At All Costs

There are a lot of aspects to this. People doing the right thing for the wrong reason, people doing the wrong thing for the right reason, people (Elizabeth!) holding on to grudges and distrust (not totally unreasonably, from her/their point of view) and ruining the best chance to make things right. The bloody Mesans actually managing to exert surreptitious control. A lot of disasters, and good people (on all sides) dying. I don't really like the 'David and the Phoenix' motif running through the book - I've read it, and it did not impress me nearly as much as it did Weber. I don't know, I don't really like this story. Too much politics, and when it does get to space battle it tends to be one overwhelming force battering another to death show more - only to be battered to death in its turn.... Very grim, even at the most cheerful parts, and there aren't a lot of those. It is a _good_ book, but it's not fun to read. I hope the branching out into different characters will lighten up the Honorverse - there were equally strong stories told without the unrelenting grimness of this one in the earlier books. show less

This is another five star Honor Harrington book. It seems all I ever give those books are five stars. But I think they're that good. This book has a 4.15 out of 5 rating on Goodreads, so a lot of people obviously like it, but most of the reviews I read were one and two star reviews simply bitching about it. And I don't understand that. Why are they even reading this series if they don't like the characters, the kingdoms and systems, the politics -- which are essential to the plot -- the battles, etc? I think these people giving these books one stars are idiots and need to be reading something else, something besides military sci fi, obviously.

I think this book is a turning point in the series, even though the series is drawing to a show more close. Honor gets pregnant and via tubing, gives birth to a baby boy. Everyone's happy. However, maybe not everyone. See, the people on her planet of Grayson wouldn't understand a single, unmarried woman giving birth to a bastard child, so someone must think about a solution. She, of course, has been seeing Earl White Haven, and by extension, his crippled wife, Emily, who also gets pregnant and gives birth to a baby girl. The grand solution? Honor marries them. Both of them. I know, it's crazy and no one protests at all, but she does it and I guess it satisfies people. However, I would have liked it if Weber had written some people's reactions into the book.

Meanwhile, the diplomatic documents going back and forth between Manticore and Haven have been sabotaged, so both make plans to restart the war, and many have misgivings about it. Honor is selected to lead Manticore's fleet and they strike first and draw blood. However, Haven has developed a huge fleet and attacks a planet and does even more damage. Haven's president wants to end the war and sends a peace proposal to Queen Elizabeth who grudgingly agrees to meet with her in a neutral location. However, three separate assassination attacks take place leading to some gruesome Manticorian deaths, all of which point to Haven, so Manticore gears up to restart the war once more. Haven knows they're not responsible, but they also know Manticore assumes they are, so they plan to put together the biggest, strongest fleet ever assembled and attack Manticore's home system and end the war with Manticore's surrender. And so develops the biggest, baddest, coolest space battle you'll ever read about. Hundreds of superdreadnaughts and thousands of LACs fly and die. Millions of people die. And who wins? Well, you have to read the book, of course! It's a pretty awesome and big section of the book, though. Weber really knows how to write battle scenes. It's his greatest strength.

From events that occur in this book, it looks like Manticore is about to gain a new enemy for future books. That's pretty bad for a kingdom suddenly without much of a fleet, since their fleet has been shot to hell. But I'll take that bridge when I come to it in the next book. I'm anxious to see Honor get back to Grayson to settle things with the opposition steadholders. Very anxious to see that. If you're reading this series, this book is strongly recommended. If you're not reading this series, don't start with this book -- you won't know half of what's going on. Awesome book. show less

In this episode, Manticore is at a serious disadvantage. Haven has had a number of military victories which have destroyed much of the industrial infrastructure that was building units for the Manticoran Navy. The Manticorans have always had fewer people than Haven but they made up that disadvantage by having much better military hardware. Now the odds are even more in Haven's favor.

But Haven isn't really interested in pursuing military victory. Their new government only went to war in the hopes of forcing the Manticorans to the peace table. This is even more important now that they have learned that their former Secretary of War manipulated the messages passing back and forth between Haven and Manticore in order to keep the pressure on show more and for his own political advantage. But they don't have proof - just really strong suspicions.

Haven has proposed a meeting between President Pritchard of Haven and Queen Elizabeth of Manticore to discuss a possible peace treaty. After much convincing, Elizabeth has agreed to meet on neutral territory - the newly organized planet of Torch which was founded by ex-genetic slaves and is now ruled by Queen Berry who is the daughter of Anton Zilwicki.

However, there is a mysterious organization who doesn't want a better relationship between Haven and Manticore. They have developed some nanotech that turn people into unwilling assassins. They have used it on Earth to kill the Manticoran Ambassador and they have used an assassin to try to kill Queen Berry but she was saved at the cost of the lives of her bodyguards. They have also tried to assassinate Honor Harrington by using their nanotech on her young flag lieutenant. They have also tried to make it look like Haven was responsible for all the assassinations and assassination attempts and Queen Elizabeth is more than willing to blame Haven.

So Manticore withdraws from the peace process and goes back to war against Haven. Because of their disadvantages, Honor is given control of the eighth fleet and tasked with making raids on Havenite planets with the goal of damaging their industrial infrastructure. They also have the advantage of two new weapons which level the playing field some. But the new weapons aren't in large enough supply for anything more than the eighth fleet.

Haven needs some military victories in order to force Manticore back to the peace table and come up with an audacious plan to bring the war to Manticore's home system.

While all this war stuff is going on, lots is also happening in Honor's personal life. Through a medical error, she finds herself pregnant which really couldn't come at a worse time. Her political enemies on Manticore and Grayson are eager to use this unmarried pregnancy to do her harm. Luckily, she still has powerful friends and family who are determined to manage things for her. Thus, this is the book where Honor marries both Hamish and Emily Alexander and becomes the mother of a son.

This was a great story with lots of things happening. At over 30 hours of listening there was time for a lot of detail both about Honor's personal life and about the politics between Haven and Manticore. show less

In this episode, Manticore is at a serious disadvantage. Haven has had a number of military victories which have destroyed much of the industrial infrastructure that was building units for the Manticoran Navy. The Manticorans have always had fewer people than Haven but they made up that disadvantage by having much better military hardware. Now the odds are even more in Haven's favor.

But Haven isn't really interested in pursuing military victory. Their new government only went to war in the hopes of forcing the Manticorans to the peace table. This is even more important now that they have learned that their former Secretary of War manipulated the messages passing back and forth between Haven and Manticore in order to keep the pressure on show more and for his own political advantage. But they don't have proof - just really strong suspicions.

Haven has proposed a meeting between President Pritchard of Haven and Queen Elizabeth of Manticore to discuss a possible peace treaty. After much convincing, Elizabeth has agreed to meet on neutral territory - the newly organized planet of Torch which was founded by ex-genetic slaves and is now ruled by Queen Berry who is the daughter of Anton Zilwicki.

However, there is a mysterious organization who doesn't want a better relationship between Haven and Manticore. They have developed some nanotech that turn people into unwilling assassins. They have used it on Earth to kill the Manticoran Ambassador and they have used an assassin to try to kill Queen Berry but she was saved at the cost of the lives of her bodyguards. They have also tried to assassinate Honor Harrington by using their nanotech on her young flag lieutenant. They have also tried to make it look like Haven was responsible for all the assassinations and assassination attempts and Queen Elizabeth is more than willing to blame Haven.

So Manticore withdraws from the peace process and goes back to war against Haven. Because of their disadvantages, Honor is given control of the eighth fleet and tasked with making raids on Havenite planets with the goal of damaging their industrial infrastructure. They also have the advantage of two new weapons which level the playing field some. But the new weapons aren't in large enough supply for anything more than the eighth fleet.

Haven needs some military victories in order to force Manticore back to the peace table and come up with an audacious plan to bring the war to Manticore's home system.

While all this war stuff is going on, lots is also happening in Honor's personal life. Through a medical error, she finds herself pregnant which really couldn't come at a worse time. Her political enemies on Manticore and Grayson are eager to use this unmarried pregnancy to do her harm. Luckily, she still has powerful friends and family who are determined to manage things for her. Thus, this is the book where Honor marries both Hamish and Emily Alexander and becomes the mother of a son.

This was a great story with lots of things happening. At over 30 hours of listening there was time for a lot of detail both about Honor's personal life and about the politics between Haven and Manticore. show less

This was a satisfying read on many levels... Honor's personal life, big developments in the Republic of Haven and Kingdom of Manticore conflict (both diplomatically and militarily), and the bringing in of the various side-book story lines.

Honor's personal life: I am very glad that Honor's affair of the heart with Hamish has been resolved. I do see Emily and Honor as amazingly mature women in terms of the solution, and it's odd that the ultimate solution was not their idea at all. Hamish just seems to be along for the ride (and the siring of children). I still don't understand the deep connection Honor feels with him--that's one thing that Weber has not made "real" for me.

Diplomacy between Haven & Manticore: ARGHHH!! Between Queen show more Elizabeth's inability to see past her (justifiable) rage and resentment and the Havenites' inability to manage their diplomacy without interference... well, it was heartbreaking to see the possibility of peace so thoroughly derailed.

The military conflict: Yikes! The body count, especially of the last engagement, was appalling. Will it make a difference in finally bringing about a ceasefire and a possibility of peace? I will say that Weber has evened the balance and so the battles are somewhat more interesting, although I confess I still skim over the parts about how far and how fast different missiles can fly. I get the gist of what each thing can do (the Katanas, the Apollos, etc.) but I ignore the "specs" and the details. The results are clear enough.

I tried to find out how many more books Weber expects to write in this series. I think I'd like to see it wrap up fairly soon, although the pullers of strings (mostly behind the scenes) need to be discovered and defeated, too. show less

David Weber had a great thing going...

Horatio Hornblower in space. If you have never read any CS Forester, stop and go get some.

Through many adventures and battles we have seen our heroine evolve. But now it has gone too far. The war, the background politics, the enemies and the adversity. All have been a great part of the series. Treecats and their powers have been fascinating. But Honor is now super goddess. There is no other like her. She shall never die, and anything good that can happen will happen to her.

We had books where this was not the case, but now we find that the superwoman can further enrich her own life without consequence or drama. And that is the heart of why this book has lost so many stars in my estimation. You show more know from page one Honor will survive.

You knew that Hornblower would live also. But that was a much more chancy thing, and certainly Hornblower did not become the greatest admiral of the fleet, nor the confident of the king, nor the lover of the king's chief minister (his later marriage to the sister of Wellington gave him little advantage while Honor's triangular entanglments makes her one of the most powerful members of the nobility in addition to the best naval officer in the universe.) Honor has been given too much Honor. With the concept of ProLong, she will be top of the Heap for a long time...

This series had been doing great. It even looked like we were going to see the identification of a true evil enemy to target our vitriol against, as the short stories developed and had worked into the main canon. Manpower can definitely be the focus for several books to come. But if you have to saddle this series with babies, crippled lovers whose emotions wring completly false only to further allow Honor her heroic ascendance, then why bother. Just do as the Romans, call Honor a God Emperor and be done...

So hopefully not too many spoilers in this review. But you should know that the battles are getting fewer, the politics less important, but Honor is everything. That is what I find fault with.

As for the battles we have come to expect a new twist from Weber on how he destroys the various fleets and again he has it this time. I must agree with another reviewer that at a certain point counting how many missiles are travelling at what velocity and cet defeated by so many counter missiles and defenses, each and every volley, is disconcerting. Certainly in the early Starfire books, if memory serves, these conflicts did not go on for so many pages or for so much nit-picking detail. show less

This was my May BOTM club read, for sci-fi. It was quite the tomb. We meet Honor again, out gunned and the underdog. But as always never count her out. There were some great growth moments in her personal life as well. I'm not sure I really like the direction Weber went, but I feel he stayed true to Hornor's personality in the situation. I admit, a beloved character dies in the final chapters and I was heart broken.