The Short Victorious War

The People's Republic of Haven is in trouble. Their economy is tanking because so many of their people are on public assistance. They can only support their economy and the privileges the wealthy enjoy by continually adding new star systems to their Republic. So they have the wonderful idea to start, or pretend to start, a war with Manticore.

Honor Harrington has completed her long complicated recovery from the injuries sustained in the previous book and has been assigned as Flag Captain to a new ship named Nike and sent with a task force to a frontier repair base. The only problem is that that Admiral in charge of the task force doesn't like Honor whom he sees as hot-tempered and reckless which causes some problems for her despite the show more support of her immediate superior who is also in the Admiral's bad books.

Since the Peeps are conducting all sorts of feints into neighboring star systems, the Admiral decides that he needs to defend one of the more populous systems and leaves Honor and her boss to defend the repair facility with very little help.

Haven has been secretly watching the whole area with stealth ships and knows when the largest part of the force leaves the repair facility and knows that it is time to take it and bring the war into official existence. It should be easy as their ships and armaments vastly outnumber those left with Honor. But Honor and her boss have done all the tricky planning they can to get their system as safe as it can be and can hope to hold out until help arrives to support them.

Meanwhile on Haven, Rob Pierre is planning a revolution which will take down the current government and put himself and his own supporters in control. And he is planning to use part of the Navy he hates to accomplish his goals.

This was another exciting episode in the Honor Harrington series. It was filled with action and adventure. show less

Another grim one - well, there are some very good parts (especially with Paul), but when the war actually gets started, it gets pretty dark. And the assumptions about what the enemy (either enemy, from either side) will/won't do and does/doesn't know, versus reality, become extremely important. This becomes a theme throughout the Harrington books - "they can't possibly...X" while they're off doing X. Or the assumption that "they just missed the other side of the trap" when in fact there was no trap, just a lucky return at the right time... Sarnow is good people, the Admiral...isn't, though he does eventually more or less overcome his prejudice. Though not until disaster has already ensued and Honor has pulled survival out of said show more disaster. And Haven starts down its nasty little path into the pit, largely because of a complete accident of timing. If young Pierre hadn't died...who knows?
Again, very strange reading this when I know Honor's future. Every bit of Paul's and White Haven's actions have strong echoes, knowing what they'll be to Honor. And others - Young, and Parnell, and so on. It makes it hard to see the events in this book alone. But it's still definitely worth reading (for the dozenth time). show less

Honorverse #3 sees the Big Show kick off, as Manticore and the People's Republic of Haven finally start the war that they've been dancing around-and as always Honor is right in the center, commanding the state-of-the-art Battlecruiser Nike in defense of critical forward base. Good intelligence on the part of the peeps and command errors above leave Honor's squadron badly outgunned by Dreadnoughts, and it's up to her tactical brilliance and guts to save the day.

That said, this is where the series starts to bloat. The main action is short, almost too short, and the narrative wanders between Honor commanding starships, falling in love, and facing down old enemies, and 'big picture' strategy discussions on Manticore and Haven. The Haven show more perspective, with it's tottering regime halfway between Communism and ancien regime France is pretty good, but Weber goes right for the obvious historical parallels, including one of the worst pun names in all of scifi. show less

I love Honor Harrington! She's a great character in a great series. And it's nice to have a strong female protagonist in a sci fi novel, which hasn't always been the case in this genre.

In this book, "Dame" Honor is given the honor of being given the top ship in the Royal Manticoran navy -- the Nike. She's sent out to Hancock to be the flag ship for a junior admiral who turns out to be a great guy and a great supporter of hers. However, when she gets there, her ship has suffered damage on the way and has to be docked to be fixed, which will take many weeks.

Meanwhile, the always broke Republic of Haven is plotting to attack Manticore and take their spoils, counting on their superiority in numbers over Manticore's smaller, but more show more technologically advanced armed forces. One of the things I liked about this book is we get a glimpse at the inner workings of Haven's politicians and military planners. We're kept abreast of things as they happen. Another interesting facet to the book is that there is a revolution taking place in Haven, and we get to see the beginnings of it.

Another thing I liked about this book is the character development we see in Honor, as opposed to other books. She grows and changes and adapts and becomes nearly human in this book and I appreciated that. In this book, she develops a love interest, which came out of the blue -- for me and for her -- but she's happy with it and that's good. However, she's so unused to being feminine that she needs help in putting cosmetics on and the scene in which she asks her exec for help is pretty funny.

Of course, it wouldn't be an Honor Harrington book without a huge space battle. The senior admiral has taken the bulk of the ships in the system to another place, gambling that's where the Haven ships will appear. He's wrong. Imagine the horror Honor and her colleagues feel when over 100 Haven ships, including 35 mega-ships, appear out of nowhere and start toward them and they only have some five or six to defend themselves with. Reinforcements are on the way, however, so if they can just hold them off for a few hours, the space station there might be saved, as well as Honor and her mates. Through Honor's ingenuity, they release hundreds of missiles at the Haven fleet and score some direct hits, destroying some ships in the process. The Haven commander is ticked! They go after Honor and score some hits of their own. Some of Honor's colleagues are blown up and Honor's ship is hit, but not too badly. Then, tah dah, reinforcements! And the Haven fleet takes off. And the main Manticore fleet that had been lying in wait goes to Haven's space station and destroys it and the rest of Haven's fleet. It's over. Honor has saved the day. My only complaint is we don't get to see the battle at Haven's space station with their fleet being decimated. Oh well. That would have made the book a lot bigger, I guess.

I do have one complaint with this book and with this series. It's sci fi. They have hyperspace, hyper drives. They can travel light years in a very short period of time. They can have video communications with each other within systems. But not out of the systems. They actually have to rely on courier boats to send messages to each other, like "We've been attacked," or something to that effect, and it can take 11 days or 17 days, etc. It seems utterly stupid to me. You're telling me that three or four thousand years from now with huge space ships and laser beams and hyperspace travel, you have to send messages by boats??? WTF??? That's the most stupid thing I've ever heard! I don't know what Weber was thinking when he came up with that system, but I'm not impressed. However, that complaint aside, it's still a fun read and a great series and I'm already looking forward to the next one. Definitely recommended. show less

Honor Harrington captains the Nike as flag captain for Admiral Sarnow as the People's Republic of Haven begins escalating incidents on Manticore's borders. Honor faces Pavel Young in the fleet and her memory of his treatment at the academy, with the help of her exec and a new beau.
I enjoyed Honor getting a relationship and facing (mentally) her attacker. A little too heavy on the space battles for me to keep track of who all was whom. I mostly followed what was going on. I will read the next book though for certain.

The People's Republic of Haven is in trouble. Their economy is tanking because so many of their people are on public assistance. They can only support their economy and the privileges the wealthy enjoy by continually adding new star systems to their Republic. So they have the wonderful idea to start, or pretend to start, a war with Manticore.

Honor Harrington has completed her long complicated recovery from the injuries sustained in the previous book and has been assigned as Flag Captain to a new ship named Nike and sent with a task force to a frontier repair base. The only problem is that that Admiral in charge of the task force doesn't like Honor whom he sees as hot-tempered and reckless which causes some problems for her despite the show more support of her immediate superior who is also in the Admiral's bad books.

Since the Peeps are conducting all sorts of feints into neighboring star systems, the Admiral decides that he needs to defend one of the more populous systems and leaves Honor and her boss to defend the repair facility with very little help.

Haven has been secretly watching the whole area with stealth ships and knows when the largest part of the force leaves the repair facility and knows that it is time to take it and bring the war into official existence. It should be easy as their ships and armaments vastly outnumber those left with Honor. But Honor and her boss have done all the tricky planning they can to get their system as safe as it can be and can hope to hold out until help arrives to support them.

Meanwhile on Haven, Rob Pierre is planning a revolution which will take down the current government and put himself and his own supporters in control. And he is planning to use part of the Navy he hates to accomplish his goals.

This was another exciting episode in the Honor Harrington series. It was filled with action and adventure. show less

I'm really enjoying this series. I admit some of the military jargon and details overwhelms me some. And I think for future books I will need a notepaper with the ship name and captain name to keep the information straight in my head, I got a little confused this time. I fully understand why my boyfriend likes these books so much, the military details are great, the tactics and weapons and political environment of a military agency seems right on the dot to me. What I like about it however is the characters, they grow with each book, they are engaging and interesting to read about. I am starting to really get a feel for Honor and Webber has her acting true to her nature, just as I feel she should. I really hate in series when they have show more the characters act differently than the previous books indicate they should.
For more reviews see my blog: https://adventuresofabibliophile.blogspot.com show less