Customer Reviews

Torch of Freedom (Honorverse)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

For me, there's a real tension between Davids Weber's strengths as a storyteller and the current state of Honor Harrington's life. Weber's strengths are exploring a person's or small group's heroism as they plug away at their own part of a grand unfolding series of events. That's the rich and heady broth on which the original Honor books were built, and a mighty fine edifice they are. However, the more successful Honor is, as a Navy officer in a nation at war, success is going to promote her off the command deck of her own ship, and even (as it has now) off the squadron flag deck. As she's become more a fleet commander and politician, the series has (of necessity) wandered away from its storytelling roots to become something larger and more epic. Honor is still a character I adore, but her stories are not the kind of space opera I like best, which comes down to individual actions within a larger scheme of things.

Additionally, as the action has progressed, there are now a ridiculous number of characters and theaters of action, far too many to track in one linear series of novels. Weber (and his partner in crime, Eric Flint) have wisely diversified the series to take advantage of both the storytelling opportunities and to wrestle the beast into something resembling coherent novel-sized pieces.

The books of the Honorverse now seem to have three main streams. One, of course, is the story of Honor, which I will keep reading, only because that's where the grand unfolding of the galactic history occurs (and because I adore Honor -- did I mention that?). Another is the books like The Shadow of Saganami (The Saganami Island) which can (and do) focus on the antics of a single starship or a small squadron of them -- this is the space opera where Weber truly shines. And finally, there is the espionage-based series of books that started with Crown of Slaves (Honor Harrington) and is continued in this book.

The three threads form one glorious, galaxy-wide saga that I wouldn't miss for the world. This book is a worthy addition to this fictional enterprise, a great deal of fun to read, and an interesting progression in the story as a whole. I'm not sure it stands alone -- while it does repeat some action from other books, there are also references to things that are not wholly explained (such as "what Harrington did to Giscard at Lovat").

However, as a piece of the puzzle, it's an excellent book. Since it focuses on individuals for the most part (and task forces at the largest), the action is firmly where Weber excels. Flint's presence seems to keep the exposition of new technology to small enough chunks that they go down fairly easily. It's clear that both authors have a great fondness for their characters (although they are not at all afraid to kill off those same characters when the plot demands it). If motivations are sometimes described with a heavy hand, the book makes up for such awkwardness with the breakneck pace of the action, the way in which various threads are brought together, and the tantilizing hints of future problems that are clearly having their groundwork laid.

There are small things to like about this book, too, one of which is an extended joke about how even well-educated people miss historical references all the time. Another is the way in which the friendship between Zilwicki and Cachat is handled realistically. And Palane has two moments which are still sticking with me even after finishing the book. Finally, there are all kinds of new characters, some of whom will undoubtedly rise to prominence as this franchise works it way to its grand conclusion (if there ever really is one).

If you like the Honorverse, this is a must-read. Rollicking good fun that advances the larger plot in intriguing ways.

If you've never read anything in the Honorverse, don't start with this. Go start with On Basilisk Station (Honor Harrington). If you like that, keep reading. You'll get here soon enough, and when you do, you'll enjoy this book a lot more than if you read it cold.

The planet Torch has overthrown its slave-holders and now the slaves run the planet and are inviting slaves from all over the galaxy to join them. Manpower, the company responsible for genetic slavery is angry but the slaves don't mind that...they seek to destroy Manpower and the horrible institution of slavery itself. Still, their ambitions exceed their military power, even though their teenage queen, Berry, is of the Manticore royal family and super-spy Victor Cachat of Haven intends to do what he can to preserve the young republic.

Although Manpower is a problem, Haven's analysts are beginning to pick up hints of a bigger issue. No company, not even one as big and bureaucratic as Manpower, would make the kind of decisions, the long term investments, that Manpower is making. Ultimately, Cachat and Anton Zilwicki decide they have to go to Mesa, where Manpower is headquartered, and determine who is playing Manpower like a puppet. That, not the company, is the real enemy. 'Everyone' knows that Mesa's military is a joke, that it isn't really a government at all but a coalition of the mega-corporations who own the planet. Of course, what everyone knows just might be what Mesa wants them to believe.

Within the Solarian League, factions battle for power and the Governor of the Maya Sector is developing a secret fleet...supposedly to protect his portion of the frontier against piracy, but actually with larger goals in mind. Another secret fleet, that of the Haven government in exile, is also in training, preparing to serve their Manpower paymasters in exchange for the equipment and supplies they need to take the war back to Haven, to throw out the counter-revolutionaries and set the revolution back on track.

Then there are the cutsy story lines. Queen Berry can't get a date. A group of teens from an orbital amusement park get to play spy. A wormhole probe goes horribly wrong. Treecats save the day. We even have a cameo appearance by Honor Harrington.

There's a lot to like and dislike about this story. Let's start with the likes. First, authors David Weber and Eric Flint do a good job making most of the primary actors sympathetic in the context of their goals and motivation. I thought the sections dealing with the Haven Fleet in Exile were particularly well done. While we know that State Security was a thug organization (consider the initials, after all), Weber/Flint help us understand the survivors, fighting what they know to be a lost cause when they could have chosen simply to slip away. Second, Weber/Flint look at terroristic action as something complex. Yes, the Audubon Ballroom uses terror tactics. Is terror justified in cases where the enemy has vastly more power and is also responsible for billions of humans being born into slavery? It's not a question that Weber/Flint actually answer (perhaps its a question that can't be answered), but it's the kind of question that should be posed in speculative fiction.

On the downside, we have the Weber/Flint style choice of informing the readers of everything through long paragraphs of dialogue. Perhaps in the future, people will talk like this, endlessly lecturing one another. It's not a future I look forward to. Then there are a number of threads that are begun but not really taken up in the context of this six hundred page volume. Was the whole wormhole section simply there to remind us that Mesa has deep plans? Or will it go somewhere in another volume? Did we really need the teens from the orbital amusement park? Will we see them again, or were they thrown in to give young readers someone to identify with? Does Queen Berry have to be so icky-sweet? And can we ever again have space battles that don't read like statistical tables (nine zillion missiles were launched. Two zillion went off target. Interceptors took care of another x zillion. Point defenses nearly finished them off, leaving only y zillion to slam into the battle cruiser, blasting it into oblivion.) I'm prepared to believe that future space battles will be statistics exercises. I'd just as soon skip the math and let the gunnery teams handle that, however.

Despite the flaws, I found TORCH OF FREEDOM worth the read. In fact, the anti-slavery side of the Honor Universe is now, from my standpoint, by far the most interesting line out there.

Like many other Baen hardbacks, particularly other Weber novels, this comes with a CD full of ebooks. The books include all of the other Honor Harrington universe books (mainline, Saganami Island subseries, Manpower subseries, and anthologies) plus most (perhaps all) of his other Baen published books. Of course the Tor published Safehold series is not included. Still, there are about 40 books included in HTML, Word, Mobireader, Lit, EPUB, RTF, and LRF formats.

Nov 23 update: This novel, "Torch of Freedom," is not actually included on the disc as it was made before a suitable manuscript was available.

A nice bonus.

You have no idea how much it pains me to give this book a lowly 3-star rating. I love Honor Harrington and the Honorverse and own all the books. Eric Flint is another of my favorite sci-fi authors. I don't know what happened with this book. Reading it was like trudging through a swamp. Page after page of people sitting around one conference, briefing, or dinner table or another droning on and on and on... The meat of this story could have been conveyed in a fraction of the total number of pages used and the extra exposition did not add to either the story or the reader's enjoyment.

I don't know what to tell you about whether or not you should read this book. If you follow the series, I guess maybe you need to read it in order to keep up with what is happening. I mean, I finished it, even though it was a tough slog, because I wanted to know what happened. On the other hand, you can probably get the gist of what happened in this book by just waiting and reading the next one in the series.

David Weber used to be known for taut direct-to-the-point action.

His last couple of books -- in the Honorverse and in the Safehold series -- are nothing but slack wandering talk talk talk in conference room after conference room after conference room. This book is 608 pages (hardcover), of which about 550 are either people sitting in conference rooms talking about strategies, talking about talking about strategies, or talking about some technical details that could have been summarized in a sentence or two.

I'm being slightly unfair. There's one character who spends a lot of his time talking with himself.

I understand that there's a massive scope to the Honorverse at this point, and I understand that he's introducing a massive shift in the direction of the Honorverse, but Weber desperately needs a good editor. He needs to understand that he's writing action-adventure novels and not textbooks, and not psychological treatises, and certainly not guides to conducting conferences.

It may be a long long time before I get around to buying the latest Honorverse or the latest Safehold. Maybe if I have a particularly bad case of insomnia.

Torch of Freedom (2009) is the second SF novel in the Torch subseries of the Honorverse series, following Crown of Slaves. In the previous volume, a slave uprising on Congo threw off the yoke of Manpower and other Mesan transtellars. Berry calmed down the genetic slaves enough to spare technicians and other low level workers, but Manpower managers were slaughtered.

The Torch Liberation Army took the space station. Then a Mesan taskforce was confronted by Manticore and Mayan Sector ships and declined combat. The world and system were renamed Torch by its new citizens. Then the victorious former slaves selected Berry as their Queen.

Manticore, Haven, Erewhon and the Mayan Sector of the Solarian League quickly recognized the provisional government and signed defense treaties with the torch system. Audubon Ballroom also supported Torch with their ships and personnel. Torch opened their citizenship to all genetic slaves, who soon began to arrive by shiploads.

The Alignment is a secret organization within Manpower. Created by Leonard Detweiler, it is dedicated to improving the genetic inheritance of the human race. Beowulf rejected their arguments and now the Alignment cares little about whether the rest of humanity wants to be improved.

In this novel, Berry Zilwicki is the Queen of Torch. Berry is only seventeen years old, but has had a very perilous life before becoming Queen. She doesn't like to be called by her titles.

Anton Zilwicki is Berry's father. He was an intelligence analyst for Manticore. Now he is the common law husband of Catherine Montaigne and part of the Torch government.

Victor Cachat is a Haven FIS secret agent. He is Head of Station for Torch and Erewhon. He also works closely with Anton and the Torch government.

Ruth Winton is a Manticoran princess. She would rather be a spymaster and is rapidly learning the role from Anton and Victor.

Brice Miller is almost fifteen years old. He is a resident on Parmley Station, an exoatmospheric amusement park that has been losing money for decades.

Hugh Arai is a former genetic slave and an agent of the Biological Survey Corps, Beowulf's covert operations organization. He is the commander of the BSC ship Ouroboros.

Jack McBride is the security chief of the Alignment's Gamma Center, a hidden research facility on Mesa. He has been a field agent, but his superiors considered him too squeamish for field work.

Herlander Simoes is a mathematical physicist on the Alignment drive research team. He has played a key role is developing a new type of interstellar drive.

In this story, Queen Berry and her advisors begin to suspect that Manpower is not a normal transtellar corporation. They have too much money and are involved in too many operations. Then somebody tries to assassinate Berry.

Meanwhile, Parmley Station is visited by another ship. Although the Parmley family has resisted attempts by slavers to take over their station, they soon realized that the slavers have more resources. So now the slavers pay rent to live in the tower and to maintain a holding facility for slaves from occasional harvester ships.

However, the current visitor is not a slaver ship. Rather, it contains a BSC commando. As hidden observers from the Parmley family watch, the supposed slavers -- and their slaves -- wipe out all the slavers on the station.

The Parmley family are well shielded, so the BSC ship does not detect any other lifeforms on the station. When Hugh declares his intentions to nuke the station, Brice exposes himself and asks for further consideration. The BSC commando decides to link Parmley station with the Torch system.

Back on Mesa, Jack has a problem. Hedlander and his wife were asked to foster a baby from an experimental line that should have a very strong mathematical potential. Despite genetic tweaks, the previous clones had developed a form of autism.

The Long-Range Planning Board thought that the mathematical talents of the Simoes couple would carry the child through this problem. Indeed, the child passed the usual failure point with flying colors and gained the love of the Simoes. But then she suddenly starts losing touch with the outside world.

Hedlander points out that Francesca has done much better than the previous models, but LRPB decides to discontinue treatment and culls her. Hedlander is incensed over the LRPB decision. His moods alienate him from his colleagues and then his wife gets a divorce. Jack is asked to try to get Herlander through his current project.

Jack finds himself liking and sympathizing with Herlander. He begins to view the LRPB and the Alignment from a different point of view. He also begins to wonder about their relationships with the normals and slaves.

This tale focuses mostly on events within the Torch system and the Maya Sector. However, this novel parallels the other two storylines within the Honorverse, taking place during the same timeframe as At All Costs and Storm from the Shadows. The events in each storyline influence the other novels. Some characters play key roles across the storylines.

This story will influence events elsewhere within the Honorverse. The next volume in this series is the main sequence novel Mission of Honor. Read and enjoy!

Highly recommended for Weber fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of political intrigue, covert operations, and a bit of romance.

-Arthur W. Jordin

This story is the fifteenth full length novel in the "Honorverse" group of novels set some 2,000 years in the future. It is the second novel, after "Crown of Slaves (Honor Harrington)" where the main focus is on the struggle for freedom of the former "genetic slaves" against the slavemasters who operate through a company called "Manpower" but who are now revealed to the reader as being controlled by an organisation known to its inner core as the "Mesan Alignment." Everyone assumes that Manpower is simply a rich and corrupt company of genetic slavers. Unfortunately for the galaxy they are much, much more than that ...

There is a large cast of characters but the main heroes are two unlikely allies whose home planets are at war: the Manticoran super-spy Anton Zilwicki and the Havenite super-spy Victor Cachat.

This book has two simultaneous plots, one of which is a spy story while the other culminates in a space battle.


If you have not read any of the "Honorverse" books and are interested in doing so, do not start with this one: I would recommend starting with the first book in the main Honor Harrington sequence which is "On Basilisk Station."

The first thirteen Honorverse novels, despite being Space Opera stories set in the far future, had very strong parallels with the story of Nelson's navy up to 1805. The central character of most of these books, Honor Harrington, is a bit like a female mix of Horatio Nelson and Horatio Hornblower. Assumed technology in the stories imposes constraints on space navy officers quite similar to those which the technology of fighting sail imposed on wet navy officers two hundred years ago.

Similarly, the galactic situation in the novels up to the battle of Manticore at the end of "AT ALL COSTS" (which corresponds to Trafalgar) had marked similarities to the strategic and political situation in Europe at the time of the French revolutionary wars.

However, having finished the interesting parts of the battles at sea between the Royal Navy and the French Navy, the story is turning into something completely different. In this book and "Storm from the Shadows" (SFTS) the reader learns that the genetic slaver company called "Manpower" is merely a front for something far more powerful and dangerous, known to its inner circle as "The Mesan Alignment".

Anyone who has read "War of Honor (Honor Harrington Series, Book 10)" and "At All Costs" (AAC) already knows that "Manpower" has done even worse things than trafficking in slaves: a major part of the story is whether the heroes will succeed in finding proof of what the Mesan Alignment has already done, discovering why they've done it and what they're planning, and surviving to get the information back to Manticore and Haven.


OVERLAP ALERT - The most recent six books in the "Honorverse" describe essentially the same events from three different perspectives. Consequently there are some substantial overlaps. In particular, quite lengthy conversations between the leaders of the Mesan Alignment are repeated verbatim in both this book and SFTS as the Mesans plan their attacks both against Michelle Henke in the Talbott Quadrant and against Torch.

Similarly, the scene on Honor Harrington's flagship in AAC when she gets two very surprising vistors is described here from the perspective of those visitors and this is just one of several scenes from AAC which are repeated in this volume.

Weber tries to stop such repetition from spoiling the book. In my opinion he largely succeeds, but if you're the sort of reader who hates repetition you may feel a bit cheated that so much of this book recapitulates events already described.

The other irratating aspect of the fact that we are covering familiar ground from a new perspective, though it would be entirely realistic, is that characters in this book often have to refer in awkward ways to events and systems about which readers of the other books are fully informed but the characters in these books have incomplete information. For exmple, the characters in "Torch of Freedom" have to refer to the Apollo system with expressions like "whatever Lady Harrington used at Lovat".

This worked for me but might not work for all readers. Those who have read SFTS and AAC may find the some of the book repetitive despite Weber's efforts to avoid this. However, those who have not read AAC may find the oblique references to the war Honor Harrington is fighting on another front to be aggravatingly incomplete.

I liked the character development in this story. Albrecht Detweiler, the new primary "baddie" introduced in this story and SFTS, is an interesting and complex person for the reader to love to hate, combining as he does some of the characteristics of Ernst Stavro Blofeld (without the cat), Dr Soong from Star Trek Enterprise (without the scruples), and the Emperor of Cetaganda from the Miles Vorkosigan Universe (without the humour.) Other new characters include the matriarch of a decaying space version of Disneyland and the security officer for an evil regime who has the misfortune to develop a conscience.

And BTW, if you like to see the bad guys (and girls) get their comeuppance, you have to read this book to find out what happens to one of the villains of "The Shadow of Saganami."



LIST OF HONORVERSE BOOKS

As hinted at above, the Honor Harrington series (sometimes nicknamed the "Honorverse") has developed two spin-off storylines. Stories set in this Universe fall into three groups, although they link together in a reasonably consistent manner.

There is the main sequence, currently of 11 novels with number 12 on the way, which follow the career of Honor Harrington herself. This main sequence is:

1) On Basilisk Station
2) The Honor of the Queen
3) The Short Victorious War
4) Field of Dishonour
5) Flag in Exile
6) Honor among Enemies
7) In Enemy Hands
8) Echoes of Honor
9) Ashes of Victory
10) War of Honor
11) At All Costs
12) Mission of Honor (forthcoming)

There are currently four collections in the "Worlds of Honor" series of short stories by Weber and co-authors set in the same universe, and featuring a range of characters, some from the main series of books, others new.

Some of these are espionage stories, and Weber's book "Crown of Slaves," co-written with Eric Flint, brings together several of the most prominent spies from the novels and short stories in a novel of intrigue and revolution. This book, "Torch of Freedom" is the sequel to "Crown of Slaves".

Finally there is of "Next Generation" sequence both books of which have "shadow" in their titles, dealing mostly with events in the Talbott Cluster and the relationship between Manticore and the Solarian Republic based on Old Earth. This sequence starts with "The Shadow of Saganami" and follows on with "Storm from the Shadows." The first of these centres on some younger officers in the Grayson and Manticoran navies such as Helen Zilwicki and Abigail Hearns. In the second, Honor Harrington's best friend Michelle Henke takes centre stage.

I am a big fan of David Weber. I own all of his published books, most in hardcover. I also love Eric Flint. I have every one of the "ring of fire" novels. This books is a continuation of the "Torch" novels set in the so-called "Honorverse" of Honor Harrington and Manticore. It provides a piece of the overall puzzle. However, the book is quite hard to read. For the first four hundred pages, the scenes in the book consist of dialogues between "talking heads" at various ends of the universe. The action really doesn't start to take place until about page 400 in the hardcover version, and then it gets really good, as you would expect from Weber and Flint. In some cases, it really isn't even clear why the persons are in the book at all. I wondered that about Ganny and Brice. Will they be important in some future novel? A lot of space was devoted to them, but they really weren't important to the story at all.

First, and fair warning, <<SPOILIERS AHEAD!!!>>

Now, before I get too criticized, I like Weber in general, and the Honorverse in particular (although much like Patrick O'Brien and Forester themselves, Honor got too big, too fast, and so now the action has to be with secondary characters and series like this away from the main story arc!) I think "On Basilisk Station (Honor Harrington)" is on a par with other classics of military Sci-Fi like Heinlein's "Starship Troopers," Drake's "Hammer's Slammers," or Pournelle's "Janissaries." And while the main arc books have been uneven, "War of Honor (Honor Harrington Series, Book 10)" is classic, "In Enemy Hands (Honor Harrington Series, Book 7)" not so much, overall there is a real compelling quality that makes you come back for more. In some ways the side projects, such as the short stories and "Cluster" books, are even better at times. So trust me, I am a fan. That said...

"Disappointing" and "insulting" seem too mild to describe this volume. First of all, the entire "Torch" arc is contrived far beyond the rest of the series. An improbable revolt on a slave planet that is somehow not massively guarded and protected, a teen queen (literally) plucked at random from another story line, ruthless slave terrorists who seem mild even compared to real ones today, a hodge-podge of cute but discordant "odds and ends" characters from the rest of the series, most of whom should have different agendas and priorties than they actually do... And so on. "I have a duty and interest in supporting a galactic power, but I think I will toss all of that away because Queen Berry is so sweet it's magnetic..." And the ridiculous inbred amusement park in space family is too, too, too much. Sorry. The creation of this plot line had to involve beer. A lot of it!

Everyone has already commented about the endless scripted conversations, tedious oratory, etc. Also, the editing is really slipping. One gets the impression the publisher wants a huge book, for us to pay for in hardcover, and using a copy editor would just impede the cash flow! In one chapter I read three different plot lines, all of which began with the same cliche! Seriously. The writing has become hackneyed and repetitive. I guess in the future all women will have "crooked smiles." (You think by then surgeons could correct that?) But where this book utterly fails is in what passes for action. Most of this is espionage. Weber excels when he is describing future space battles with a science of missile technology, ship speeds, etc., that are technically impressive, bordering on a Physics lesson. But get on the ground, especially in a covert setting, and he reverts to purely 20th Century plot devices that put one in mind of "Get Smart" or Hogan's Heroes." Apparently high tech future cultures will not have the facial recognition software, substance detectors, or advanced access controls that are already becoming common in the 21st Century. Need to penetrate the most secure research lab of a paranoid genetically-designed super-villain? Just get Cachat and Zilwicki (aka, Newkirk and LeBeau) to find some clever disguises and even more clever banter, and then just walk on in. Meanwhile back on the slave world, we have programmed assasins with poisons clever enough to defeat advanced security procedures, but slow enough to save the lives of all the main characters (again, thank heavens 20th Century nerve agents are no longer around.) And on, and on, and on. For me it's not that the book is tedious (it is), or wordy (it is), or even painfully contrived (it is.) It's simply that it is bad.

So why 2-stars? Well, because this comes (at least in hardcover) with a huge bonus: the Weber Honorverse CD with it seems most/all of his previous stuff, much of which is totally brilliant! So for the price of a bad hardcover (and it is now under $10 new), you essentially get a full library of much, much better books! That's a lot more value for your money, like $100s worth, and you get to see how truly good Weber can be (there's a reason these are all best sellers!) This book has the feeling of something Weber & Flint just "mailed in" to meet a publisher's deadline and maybe make a few tongue-in cheek jokes along the way to a paycheck. Both are capable of far better than this mess, so if you bought this book and were disappointed, please don't just pitch it away. Plug in that CD and see how good Weber can be when he is not just, "mailing it in."

Good news:
Lots more action, some fun new characters, and a lot of new things about the universe revealed.

Bad news:
Lots and lots, and lots and did i mention lots of meetings?