Customer Reviews

On Basilisk Station (Honor Harrington #1)

5 star:		(94)
4 star:		(49)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Rather than review this particular book, I thought that I'd give a capsul review of the series, as a whole. Given that, if you do like this one, you're in for a long haul, I thought that this would be fair.

First of all, the Harrington series stands at the intersection of two genres: space opera and military SF. Space Opera is a style of story with interstellar vistas, larger than life characters and situations, and (typically, and especially in this case) more than a dash of melodrama. Military SF is a sub-genre of science fiction that concentrates its focus on the details of high-tech conflict -- think Tom Clancy in space. The first warning is that if either of these styles of fiction turn you off, you probably won't like these books.

The writing style of Mr. Weber is servicable for the type of story he's telling. He's very good at writing action sequences, and providing you villains to hate, and jerking a tear or two, and at compelling you to keep turning the pages of his stories. His work, however, does not constitute high art. It's not what I would call low-brow, either, but I think that it is fair to describe it as relatively unsophisticated. In particular, he writes characters that are, on the whole, somewhat flat, often substituting emotional charge for true characterization. If you want more than that out of a book, these aren't for you, either.

I should note that the books are deliberately written to echo the Horatio Hornblower stories and that there are many clever parallels between the future kingdoms of the novels and the historical conflict between France and the allied nations during the Napoleonic era. History a literature buffs may get a kick out of this, but it should be noted that it isn't an exceptionally sophisticated set of parallels. It's more of a light spice for those who like such things.

What you can expect is a very fun and action oriented set of stories. One co-worker aptly described them as "airplane books" (that is, books that are good to read during a long flight), and I'm inclined to agree. For them, they've been a slightly guilty pleasure, but a pleasure all the same. If you want something that is manifestly enjoyable and unchallenging, or if you simply hungry for something to fill your reading time, I can't think of many series which would fit the bill quite so well. They aren't high art but they do a good job of being everything that they are intended to be.

"On Basilisk Station" is the first book in a truly wonderful space opera series about a space navy set three thousand years in the future and featuring David Weber's best fictional heroine, "Honor Harrington." The books are best read in sequence and I strongly recommend that you start with this one.

Despite the futuristic setting, there are strong parallels with Nelson's navy. The assumed technology in the Honor Harrington stories imposes constraints on space navy officers similar to those which the technology of fighting sail imposed on wet navy officers two hundred years ago. Aand the galactic situation in the novels contains strong similarities to the strategic and political situation in European history at the time of the French revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.

This seems to be quite deliberate: a number of thinly veiled (and amusing) hints in the books indicate that they are to some extent a tribute to C.S. Forester, while the main heroine of the books, Honor Harrington, appears to owe more than a little to C.S. Forester's character "Horatio Hornblower."

In this first book of the series, the newly promoted Commander Honor Harrington takes up her first command of a significant fleet unit, the old light cruiser "H.M.S. Fearless" which has just been rebuilt with a very unusual armament.

Honor Harrington comes from a middle-class family with no naval tradition - both her parents are doctors - and has worked her way up the officer ranks of the navy of the Star Kingdom of Manticore on pure ability with no influential family friends to support her. At times it seems that her only friend in the navy is her "Treecat" Nimitz.

Treecats are six-legged creatures similar in size and shape to terran cats, who are fully telepathic among themselves and empaths with humans - e.g. they can read a human's emotions and sometimes form a unique bond with a specific human within which the exchange of emotions is two-way. Some people make the mistake of assuming that Nimitz is just Honor's pet cat: it will become clear during the series just how much more than that he is.

After a short spell with the fleet, HMS Fearless is assigned to Basilisk station. The senior officer on the station turns out to be an enemy of Honor's going back to their time at Naval academy, and promptly takes his ship back home for repairs leaving her with orders to look after the Basilisk system and the completely inadequate force of one light cruiser with which to do so.

As if that were not bad enough, a powerful and unfriendly neighbouring star nation, the "People's Republic of Haven" is casting greedy eyes at Basilisk and looking for an opportunity to grab the system.

This is a really clever story with wonderful and believable characters, brilliantly described space battles, and a well crafted set of explanations of how the tactical situations which the characters find themselves in relate both to the technology their ships use and the political dynamics which set up the conflicts they find themselves in. Because this is the first book of the series Dave Weber has to devote a fair amount of time to explaining the how faster than light travel and space weapons work in the series, but the explanations are reasonably interesting, internally consistent, and not too hard to follow.

Many people read Weber for the space battles, and this book scores very highly here. In some of the later books of the series when describing major fleet battles, Dave Weber somtimes writes a bit too much like the wargame designer he once was, but he is superb when describing single-ship or small unit actions and never better than in "On Basilisk Station."

If you like this book, you can go on to the rest of the series. At the time of writing there are thirteen full length novels and four short story collections in the "Honorverse" as the fictional galaxy in which these stories are set is sometimes known. The main series which tells the story of Honor Harrington herself currently runs to eleven novels; in order these are

On Basilisk Station
The Honor of the Queen
The Short Victorious War
Field of Dishonour
Flag in Exile
Honor among Enemies
In Enemy Hands
Echoes of Honor
Ashes of Victory
War of Honor
At All Costs

The four short story collections set in the same universe, not all of which feature Honor Harrington herself, are

Worlds of Honor
Worlds of Honor II: More than Honor
Worlds of Honor III: Changer of Worlds
Worlds of Honor IV: The Service of the Sword

The two spin-off novels are "Crown of Slaves" (with Eric Flint) which is a story of espionage and intrigue featuring a number of characters first introduced in earlier Honor Harrington books or short stories, and "The Shadow of Saganami" which is a kind of "next generation" novel featuring a number of younger officers in the navies of Manticore and her ally Grayson.

For amusement, if you want to try to look for the parallels to nations and individuals from the French revolutionary period and the Hornblower books, one possible translation would be:

People's Republic of Haven = Revolutionary France
Star Kingdom of Manticore = Great Britain
Gryphon = Scotland

Prime Minister Alan Summervale = Pitt the Younger
Hamish Alexander, later Earl White Haven = Admiral Edward Pellew
Honor Harrington, = Horatio Hornblower
Alistair McKeon = William Bush

Crown loyalists and Centrists = Tory supporters of Pitt
Conservative Association = hardline High Tories
New Kiev Liberals = Whig Oligarchists
Progressives and traditional liberals = Whig radicals

Anderman Empire = Kingdom of Prussia
Silesia = Poland
Solarian republic = United States of America

What happens when you are given command of a ship that has been "gutted" in a naval experiment and are sent out to wargame against the big boys? Furthermore, what happens when you use your new system to take them all by surprise, ONCE, and then get demolished each time after that because everyone is now ready for the trick? Just to make matters worse, you embarass the admiral who came up with the one time gimmick. The answer is that you get sent off to a post no one wants where you will be out of sight and out of mind. That's what happens to Honor.

Honor's task is virtually impossible and her enemies want her to fail. She dissapoints them in that she succeeds magnificnetly. Along the way, she becomes a naval hero in the tradition of Horatio Hornblower.

Weber does a great job adapting the institutions of the Royal Navy from the Napoleonic wars into space opera. This is true in terms of politics and culture as well as in strategy and tactics. In its context, it is believable and fun.

No one should expect a lesson in physics. That is not what this story is about. Instead, it is about, courage, leadership and, yes, Honor. It is a fun read and I am looking forward to the reset of the series.

I thought I'd write a review for what I remember as the best series I've read in science fiction. I have pretty much read most of all the greats here. The books itself is not as good as Card's Ender's Game, but the series as a whole is much better. I have to go back and reread the series from time to time just to make sure I don't forget anything, or pick up something I missed before. Pretty much anything this guy writes I buy because its all great. No other series has given me as much pleasure to read. As a college student with a strickly limited budget I must conserve my money and only buy the basic essentials. These books are some of those essentials. BUY THE BOOK, if you disagree you know where to find me. Have a nice day

This books marks the beginning of the Honor Harrington series. David Weber has managed to translate the napoleonic wars into a space setting, justifying it all with careful detail on the technology that makes it possible. The details are legion: ships and detachments months out of communications range, broadside battles, and the interspace war between a monarchy and a corrupt republic.

But that isn't all. Although Weber spends some time (and written word) on establishing his world, he does not forget to let us get to know his main characters. The hero is Honor Harrington, Commander in the Manticoran Space Navy, commanding a light cruiser. But other characters, which will continue to reappear as the series goes on, also populate the pages, giving us glimpses (from the brief look into the merchant magnate Hauptmann to the breaking and remaking of Alistair McKeon) of characters whose complexity is clear and will only continue to develop. And of course, there is tension, both military and interpersonal, giving it all a nice sense of balance for those interested in characters and those interested in hardware. Weber also takes a lot of care to portray the military discipline of life aboard a ship of war realistically.

I have recommended this book to a number of friends, and they all became hooked on the series. If you like science fiction with a good mixture of both hardness and space opera, then this book is definitely what you should read.

Overall, I liked On Basilisk Station very much. As an introduction to a character and a series, it made me want to read more. It also suffers from some of the common things that plague a First Novel.

First, the positives. The character of Honor Harrington is well drawn and realistic within the setting. She is neither infallible nor gratuitously "flawed" (in the sense that some authors give their characters a "trait" that prevents them from seeing and doing the things that would prevent the book or series from continuing), but simply a strong and determined character with a well-defined sense of right and wrong. I liked her.

I liked the little bits of future history thrown in that give an idea of how the various systems came into being, plus the fact that the systems are not all part of some "one world" government that many future histories seem to use. There are various systems just as we have various countries here and now.

Another pleasant surprise was the political aspect. While conservatives are painted in the typical SF light of being isolationist and out of touch, it was nice to see some liberal policies and attitudes get the same treatment. On the other hand, neither "side" was painted as being "evil," which was also refreshing. I get enough of that in the news.

Now for the negatives. Since this is the first book by David Weber I've read, I cannot make sweeping statements. In this book, however, he seems to be much better at the character-driven/space opera aspects than at the hard science aspects. Not that what he wrote wasn't believable, just that it slowed things down. I usually give a book 100 pages to prove to me it's worth reading. The beginning of this one almost lost me with pages and pages of techno-speak regarding how the Manticore Navy's ships travel through hyperspace. I'm not against this type of information, but it should serve the story, not detract from it. Fortunately, I slogged through this and found a great story. After that, there were a handful of instances throughout the book where the entire narrative would come to a grinding halt to cover some technical aspect. Examples of authors who have done this correctly include Stephen R. Donaldson (The Gap Cycle) and Peter F. Hamilton (the Night's Dawn Trilogy). Those books are chock full of all kinds of technical information, but it's written in such a way that it serves the story.

A second, but lesser, negative, was the language. I read many books that are filled to the brim with foul language, so that in and of itself is not enough to turn me off. For me, it's the overall tone. One of Wes Craven's early films, The Last House on the Left, had a similar problem. The main story was a gruesome tale of abduction; the detectives looking for the victims were out of another movie entirely -- a slapstick comedy. This gave the film an uneven tone and instead of leaving me unsettled, left me frustrated. The first third of this book had no language whatsoever, then suddenly the characters began "cussing like sailors". This should have been established early on.

Neither of these two negatives detracts from the overall story, but they did make for an uneven reading experience. Still, the positives far outweigh the negatives, so I would have no problem recommending this book. I give it a 3, with the understanding that the story itself is worth a higher rating.

Disclaimer: I am a reader who heavily prefers her SF to focus on humans over hardware(this is simply a reflection of my status as an impoverished low-techie who can't afford good stuff in this universe, either, and so would rather not pine for otherworldly stuff in her reading). I have come to understand in the last few years that a third broadly generalized type of SF fan exists, who loves the military/space battle aspect of SF -- which I am also not, due to ignorance of military matters in this century. So, you are now well-equipped to see where my point of view is coming from in my rating here.

On Basilisk Station is the first in the Honor Harrington series, of which I have currently read three. Honor is a newly promoted captain, beautiful, athletic and talented, whose first posting on the ship HMS Fearless at the disreputable Basilisk Station is a punishment for causing a high-ranking officer to lose face. The punishment is really in the impossible situation, in which the Fearless is to be responsible for singlehandedly guarding the entire system there, where there should be several such ships to do that job. In a nutshell, Honor rises to the challenge and makes the best of a bad situation by some innovative patrol scheduling. Her deft handling of other tricky problems and unexpectedly saving the Manticoran fleet from losing a war gains her honor and respect among her crew and her far-off superiors.

I have heard the Honor Harrington series compared to other SF series dealing with space battles, but the reason I picked up On Basilisk Station is that Weber's books were often recommended for those who like Bujold's Vorkosigan novels. Not likely. The main character (Honor Harrington) is far too perfect on every level (except, naturally, that she has a negative self-image)to be believable or sympathetic, unlike Miles Vorkosigan. The author really has created a superwoman version of the typical male SF superhero, which is exactly the kind of thing that loses me. The battle scenes are good, the world-building is interesting and well-thought-out; but the characters are a bit stereotyped and/or unexplored.

If you really like military- and hardware-oriented SF, this is just the book for you. But as a fan of character-driven fiction, I just could not muster the necessary enthusiasm, especially when my expectations were falsely raised by comparisons with some of my favorite authors.

The author has the "space opera" genre down pat, along with the technological whiz-bang stuff, but I was taken aback by the ending of the book, where the heroine orders the slaughter of thousands of stone-age natives who have been drugged into homicidal mania by off-worlders with political goals. Surely thousands of years in the future there will be easier ways to subdue crazies other than wholesale genocide? Our heroine follows this up by blowing up a starship containing several thousand people. If she'd thought about it for five minutes she would have realized that the starship was on its way to call off a war. The only purpose of blowing it up is to PREVENT it from calling off the war, so that the heroine can make sure there is a confrontation, again for political aims. At the conclusion, readers are supposed to embrace this protagonist and be mad as hell about the fact that Haven, the world that produced the blown-up starship, is calling her a mass murderer. I don't know about the other readers who are giving this book five stars, but I'm in Haven's camp.

After reading this book, I was completely hooked on Honor. There are two great qualities to this work and the other books in the series, The internally consistant and well explained technology, and Weber's complete lack of concern for wiping out characters. As far as the first one goes, I, for one, appreciate greatly the explainations of how the technology works, why the tactics are such as they are, and how these ships are fought. Some may see it as techno-babble, but a few years ago so were RAM, CPU, and all the other terms that we now use in casual conversation. Second, I really appreciate how Weber has no problem with killing his characters. In the situations that Honor gets herself and her crews into, some people aren't going to come back. The main characters are in dangerous situations, and some of them get bitten. Good! Now, if Mr Weber would only write the next ones faster.

"On Basilisk Station" introduces us to Honor Harrington, a naval officer (of the interstellar variety) with a penchant for unorthodox tactical manouevres and her empathic Sphinxian treecat, Nimitz. We join Honor and her crew as she prepares to assume command of the light-cruiser Fearless which has recently been fitted out with a radical new weapons arrangement. When the new weaponry turns out to be something of an embarrassment to its creators in the fleet tactical exercises, Honor and her crew are banished to the planet Basilisk (a kind of naval officers' purgatory). How Honor succeeds in winning back the respect of her crew, while at the same time single-handedly repelling an attack from the Peoples' Republic of Haven (an impecunious nation bent on getting rich again in any way possible)as well as thwarting the local smuggling ring on Basilisk, makes up the remainder of the story. The rest is history! Enjoy!