At the end of A Rising Thunder (Honor Harrington Series, 2012), Manticore and Haven finally make peace – and conclude an alliance against the Solarian League – and against the Mesan Alignment, now that they know it exists and manipulated the two star nations into war in the first place. Beowulf announces its intention to secede from the Solarian League. Honor predicts the League is on its last legs, but that as it breaks up into a multitude of successor states, Manticore can hope to make friends and trading partners of those states. Meanwhile, the Alignment’s leader, Albrecht Detweiler, meets with the Renaissance Factor, a group of rulers and leaders of various League systems who are secretly Alignment deep-cover agents. The Alignment also believes the League is on its last legs, and hopes the Renaissance Factor can be the nucleus for its re-formation – as an instrument of Alignment rule.
At the end of Shadow of Freedom (Saganami Island series, 2013), Admiral Michelle Henke decides, without orders from the Admiralty (which will provide the government with plausible deniability if things go wrong), to take her fleet from the Talbott Quadrant to the Mesa System and finally Do Something about Mesa.
At the end of Cauldron of Ghosts (Crown of Slaves series, 2014), the Alignment activates Operation Houdini and pulls all its “inside the onion” personnel off Mesa, spiriting them away to a location undisclosed but presumably the Alignment-held planet Gamma in the Darius System (the very existence of which is unknown outside the Alignment, and from where Operation Oyster Bay/the Yawata Strike was launched). To cover the tracks of so many disappearances they set off a number of bombs which are blamed on Seccie terrorists, sparking a civil war between the government and the Seccies – but Admiral Henke arrives in the Mesa System just in time to call a halt to the war (and thus save the lives of Victor Cachat and Anton Zilwicki).
What next? What does Henke do next? What does the Alignment do next?
I lost interest in the main-thread Honor Harrington series at the point where I picked one up at a bookstore, read the dust-jacket summary, and still wasn’t sure whether I had already read that one or not. Weber’s definitely lost it with that series-- It’s just treading water at this point, not making any actual progress.
The Crown of Slaves books still seem interesting, though, and I hadn’t realized there was a third one of them. So thanks for that.
But it illustrates the problem. It seems to me that I’ve already read the novel where Manticore and Haven make peace and declare war on Mesa, but I don’t think I remember them quite getting to the point of them declaring on the League as a whole, and I’m pretty sure Beowulf wasn’t talking secession, nor was Mesa actually activating its deep-cover agents. Did Manticore and Haven declare this-time-we-really-mean-it peace (and war) in this one, with the one I remember just being steps in that direction? Did I actually read the latest, and just forgot about the other parts, or misremembered them as mere steps? All the changes have been so gradual and incremental and just-wait-for-next-time that I’m not even sure.
BG, never fear, I am also a Honorverse fan, in fact, I am in the process of re-reading the entire ‘mainline’ series (up to Chapter 5 of War of Honor).
But I do agree with Chronos, the last three books you mentioned all cover the same period of time (measured in months instead of years as his earlier books did) and seem to be treading water. However, the Mad Wizard Weber has promised to wrap up this arc in two more books, one coming out either late 2016 or early 2017 (working title “Shadows of Victory”), and the last one in time for the 25th anniversary of the first Honor Harrington title. We shall see.
I think part of the problem was that Weber (mild spoiler ahead) intended to kill off Honor Harrington in “At All Costs” and resume years later with her children/some of the younger characters he developed. But he re-evaluated when Eric Flint wrote in his stories in the Honorverse and now has to wind up this arc in a different way than was originally intended.
Brain Glutton, if you are not a member, I suggest visiting http://forums.davidweber.net/ where we discuss the series in great detail.
I’m in the same boat as Chronos and Declan. And seriously, “Shadows of Victory” ? He’s had 3 “Shadow” titles so far, and two “Victory” titles (and 11 "of"s, but I’ll give him those). Can’t he come up with an original title?
I’m guessing here, but if he really does plan to wrap it up in two more books, then it seems only natural to leave the “Honor” title for the final volume.
But yeah, what I have heard described so far (bits and pieces from SF cons which would be spoilers that I don’t plan to share) seems to be a mishmash from all three series, trying to tie them together for the big ending.