45 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Worth the price just for Flint's story., March 10, 2001
First of all, I should say that I loved the first Harrington books so much, I would probably buy any book with David Weber's name on it. Granted, some of the later works have been a little less stellar, but the overall story still has me hooked. Now, on to the contents of this anthology. Three of the stories are by The Man himself, so I will discuss those first.
MS. MIDSHIPWOMAN HARRINGTON is a little piece detailing some of Honor's early exploits against Silesian pirates and Manticoran bigots. Solidly written, it will no doubt provide a base for future short stories or novels set before Basilisk Station.
CHANGER OF WORLDS is the first Harrington story told from the point of view of the 'cats. In it we learn Nimitz and Samantha's real names as they visit Nimitz's clan prior to the birth of their 'kittens. This story verifies some of the theories floated in previous novels as to why treecats decided to settle en masse on Grayson.
Like some of the other reviewers, I enjoyed NIGHTFALL as a stand-alone story. It describes in much greater detail Esther McQueen's aborted coup attempt. While I was glad to learn more about the incident, however, I feel that this should rightfully have been told as part of a novel format. Perhaps if it had been switched for some of the endless backstory in ASHES OF HONOR, I would feel better about both books.
Finally, Eric Flint's FROM THE HIGHLANDS is a nearly uncredited gem of a story. (You won't find his name anywhere on the cover.) We get to learn what happened to Anton Zilwicki after the death of his Navy-hero wife; it turns out he became a spy and went to Earth. When his daughter is kidnapped, several convergent story lines spring into action, leading to political disillusionment, True Romance, rioting in the streets, an assassination or two, and a general warm fuzzy feeling. I would be delighted if Flint wrote more in this vein, especially if he returned to characters like idealistic SS officer Victor Cachat. This could also be a chance for a lot of Weber fans to check out more of Flint's body of work. I know I will.
To sum up, the three Weber stories are fine appendages to his books. For the most part, they detail events already described in general. While they stand up fairly well as individual stories, they don't really compare to Flint's tale.
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36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Dot the I's Cross the T's and Flint's Story is Great!, February 27, 2001
((Initial revelation of potential non-disinterest: I am David Weber's elder brother.))
First, while i think the cover's better than the one on "Worlds of Honor", it's still not right -- those legs belong on a tree-antelope, not a tree-cat.
"But what's *in* it?", right?
This is another anthology, featuring three stories by Dave and one by Eric Flint.
The first story is "Ms. Midshipwoman Harrington". ((For a couple of reasons - ease of speaking being a major one, tradition another -- i think i'd have said "misdhipman", but it's Dave's call -- his world, his ranks.))
The story of Honor's "Snotty" cruise, it fills in the background on remarks she makes during "Among Enemies" about having been on pirate-chasing missions in Silesia.
As usual, with Honor onboard, what ought to have been a relatively routine cruise with a bit of action and not much danger turns into something else. ((I mean, finding out you'll be serving with Honor Harrington is like being a cop in a small town finding out that Jessica Fletcher is visiting...)) And Ms. Midshipwoman Harrington finds that she must rise to the occasion when disaster strikes. This story is a little more open and clear about the political maneuvering between the "working" Navy and the "timeserving" Navy (my terms) in which Honor's career is already inevitably enmeshed, long before she knows it or of it.
Also it has a Villain. I'll be writing a longer review for my new website, wherein i'll go into my thoughts on Villains vs. Bad Guys in Dave's stories. (By my reckoning, Rob Pierre is a Bad Guy -- Pavel Young is a Villain. Wossname who was behind the Dome failure is a Bad Guy [though with villainous tendencies] -- his dupe who Honor kills is a Villain.)
Second story is "Changer of Worlds", which has been available for more than a year on my family website by David's kind permission; it's the story of Laughs Brightly, bondmated to Cloud Dancer, who returns to his clan bringing Golden Voice, his new mate.
We know these people a bit better under other names, suffice to say. (Hint -- one of them is also known as "Nimitz")
(Skipping the Eric Flint story for right now, we get to Dave's third, "Nightfall".)
"Nightfall" is one of those stories that eventually has to be told in some form, if only as footnotes in some other work, i guess, but which i'd as soon not read. Despite the fact that there's a rather nasty little slice of spacewar let loose planetside in a major city, it's pretty much a static story of coup and countercoup and political maneuver.
We aready know the fates, if not descriptions of the actual events, of a number of characters from other books. "Nightfall" is the actual events. I found it uninvolving and unneeded.
Now, back to Eric Flint's "From the Highlands", which is, i think, the best piece of pure storytelling more or less for its own sake in the book. All of the other three stories are there to plug holes in the canon, and read more or less like that.
"Highlands", while it chronicles events that may well be as important in the future history of Manticore and Haven as the other three, just reads like a story Flint wanted to tell; in which we look at the ways Gryphon's Highlanders are like Scotland's.
Involving conflicting and complex loyalties personal, patriotic and political, it revolves around the kidnapping of a fourteen-year-old girl whose father, a Gryphon Highlander, is an Intelligence Analyst attached to Manticore's Embassy in the Solarian League's capital city, Chicago.
Not just any fourteen-year-old girl; we've seen her before, when she was four or so, asking her weeping father if Mama had made them all safe from the bad Peeps. And she is everything her mother's daughter should be -- she's already working on escape from her kidnappers when first we meet her.
Before the story is over, we will be involved with Helen's father, with her martial arts instructor, with Havenite and Manticoran Ambassadors and their respective Security Chiefs, a young Peep SS Intelligence Field Officer who faces a personal crisis of identity (he actually believes in the ideals of the Revolution), a dissipated Peep Marine Colonel who is rather more, various genetically-engineered "super-soldiers" and revolutionary former slaves and an expatriate, far-leftist Manticoran noblewoman, one of only three people kicked out of the House of Lords by vote of their peers.
Stir thoroughly, apply igniter and stand well back till the flames die down.
Serve hot.
I give the book three stars overall; just the first three stories would have gotten four, just the Weber stories alone about three stars.
Good solid reading till the next novel, but it goes by awfully dismayingly and disappointingly quickly, which is one of the problems of a fast pace.
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Tantalizing Tidbits, April 9, 2001
Like many others addicted to the Honor Harrington series, I was drooling over the prospects of savoring the latest addition to Weber's engaging feast of antics and action by a ballsy, totally entrancing heroine in futuristic space fiction.
I especially enjoyed the riveting "From the Highlands" by Eric Flint that provides quite a different angle on the aggressive, covert machinations of a highly developed underground where a Manticoran aristocrat exiled to Terra supports a network of revolutionists who are involved in the power struggle between the Peeps vs the Manties on Chicago's embattled turf. Weber's story "Nightfall" recounts the treachery and tyranny of Oscar Saint Just before he finally makes the call to blow up and bring down the Octagon upon the heads of both colleagues and his arch enemy Esther McQueen. It offered another point of view in those final moments that preceeded Saint Just's own demise in "Ashes of Victory".
The other two stories were tantalizing tidbits of before and after Honor had "arrived" to the here and now in David's ongoing saga. I love his consciousness toward animals, especially when he develops his theme of highly evolved sentience in Honor's treecats and their nestmates on Sphinx. It now is impossible to consider one's own cats as merely, well, cats. As Samantha might say to Nimitz: "Little do they know".
Congratulations on your newly wed status and the joys of a honeymoon, David, however your fans are waiting! Thanks for the appetizers in "Changer of Worlds", now, where is the main dish?
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