I've heard great things about the Kirk McGarvey series for quite a while (my father loves the books), but I didn't want to read any until I could start at the beginning and go through them in chronological order. I turns out that my father never read Without Honor. That's a good thing; if he had, it is entirely possible that he would not have read another Kirk McGarvey novel. Had I not had my father's reviews of later books in the series, I might have stopped after Without Honor. I simply did not enjoy this book. It had a very "down" tone and the protagonist never seemed particularly heroic. Moreover, far too much of the story involved McGarvey sitting and listening to other characters tell long, extended stories about events that had occurred twenty years prior to the events of the book. Those events were relevant to the story, but the story telling within was far too dry. It will be interesting to see how further books in the series change the character. ( )