of them. So she pays an ever higher price for the things she doesā€¦not just mentally for those who die under her command but physically. To me that makes her VERY human and far from ā€˜perfectā€™ā€¦but in a good way that strikes an emotional cord. Add that the obviously vulnerability of her Treecat, and the sword over her head if Nimitz dies and the fact that she is driven to succeed at all costs (both to herself and to those around her, even those she most loves) and its quite an emotional ride every time the missiles start to fly. > [@Flutterby](#): > > Maybe I should pick up the first one and start thereā€¦ Always a good place to start. šŸ™‚ IIRC that book was a pretty good oneā€¦though the story gets better from there IMHO. If you read and liked Horatio Hornblower youā€™ll both recognize and like this series. -XT ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2005, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-honor-harrington-fans-at-all-costs/329229/28 "2005-11-03T16:01:03Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > [hijack] April 2006 [/hijack] No worriesā€¦feel free to hijack any thread I start with news about Eric Flint and the Ring of Fire series. šŸ™‚ Butā€¦I could have sworn that the next book was going to be called something different. I knew it was going to be a 1634 book, but I thought it had a different title than The Ram Rebellion. I wonder if EF changed the name for some reason? -XT ---
**Author:** ![Stuffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f17d59/32.png) [@Stuffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stuffy)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2005, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-honor-harrington-fans-at-all-costs/329229/29 "2005-11-03T16:09:30Z")
I finished Shadow of Sagami Sunday and will pick up At All Cost my next time at the bookstore. **N9IWP** my copy is paperback I picked it up at Barnes & Noble. Did anyone noticeā€¦{Shadow Spoiler} He never went back to what happened on Split after the raid on Camp Freedom (which contained only one cell). At last mention Norbrandtā€™s mourning her dead and planning revenge and she stills has modern weapons ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2005, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-honor-harrington-fans-at-all-costs/329229/30 "2005-11-03T16:21:09Z")
> [@Stuffy](#): > > He never went back to what happened on Split after the raid on Camp Freedom (which contained only one cell). At last mention Norbrandtā€™s mourning her dead and planning revenge and she stills has modern weapons Iā€™m going from memory hereā€¦its been a while since I read Shadow. I think though that after the battle in which the Manties uncovered Manpowers involvement (and in which several Solie battle crusiers were destroyed), as well as with the relevation that Manpower had been providing the weapons, that for all intents and purposes the rebellion was overā€¦Manticor was going to annex the entire cluster and Manpower wasnā€™t going to be able to stop them short of all out war. It was a major propaganda coup for the Manties. So, even if Norbrandt COULD still fight on (actually, I thought they tied that up but Iā€™m probably misremembering), what would be the point? Its a done deal, at least thats how I remember it. They make several references to all this in At All Cost BTW. -XT ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2005, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-honor-harrington-fans-at-all-costs/329229/31 "2005-11-03T16:22:23Z")
Woopsā€¦that didnā€™t come out right. Can someone report my last post so a mod can clean up the encoding so folks that donā€™t want to read the spoiler wonā€™t? No idea what I did wrong there. ā˜¹ -XT ---
**Author:** ![Lok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e8c25b/32.png) [@Lok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lok)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2005, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-honor-harrington-fans-at-all-costs/329229/32 "2005-11-03T17:42:23Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > No worriesā€¦feel free to hijack any thread I start with news about Eric Flint and the Ring of Fire series. šŸ™‚ Butā€¦I could have sworn that the next book was going to be called something different. I knew it was going to be a 1634 book, but I thought it had a different title than The Ram Rebellion. I wonder if EF changed the name for some reason? > > -XT The next one was supposed to be 1634: The Baltic War, and then another 1634 book. I donā€™t remember seeing The Ram Rebellion on the list at all. šŸ˜• But I wonā€™t complain except for the length of time I have to wait for it. Lok ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2005, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-honor-harrington-fans-at-all-costs/329229/33 "2005-11-03T18:20:01Z")
> [@Lok](#): > > The next one was supposed to be 1634: The Baltic War, and then another 1634 book. I donā€™t remember seeing The Ram Rebellion on the list at all. But I wonā€™t complain except for the length of time I have to wait for it. I wonā€™t complain either, though Iā€™d really like him to get back to the main story line sometime before I grow too old to read it. I want to find out whats going to happen with the new ships, what France is going to do and whats going to happen to Cromwell and England! I can understand why heā€™s doing a lot of the back story and it really fleshes things out but Iā€™m dieing to find out whats going to happen as the story moves forward. -XT ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2005, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-honor-harrington-fans-at-all-costs/329229/34 "2005-11-03T19:31:31Z")
OK, **xtisme** , I fixed your coding. For future ref, it wouldā€™ve been a little faster/easier if you would have reported the post above yours and just made it clear in the REPORT what you were asking for. Otherwise, you have to hope someone comes along and sees your request and reports it for you, so just delays the process. And, for everyoneā€™s attention, spoiler tags and quote tags unfortunately are wonky together (a quote within a spoiler is visible.) So, ā€œpreviewā€ is your friend. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2005, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-honor-harrington-fans-at-all-costs/329229/35 "2005-11-03T20:33:43Z")
Is ā€˜wonkyā€™ the technical term? šŸ™‚ Thanks Dexterā€¦and thanks for the advice for future reference. I donā€™t use the report button much and hadnā€™t thought about reporting the post above mine. Will do in the future. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2005, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-honor-harrington-fans-at-all-costs/329229/36 "2005-11-03T20:53:16Z")
> [@](#): > > while navigating the peculiarities of local honour codes flawlessly. Navigating peculiarities of local honour codes is one of those things which Honor does _not_ do well. More like, she follows her own honour code wherever and whenever she is, and if the local honour code matches, so much the better. If the local code doesnā€™t match, she clobbers the naysayers until it does. Itā€™s like how one of my classmates describes his method for difficult homework assignments: ā€œSquare peg. Round hole. Big hammer.ā€ ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2005, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-honor-harrington-fans-at-all-costs/329229/37 "2005-11-03T21:24:03Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Navigating peculiarities of local honour codes is one of those things which Honor does _not_ do well. More like, she follows her own honour code wherever and whenever she is, and if the local honour code matches, so much the better. If the local code doesnā€™t match, she clobbers the naysayers until it does. > > Itā€™s like how one of my classmates describes his method for difficult homework assignments: ā€œSquare peg. Round hole. Big hammer.ā€ ROFL. I suppose he is a fan of the ā€œget bigger hammerā€ theory as well. I have been quite impressed with the Honor Harrington books. Only Cherryh gets more of my attention than Weber. Trouble is, heā€™s starting to run out of room, which is what leads to the ā€œshadowā€ concept. I think (without having read the new one) that heā€™ll be hard pressed to really take the series anywhere now that he has decent people running the Republic. Yes, lots of plots can be thought of, but part of what makes HH so great is that she is a shining beacon opposed to utter blackness, usually. Time he started a new universe, or went to the other side of the same one, much as Cherryh did. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2005, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-honor-harrington-fans-at-all-costs/329229/38 "2005-11-03T22:15:27Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > I have been quite impressed with the Honor Harrington books. Only Cherryh gets more of my attention than Weber. Trouble is, heā€™s starting to run out of room, which is what leads to the ā€œshadowā€ concept. I think (without having read the new one) that heā€™ll be hard pressed to really take the series anywhere now that he has decent people running the Republic. Yes, lots of plots can be thought of, but part of what makes HH so great is that she is a shining beacon opposed to utter blackness, usually. Actually the series is headed into a completely different direction than it was before. I wonā€™t get into that direction as you havenā€™t read the latest book, but its worth readingā€¦and trust me there is a TON of room out there in where its headed. As for the Shadow bookā€¦I think that the new trend for guys who write series for Baen (and Tor) are to write books in the same universe that only touch on the main story in a tangential way. Iā€™ve noticed several authors who write for this publisher do thisā€¦and they also collaborate with each other on writing these books. I donā€™t think it really has anything to do with a faltering story lineā€¦its more about getting authors to collaborate together, bringing in new blood to write with established authors and so transfer some of the experience and perhaps fame to themā€¦and of course, its about the money. šŸ™‚ Just MHO there. But if nothing else check the book out from the library or get it when it comes out in paperbackā€¦I donā€™t think youā€™ll be sorry. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Flutterby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Flutterby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flutterby)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2005, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-honor-harrington-fans-at-all-costs/329229/39 "2005-11-04T00:38:07Z")
> [@Lok](#): > > **Flutterby** , I would recommend that as a starting point. There are a lot of characters and history that accumulate through the series. Just donā€™t get too attached to too many of the people, the last I heard, there are only 2 that are quaranteed to not die, and Honor isnā€™t one of them. šŸ˜‰ > > Lok What as a place to start? The beginning or _Field of Dishonor_? šŸ˜‰ Iā€™ll see if the library has _On Basilisk Station_, if not see itā€™s at the Baen free library. > [@xtisme](#): > > Always a good place to start. šŸ™‚ IIRC that book was a pretty good oneā€¦though the story gets better from there IMHO. If you read and liked Horatio Hornblower youā€™ll both recognize and like this series. I have a bad habit of starting series halfway through, or near the end of whatā€™s been written so far. Then I end up going back and reading the rest (usually). I did enjoy the Horatio Hornblower that I read. Been meaning to go back and read the rest of that too! ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2005, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-honor-harrington-fans-at-all-costs/329229/40 "2005-11-04T01:49:01Z")
> [@Flutterby](#): > > I have a bad habit of starting series halfway through, or near the end of whatā€™s been written so far. Then I end up going back and reading the rest (usually). I did enjoy the Horatio Hornblower that I read. Been meaning to go back and read the rest of that too! Well, while I wouldnā€™t recommend starting in the middle, this is probably one series where you could (IMO you could do the same for Horatio Hornblower too if you wanted too :)). Still, if you can get On Basilisk Station, I certainly recommend itā€¦if nothing else for the climatic battle scene at the end. -XT [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-honor-harrington-fans-at-all-costs/329229.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-honor-harrington-fans-at-all-costs/329229.md?page=3)