Customer Reviews

Storm from the Shadows (Honorverse Series)

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(22)
1 star:		(32)

 

 

**vague spoilers**

I have really enjoyed all of Weber's Honorverse books as well as some of his other titles, up until now. This book was awful. Unfortunately it would be difficult to give examples of why this book didn't work without giving out spoilers but I will do my best. He stated in the introduction that part of the book would be retelling events in other books from different character's perspectives... and it didn't really do that... but for the effort I found it hard to tell when in the overall story I was supposed to be. It just made the timeline for this book jumbled.

Next, there were too many attempts at subplots and character developments so that no one character or group of characters was focused on long enough for me to get interested in them. Nominally, I took it Michelle Henke was the "main character" but she only had two majour scenes. If you liked the characters from Shadow of Saganami, they're in there too... Aivers Terekhov is mentioned early, and forgotten, then mentioned again later... Honor makes an appearance or two... There's (I think) supposed to be development of Helen Zilwicki's and Abigail Hearn's characters, but Weber never really tells what happens with them, more like gives results in a summary later. (a bit of spoiler here) for example, someone has a problem with Abigail, they bad mouth her for a page or two and get talked to by someone else for a page, then no mention of it until later the Captain reports to the Commodore that "Abigail solved it by being Abigail and working really hard." (no, really, that was the solution.) Another point a competition is mentioned, then chapters later the results are stated in a paragraph... that sort of thing.

There's the main pseudo-antagonist in this but mostly, it's a repeat of what happened in Shadow of Saganami just less-so. There's no big battle.... four ships get blown up total, and none of them fought back...

The books was filled with references to one group's master plan... but they were all deliberately vague and not in any mysterious way... just a "oh, and this group is STILL planning something" way...

The passing touch on any character or group got very old very fast because, among other things, it was people reacting to things that had already happened and reacting incorrectly due to lag time in information due to travel requirements, worse the reader ALWAYS knew people were reacting incorrectly because it dealt with what happened and then with people not knowing about it. Further, one group had secretly developed a faster stardrive and so were always ahead of others, but no one figured it out despite constant references and ponderings about how [that group:] could NEVER have orchestrated all this because the time it would take to coordinate it was too long, or how that group always seemed to know things before others... frankly if every other page that held a reference to how that group couldn't have done something or known something due to travel time had been torn out and burned, there would still be too many incidents of it. Same with talking about other things that happend... an assassination attempt on someone (from another book) gets repeated ad nauseam, as do references to Helen's misadventures in Old Chicago.

By the end of the book, I just didn't care. Nothing really happened. Nothing really got done or was resolved. One group has a master plan. Another group is arrogant. Some people are angry and unreasonable. And most of the things that took place in this book already took place in other books. That about sums this book up. If you read Crown of Slaves, Shadow of Saganami and At All Costs, you'll have already covered about half this book. The other half are pointless hints that something else is going to happen. At some point. But not in this book.

I assume the half of this book that isn't already covered in the other three books will still be repeated in Mission of Honor and Torch of Freedom.

I never give up my books. I buy them and keep them so I can reread them. I have shelves in the attic filled with books, but frankly, if I thought I could get away with it, I'd return this book to the store tomorrow.

This book tells a generally good story. With this new wok, Weber moves up the Honorverse main storyline to a couple of months after the huge Battle of Manticore, narrated in his last major Honor Harrington novel - "At all costs".

If you follow the Honor Harrington story lines this book, per se, offers a view into what is happening in the Talbot Cluster while Haven and Manticore are at each others throats and opens up two new possible combat fronts for the embattled Royal Manticoran Navy.

Have in mind that the book ends with a huge cliff-hanger and that you will wish you had the next book in hand when you finish it.

"As Admiral Michelle Henke availed herself of the spacious new head aboard her new flagship, she couldn't help but spend time lost in an internal dialog about how much improved the new Mark 23 dual-ply TP was than the old Mark 16 model, and marvel again at Admiral Hemphill's shop's cleverness in reducing the tendency of the sheets to fail to rip along the perforations, and the annoying lint they would sometimes leave behind, particularly in a battlecruiser under impeller power. Despite herself, she resisted the temptation to spend a few more paragraphs thinking about the technical improvements in toiletries since the first war with Haven, though it would have been just as boring as many of her other long meditations in the book so far. Still, she thought, she could have used that lint to provide her with something to think about now that her life seemed to consist of little more than chit-chat with other officers and officials, tediously described drills, and a neurotic compulsion to worry about how much she was eating (because she didn't have Honor Harrington's endlessly referred-to genetically enhanced metabolism.) The thought of Honor sent Mike into yet another reverie about those she had lost aboard her last ship, because it had been, it occurred to her, at least three pages since the last one was prompted for no apparent reason. But, snapping out of it, she realized she had urgent business to attend to on the bridge, involving the execution of another painstakingly described but essentially boring drill, surrounded by junior officers whose background she would go over in her head in long expository passages, though they served little to either make the characters three-dimensional or to advance any semblance of a plot. As she made her way across her dayroom, she noticed the page count had only reached 320, and, for a brief moment, feared she and her crew might not last for the remaining 400 or so pages the Admiralty had expected this "novel" to last, even when one accounted for the time-dilation effect of traveling through plot points already described (and entertainingly!) in the novels in which they actually took place, without actually adding much to them in this book. Thank goodness there would be many pages involving the evil conspiracy of the Mesans without revealing what their true intention might be, and many other characters who add their own interminable internal dialogs to the page count. Perhaps, she thought, it would be enough to keep the readers, or at least the Havenites, from realizing this book was badly in need of brutal trimming by an editor who remembered when David Weber knew how to build and move a plot along. The commercial fate of the Star Empire of Manticore, if not the entire Honorverse itself, might hang in the balance."

In the "authorial note", Weber says, "Scenes which have appeared in one book may very well appear--usually from another character's point of view--in another book. This is not an effort simply to increase word count. It is intended to serve the function of more fully developing additional characters..."

The first sentence is a majestic understatement. The events occurring at the end of the almost-as-bad "At All Costs" are not revealed to the main character here for over 700 pages. Furthermore, by getting another character's "point of view" Weber apparently means "telling us exactly where everyone was sitting and what they were eating when they found out about the event in question".

The second sentence is beyond credibility. Nearly every sentence goes to acrobatic lengths to include as many words and hedging phrases as possible. For example, on pp. 399-400, we get this agonizing sequence: "I can't disagree with the downsides of either of your scenarios, Isabel. Still, I think it comes under the heading of what I said earlier--the fact that we can't allow worry about things which may never happen to prevent us from using necessary techniques where we have to. And as you've just pointed out, the probability of anyone deciding it was us--or, at least, that it was us acting for ourselves, rather than simply a case of Haven's contracting out the 'wet work' to a third-party--is low." Weber urinates on Strunk and White's maxim, "omit needless words". He clearly is being paid by the word and is not being edited. In some of the later chapters, it appears that the text has not even been proofread; it is simply being bound as fast as Weber can type it.

Weber's third sentence might make sense, except that the characters are all identical. They all have the same personality: fantastically competent, loyal, compassionate, and self-doubting. They have the same mannerisms. Nearly every chapter has exactly the same structure: the characters are painstakingly introduced, they take seats, beverages are served, people agree with each other at length, then someone tips back in her chair, launches into a long, expository reverie (scolding herself partway through), mentally shakes herself, and resumes agreeing. A startling number involve a junior officer expecting to be "reamed out" by an "astronomically superior" officer, but in fact being praised and promoted.

The reader hoping for space battles will be sorely disappointed. If the reader's standards are high (a battle we haven't seen before, which takes place on-stage, is not a simulation, and involves both sides firing weapons) there are literally none. If the standards are lower, there aren't very many. We simply get conference after conference. Weber is apparently trying to emulate Jane Austen; this is not something to which a military sci-fi author should aspire, and he fails at it anyway.

One could have political complaints about Weber's universe. Yes, there are plenty of powerful, female characters, but Manticoran society is fantastically hierarchical, even outside the military. This is apparently to be seen as a Good Thing; aside from the odd mustache-twirling villain, nobody abuses their "inferiors" or is jealous of their "superiors". It is discomforting to have heroes unironically fighting for a self-dubbed empire.

The last chapter reads like an ad for the next book, but I'm literally not buying it. There may be Exciting Things in the future, but if they're written at this pace, not even prolong could keep us alive long enough to slog through them.

Storm From the Shadows (2009) is the second naval SF novel in the Saganami Island series, following The Shadow of Saganami. In the previous volume, Manpower delivered fourteen obsolescent Solarian battlecruisers to the government of Monica. Realizing the danger to the wormhole connection at Lynx, Captain Terekhov gathered all available Manticoran ships from the Southern Patrol and took them into the planetary system of Monica.

When the battlecruisers refused to standown, Terekhov destroyed twelve of the ships and captured two more. The Manticorans lost six ships and several thousand personnel.

Admiral Khumalo soon arrived with the relief squadron. After reading the reports and discussing the battle with Terekhov, Khumalo supported his actions. Then the Admiral put even more pressure on the Monican government to furnish records to the Manticoran investigators.

In this novel, Manpower is planning another operation in the region. Their agents contact New Tuscany and set up another incident. Only, this time the warships are manned by personnel from the Office of Frontier Security.

Michelle Henke returns to Manticore as a courier for Eloise Pritchart. She learns that she has been promoted to Vice Admiral. Then she is assigned command of a squadron of Nike class battlecruisers.

Aivars Terekhov returns to Manticore in the HMS Hexapuma. He is promoted to Commodore and given command of a task group of Saganami-C class heavy cruisers. The Admiralty -- and the Queen -- are very pleased with his actions.

Commander Kaplan is promoted and given command of the HMS Tristram within Terekhov's group. Lieutenant Abigal Hearns is now her tactical officer.

Ensign Helen Zilwicki becomes Terekhov's Flag Lieutenant. Although she would have preferred a tactical position, Helen realizes that Flag Lieutenant assignments are usually offered to those on the fast track. So she takes the job with a clear understanding of how much she needs to learn.

In this story, Mike's squadron is sent to Talbott Station to protect the newly annexed planetary systems in the Talbott Quadrant. After the Battle of Monica, the Admiralty has started diverting additional ships to the region. No one is sure what the League will do next.

Mike pays her respects to Admiral Khumalo and meets the Governor and the local officials. Then she takes her squadron to Monica to check out the situation there. To her surprise, Mike finds two squadrons of OFS battlecruisers within the system and learns of a Solarian Battle Fleet task force in the vicinity.

Terekhov is also sent to Talbott Station. Upon arrival, Terekhov is warmly welcomed by Admiral Khumalo and then briefed on the current situation. Except for the withdrawal of the New Tuscany system from the Talbott Quadrant, everything seems to be going well.

This tale puts the Royal Manticoran Navy into a bind. The way things are going, Manticore might soon be at a war with both Haven and the League. And Manpower Alignment has other designs against Manticore.

The novel starts out covering past history, beginning with the loss of Mike Henke's command to the Havenites. It works its way through the aborted truce talks to the Battle of Manticore. Although the first two-thirds were covered in the main series -- see At All Costs -- these events are seen through different viewpoints. Moreover, several incidents are added to the backstory.

After Mike returns from Haven, the story mostly involves administration and personnel. The action doesn't even start heating up until the last third of the book. Unless you really like reading about command, training and personal relationships, this novel might be boring. OTOH, the author can make such material quite interesting. Read and enjoy.

Highly recommended for Weber fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of naval deployments, covert operations, and political intrigue.

-Arthur W. Jordin

Oh dear. I remember the earlier Honor books as being inventive, as the worlds and their navies were set out, and Honor herself fought her way through Manticore's struggles. Has Weber run out of ideas of does it just feel that way, as what content there is is diluted by the ridiculous page count?

The previous Saganami tale in the Talbott Cluster was actually ok I thought, so I went into this one with expectations of at least an adequate read. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Endless, endless text of absolutely no interest at all leads up to well, nothing. It's not the cliff-hanger ending that's the issue, although that is annoying after 1000 pages, it's the fact that nothing happens on the way there. The events should be interesting - fleets are duly shuffled along gravity waves, politicians are duly manipulated by shady puppet-masters - but Weber utterly fails to attach any drama at all to any of this, while spending s...o... l...o...n...g... moving his pieces back, forth and around and around and back and forth... And how many times must his cardboard characters repeat the same 'I believe they have really super missiles Sir/I don't believe they have really super missiles Fool' conversation?

Avoid, avoid, avoid.

What a boring horror of self-indulgent exposition. Author... who are you really, and what have you done with David Weber?! Nothing happens in this book. The characters think about things, they talk about things, they reminisce about things, and by the end of the book, even the CHARACTERS are sick of it! In Chapter 52, Queen Elizabeth finally says "We've discussed the Sollies almost to death". From your mouth to God's ear your Majesty, but apparently not to Mr. Weber's. Please David, we love you, but have mercy on us.

Anyone who has read the dozen or so Honor Harrington books Weber has already written doesn't need this ponderous monster, and any poor soul who picks up this book as his or her first exposure to the Honorverse will probably never read any of those other cracking good tales. What a shame.

The only thing that earned this effort(?) a second star from me was the amusement I took in noting how many of the characters "snort". Henke snorts. White Haven snorts. Terekhov snorts. EVERYBODY snorts. I gave up counting the snorts somewhere in the mid-teens, but if you must read this book, make a game of it...

When you start reading, have a shot glass and a bottle of your favorite spirits nearby. Then, every time you find a snort, take a snort! It won't make this dreary misfire any easier to read, but after a while you just won't care.

Salud! :-)

Let me start by saying I am a huge fan of David Weber's. I have brought almost all of the books that he has written or co-authored.

But Storm from the Shadow's just seems to drift along. The book ends with several major story lines just hanging there. Usually David ends the book without so many items unfinshed.

I do not what to give away the story line, but the super secret 600 year plan by Manpower seems farfetched. I can see a story line with Manpower included, but one that has super secret ships, weapons and bloodlines seems to come out of far left field. Someone has to be building the ships. Someone should of noticed that dispatch boats are making transits faster than normal. If I had a secret spray that could make people do what I want, why not spray everyone with it? Why do I have to attack the space stations directly, when I can spray someone to blow the reactors?

The story line with Sol's seems to be part of the story line with the Honor universe. They and Manpower would be the next people in line for the Star Empire. But I would like to see the Haven story line finished up soon. That one seem to have dragged on longer than rational people should of let it.

I liked parts of this book, but I have the feeling that if I did not read it, the next book would catch me up anyhow.

If you are new to reading David Weber, this is not the book to start with. You might not read another after this one and that would be a shame. The early Honor universe books are rich and fascinating reads. The later books are still good, but much larger. The War God series is also a great set of books to read from David.

One could cut the 1st half of this book and not impair its readability.
It doesn't begin much until 2/3s of the way and then doesn't finish what it starts. Bloviate hardly describes it.
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Weber can write when he feels like it but some things seem fairly obvious: he's paid by the word and he doesn't have an editor who will edit him. Not much polishing here.
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The good news is that there are plenty of authors making their mark in hard sci fi/mil sci fi these days - something that was less true a few years back.
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I suggest borrowing this book from the library and saving your cash for the authors who are working a little harder.

I've noticed that as many popular authors get more successful and established, they cannot resist the urge to excercise their power to bloviate. Some,like David Gerrold, will go so far as to re-release their books with all the "good stuff" some mean old editor took out restored.

And those books are bloated and awful examples of why authors need editors. Just as Mr. Gerrold could not resist the urge to go on and on about his philosophies, Mr. Weber is in love with writing endless conversations instead of narrative. "Storm From The Shadows" Is "My Dinner With Andre" staged by middle school students.

Please Mr. Weber, get a decent editor, and for all our sakes, listen to her? Thank you.