David Weber's A Beautiful Friendship

The best way to follow up a super serious post about a graphic novel covering an important subject is by reviewing a Science Fiction novel about treecats.

Or sumfin'

Listen, this blog is a work in progress and sometimes it gets messy.

All of this to say that I recently read David Weber's novel A Beautiful Friendship. You purists out there may be tempted to point out that I did it because I was going to a meet up with a couple local chapters of The Royal Manticoran Navy: The Official Honor Harrington Fan Association. You may even be right. The fact remains that I helped plan the outing and I picked out the book (along with my buddy/Commanding Officer David) so neener, neener, neener. I read it. I loved it. And, put bluntly, who needs purists anyway?

So, right, the book...

This is the third time I've read the thing, and the first time I've reviewed it. My excuse is because this book is so old that I read it twice before I started my blog in 2015. No system's perfect, right. Better late that never?

I mean...

Yeah, the book.

A Beautiful Friendship is part of the Star Kingdom series which is in and of itself a part of the Honor Harrington universe aka the Honorverse. I've been following these books for about twenty-ish years now, going back to right around the time I met my ex-wife and before I had kids. My oldest is eighteen now. Suffice it to say that I'm a huge fan.

A Beautiful Friendship is a prequel leading back to the origins of the Star Kingdom (later Star Empire) of Manticore and also of the Harrington clan's beginnings as citizens therein. Stephanie Harrington, our heroine and all around likeable young girl, is on a quest to find something to do. Her family has recently immigrated to the SKM after living on a much older, more settled planet with a larger population, more forms of entertainment and people her age who aren't boring. The planet Sphinx is largely still wild with a small contingent of humanity on the planet, trying to make their way and build something.

Enter Stephanie who, quite frankly, is everything I taught my daughters to be; strong, smart, proud, tough and brave. She has a bit of that teenage brashness about her as well but that makes sense because she's a teenager. So when human settlers start reporting that celery is being burgled from their greenhouses (Sphinxian winters last a long time) she is intrigued. When celery starts disappearing from the Harrington greenhouse, she sets out to find out who or what is doing it. And what she catches on camera...

Fans of the mainline Honorverse books all knew what I was when they read the word "celery." What she discovers is the first treecat known to humanity. And when she finds out it has and uses a net made of local fibers, things start to get interesting. Treecats aren't the first sentient species known to humans, but there haven't been many and she's a kid. She's also afraid her parents will find out that she snuck out after dark, in the rain...

As adults we sometimes forget how badly it sucked to have to listen to parental instructions about everything. As parents, we know why they were necessary but that doesn't change the fact that we hated it. Weber does an awesome job of putting us back in that teenage mindset, wanting to do more than we're allowed to and frustrated because we can't. Of course, Stephanie is a Harrington and doesn't lack for personal initiative. She's also quite a bit less disciplined than her more famous descendant and finds ways around rules. 

Seriously, I had to pull out my copy of Better to Beg Forgiveness and make sure that it was indeed written by Michael Z. Williamson and not David Weber, because little Ms. Harrington lives that philosophy to its fullest. And, if it gets her in trouble from time to time, that just makes the whole experience more fun. Every story needs conflict after all.

I don't want to spoil too much of the book, but this isn't just a book about Man(girl) vs. Nature or Man vs. Parents. There is some serious villainy here and some more subtle danger emanating from pretty much everywhere around Harrington. She deals with it with equanimity for the most part. Stephanie Harrington is a girl who can keep her cool during a crisis. She's the kind of person I'd want along with me if I were doing something requiring guts and a calm mind, even if I might wish for a person with a bit more life experience.

There is a lot of really cool stuff here about the first few humans who bond with treecats, becoming almost the equivalent of a Treecat and their spouse. It's pretty cool if you've been following the series for a long time and maybe even cooler if you haven't. Those of us who are familiar with Honor and her treecat Nimitz take certain things for granted. Having read the later books, I know how smart treecats are. I'm used to the fact that they can bond with people and some very clear indications of the psychic abilities of treecats and their utility are listed in the later works. 

If you haven't read those books though, a lot of it will come as a surprise. It's a voyage of discovery for Stepanie, her treecat Lionheart and indeed the entire human and treecat species. No one had a way to anticipate what was possible before Lionheart accidentally bonded with Stephanie, and the world takes a weird turn afterward because neither one of them know what to expect, either. As experienced readers we know some of what's coming, but even then, not all of it and the human element in the book leads places I never expected it to go.

A Beautiful Friendship was one of the first books I managed to get my hands on and read after my divorce in 2012. Times were rough then, and it helped me get through a pretty rough time. It's a lot easier to enjoy it this time and I'm glad I took the time to reread it. The writing hasn't changed but I have. This is exactly the right type of book to read if you need a quick distraction from life to make you feel better. People are surprised when they find out that I didn't turn to drinking or drugs when my depression got bad. It's thanks to writers like David Weber and books like ABF that I'm not stuck in lifelong drug/alcohol rehab. If a pick me up is what you need, hie thee off to the bookstore and pick yourself up a copy. If not, buy one anyway. It's a good book regardless.

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Carry Nets

A Beautiful Friendship
David Weber
Baen Books, 2013

A Beautiful Friendship is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.

A Beautiful Friendship

Happy Golden Anniversary Dungeons and Dragons

Once upon a time, long ago, a cousin of mine who probably wouldn't admit it anymore introduced me to a game called Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, a game which was then in it Second Edition. It was a game that had everything a young man could ever want: Dragons, Dungeons, Gold, Fighting, Dice...

It was an adventure that never had to end because, once you were done with the current adventure, you could queue another one up. When I got tired of my dwarven fighter/mage/thief I could switch to playing my elven bard or my human paladin (which I _on no level_ fudged the rolls to make, unless you count reality) and off I would go in pursuit of more treasure, or that one annoying twit that kept arresting people and wanted to know what happened to the magistrate's amulet and why someone said they thought they saw me wearing it. (And that NEVER HAPPENED. Now, had someone said they saw it in my backpack, that may have been a different story.)

Now, if you were in the  mood to be pedantic (and if you're reading this, you're most likely a geek, a nerd, or both) you may be tempted to point out that my introduction to the game Dungeons and Dragons wasn't really my introduction to D&D overall. I had loved the cartoon when it was on Saturday mornings, even if I thought the Dungeon Master was a little creepy. But honestly, who wouldn't? I kind of still do.

And it didn't stop there. I discovered the various game world box sets: First Greyhawk, then Spelljammer, Forgotten Realms...

I could go on. The really important part is that the box sets led to books. I was introduced to The Dragonlance Chronicles by my friend Jeff Cauldwell, and I fell in love with the world of Krynn and fantasy literature in general (IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT, JEFF!!). My sister grabbed me one of the Greyhawk novels for Christmas one year. The Dark Sun novels were freaking painfully amazing and gave me flashbacks to the Thomas Covenant novels. Then came Spelljammer and it's take on space travel. OMG DUDE!!! Trek/Wars in D&D. I was in love.

And then came the Dwarven Nations trilogy. I have a serious love for the dwarven folk and, while I enjoyed Flint Fireforge (and named both D&D and Everquest characters after him) the reason I'm writing a dwarf centered novel, the reason I'm reading an unrelated series about dwarves now, and the reason I started the last campaign I DM'ed in a dwarven town was really The Dwarven Nations Trilogy. I love the little buggers. Hardworking, no-nonsense taking, and yes, I am one of THOSE McCoys (if you don't believe me ask a Hatfield) never giving up, stubborn asshole, and orc skull splitting dwarves are the most bestest things about fantasy fiction. 

Wait what?

You disagree? You're wrong. Dwarves are objectively the best thing that ever happened to fantasy anything. There is no counter argument. 

But I digress.

As usual.

Digression is, however, my strongest skill as a blogger.

Anyone who reads fantasy fiction and hasn't read R.A. Salvatore's Forgotten Realms novels needs to have their head examined while they're wandering off to the bookstore to grab copies. Start with Drizzt Do'Urden and then head over toward Cadderly the cleric afterward. I haven't reviewed the books here because it's been a long time since I read one, but they are magnificent. What's more, the Forgotten Realms are extremely popular in not just Salvatore's novels, but in pretty much everything D&D that takes place in digital form: Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, even Tiny D&D Adventures the old Facebook app before the Google Play store was a thing. And, of course, for pretty much all of the D&D movies. 

I know I'm in the minority in that I loved all four of the movies. I know that most of you would disagree. I know that the first three movies basically felt like bad B movies. I've also sat at more than one gaming table and I have to say that most of those tables couldn't even aspire to be B movies. 

And the thing with D&D is that it doesn't even matter which form you prefer. Someone else out there loves it as much as you do and they'll be happy to discuss it with you. I've seen it happen. Two geeks sitting next to each other not knowing each other and all of a sudden someone mentions painting minis or playing video games and two hours later they're best friends talking about stuff they've done in the game. I have personally walked up to someone reading a copy of a D&D novel at the library and started a conversation. She was cute, too, only I was married at the time. (But if you're reading this, I'm divorced now!) It happens.

And listen...

I'm not here for the Edition Wars. I've never played Basic D&D regardless of what color the box was. I started with Second Edition, but my buddy Pat (RIP, brother. I told you that shit was bad for you.) had a first edition copy of Unearthed Arcana and it never really occurred to us to convert anything. I've played Third Edition, missed Fourth, and have played and DM'ed 5e. It's time for the proverbial "every edition has its strengths and weaknesses" routine, only I'm not going to bother. Play what you like. Leave others alone and, if you're not a dick, you can sit at my table.

The crazy part is that D&D is not just a game either. It's a creative outlet. The first worlds I created, I created for D&D and for the Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game (First Edition). If you can read through all of the various subclasses and/or kits and can't come up with a new twist on an old trope (even if it's just by tweaking something there) then I can't help you. It's all there. And if it's not there, you can create it.

That is why, in my opinion, the greatest of all forms of D&D is the homebrew edition. Why? Because it's all about a DM, their players, and what works for them. I've never seen the sheer volume of homebrew that I see in D&D anywhere else. Even if you play modules, I can pretty much guarantee your group is home ruling SOMETHING at your table. The Rules at Written have been trampled over so many times that it's laughable. I LOVE THAT ABOUT THEM.

Oh, right. Podcasts. I forgot the podcasts. That's probably because I don't listen to them because I suck and you should hate me. Or sumfin'. If my cousin Hallie finds out I haven't watched/listened to Critical Role she's probably gonna kick my ass. I'll get around to it at some point. Probably. I should probably watch/review a season of something at some point. Someday. When I get the time. But never mind me. I know a lot of people love them and that's what matters.

Oh crap, I forgot the art. I love the art. Larry Elmore is basically the greatest artist ever to pick up a paint brush but there have been a whole bunch of amazeballs fantasy artists and a lot of them have made D&D related artwork. And then there are the magazines...

Listen, I've gotta work in the morning. I need to end this here.

And yes, I know the whole gaming license thing made some people mad. Wizards retracted all the crap and fixed the problem. Everyone is back to making their money again. It's all good. Let's all move on. 

Roll those dice. Have fun storming the castle. Kill the dragon. Loot the horde. Whine to your DM because you can't afford full plate at first level. But fire it up folks and let's lay some D&D. Thank you, Mr Gygax for the endless hours of fun and fellowship your creation has provided. Here's to hoping it lasts at least another fifty years.

Some Dungeons & Dragons related merchandise is available for purchase at the links below. If you click the links and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.

Player's Handbook

Dungeon Master's Guide

David Weber's Through Fiery Trials

This is the series that never ends...
Yes, it goes on and on my friends
Some people started reading it not knowing what it was
And they'll continue reading it forever just because
This is the series that never ends...

All smart-aleck remarks aside, I'm really glad this series didn't end because the end of the last book, At the Sign of Triumph, it really looked like it could. I mean, there was obviously a lot of work to do and another war (or more) to fight, but it's not like the illustrious Mad Wizard Weber

*rises from his chair and places his hand over his hearth*

Whom I loves and respects.

*Sits back down*

Hasn't left us all dangling with a lot more story left to tell after the initial Big Bad gets theirs. (I won't say Prince Roger if you don't.)  Fortunately though, there was an afterward that said the story wasn't over. It turns out it really wasn't.

I was kind of surprised with this one. Anyone who has read much Weber at all (and I definitely include myself in that group) is used to massive amounts of combat. Weber's best known series is, after all, the Honor Harrington novels which take place over a series of wars and star a naval officer who has a well-earned reputation for always being at the center of the battle. The crazy thing about Through Fiery Trials is that it's not combat heavy.

The other key component to Weber's writing has always been political maneuvering and there is a lot of that here. The planet of Safehold (and this is the tenth book in the Safehold series) has just come through a long period of religious war and a schism in the church that the entire population had been part of. Things are getting better for the most part, but if Cayleb and Sharleyan, the leaders of the winning side in the war, want to see what they fought for come to fruition it's going to take some work after the fighting stops.

That's the main thrust of Through Fiery Trials. It's not all just Cayleb and Sharleyan. This is the first Safehold novel to not feature a Dramatis Personae and I'm wondering if that's strictly because of space considerations, because the cast hasn't gotten any smaller. The thing is that the huge cast and the enormous world is what makes Weber's work really function.

Safehold is a living breathing world. Through Fiery Trials bounces across the globe keeping up with everything that is happening. It's apparent that Weber has spend a long time and a ton of effort producing this book and indeed the entire series. Each chapter begins with a header telling us where we are. Then we find out what characters we're there with. It takes a bit of getting used to if you haven't read something this epic but once you do, it's awesome. I love Harry Turtledoves work for much the same reason. No epic story, especially a war or the recovery afterward, can be well covered by only one character and their point of view. There are forces at work that are incomprehensible even to the people that are trying to control them and the Law of Unintended Consequences fully applies. Only by showing thirty two gagillion points of view can one attempt to make a balanced view of a massive war. Weber does that like a champion.

Now, it does have to be mentioned that this is the tenth book in a series that doesn't show any sign of ending anywhere in the foreseeable (at least to me) future. I really do recommend starting with the first book and working your way through because it's easy to miss things when you HAVE read all the books and you DO know what's going on. Coming in mid-stream is going to be rough and the earlier books are each worth your time in their own right. Seriously, start this thing where it starts because there is too much to try and backfill on your own.

There were a couple of moments in Through Fiery Trials that had my heart pounding. Weber seems to like toying with his audiences emotions. Now, that's a good thing in a writer but few are this good at it. Of course, part of the problem is that I try to predict what's going to happen next and in a few cases things I could tell that things were about to go horribly awry but I wasn't sure what or how. Actually, in at least two case I WAS sure how, but I was wrong. But still, this is not a book for the weak at heart. It put me through the ringer. Oh shit moments abound so be ready for them.

My one complaint about Through Fiery Trials is the same complaint I've had about every Safehold novel and will continue to have in the future: The names in the book suck. I'm being dead serious when I say that. One of my biggest pet peeves in all of literature is when authors change things and mess with language just to say they did it. Mr. Weber decided that due to a millenium plus of linguistic drift he'd make all of the names look weird and it works. They certainly do look weird. It can be kind of a pain though. I've known how to read for over thirty-five years now and having to sound out the name of a character in a book can be a bit annoying. It doesn't kill the story for me. If it didn't I wouldn't still be here ten books in. The fact remains that the stories would be better without it.

All in all though, Through Fiery Trials was awesome. I can't wait for the next one and Weber has set it up nicely. I know Weber uses history as source material and I'm wondering if one particular group of people is going to do what I think they're going to do based on history. I hope not, because if so the bloodletting is going to be massive. Then again, they're not real people and wars are what Weber does best. I guess I'll find out eventually. Sooner would be better.

Bottom Line: 4.5 out of 5 Riot Batons

Through Fiery Trials
David Weber
Tor, 2018

Through Fiery Trials is available for purchase at the following link:

David Weber's Uncompromising Honor

(First, the disclaimer: I am a member of The Royal Manticoran Navy, which is the official fan club of David Weber in general and The Honorverse in particular. My judgement may be a bit skewed here. Then again, when isn't it?)

The World's Most Awesome Girlfriend (TM) hit me up on Facebook Messenger one day to ask if there were any Baen books out that I hadn't had a chance to buy and/or review yet that I wanted. This was a couple of weeks before Christmas. Now, being The World's Most Awesome GF, she's usually really good at figuring out what to buy without my input, but I was happy to provide it this time. I immediately replied "Latest Honor Harrington" because I had just woken up and could not for the life of me remember what the title was before having sucked down any caffeine. About twenty minutes later I looked it up and remembered that it was Uncompromising Honor.

I'm glad I did too, because this was a really good book. It seemed to have a manufacturing defect though. Once I picked it up it wouldn't let go of my hand. Seriously. It's almost like this inanimate object didn't understand that I have responsibilities I need to attend to and that I had to get moving out the door and off to work. Maybe Baen should have named it Uncompromising Attention Whore instead of Uncompromising Honor. I mean, it just wouldn't leave me alone.

Now, to be fair, this one did start off a bit slower than I probably would have preferred. It takes a moment to get up to speed. David Weber's book, particularly in his Honorverse and Safehold series, do tend to be a bit on the talky side. Usually that's a good thing because it's how Weber keeps us informed on what's going on with his massive and far flung universes. This time though, I'm wondering if an action sequence at the beginning of the book wouldn't have spiced things up a bit and drawn the reader in a bit sooner.

That's not to say there's no action in the book. I remember one particular passage that lasted for a good chunk of the book and had my eyes glued to the pages. It was definitely an action sequence and a bit gut wrenching. I loved it though and not just because it was an awesome action scene. Weber did something in that passage. He is simply the best at it, bar none.

Something that a lot of authors of military science fiction, and both other forms of military science fiction and non-fiction forget is that militaries have histories and traditions that go farther back than just the people they're writing about. When Hal Moore was ordered to form an air cavalry unit to fight in the Vietnam War he asked for the same designation that the Cavalry unit that fought at the Little Big Horn had. Thus was the Seventh Cavalry reformed. They damn near go wiped out like their namesake too, but that's a subject of its own book and movie. My point is that these traditions do exist. They're real and the memory of what has gone before is a source of inspiration for the current generation. Weber gets that and he weaves it so well into his narrative that the story wouldn't work without it. Weber was once a history major at the graduate level and he has obviously done some serious research into the way that real militaries work.

Like pretty much every other Honorverse novel, Uncompromising Honor is a war story. In war people die. Something else Weber does very well is exposing us to the sense of loss of those left behind. A lot of authors of fiction will show the reactions of the rest of the unit when a warrior passes. Any work of military history includes at least one table of casualty figures. What often gets left out is the cost to non-combatants, at least in a non-financial sense. Weber gets that and he makes sure to let us see the other side of the conflict.

I, of course, am a huge fan of the strong female protagonist, and Honor Harrington will kick your ass. That's if she decides not to shoot, nuke or drop a kinetic energy weapon on it. I hear that she's pretty good with a laserhead too, and that's not just a weird 80s insult for nerds. She's more than that though. Honor is both a mother and a warrior. She has to deal with the problems faced with many of members of the US Military have to deal with in the real world, planet Earth, circa 2019. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying. She still has the edge that she's always had. There's just so much more to her now. I wish I could force all of the people who talk down about "military fiction and its cardboard heroes" to sit down and read Uncompromising Honor. They might actually learn something.

The only truly bad part of my experience in reading this book comes from my own stupidity. See, when I have a book made in honest to God Dead Tree Format, I have a tendency to flip to the end and find out how many pages are in the thing. I've done this since probably the first time I read a book that had chapters. THIS time though, I noticed that there was an afterword. Now, the whole point of an afterword is that you're supposed to read it AFTER you read the book. I know this. I'm college educated. I read it anyway. I am -officially- a dipshit for reading the afterword first.What I'm saying here is that if you buy the book (and you should buy the book) you should not read the afterword first because there's stuff in there that you don't want to know about until after you read the dadgum book.

Uncompromising Honor is, I think, the 25646464654654654564465456th book in the series. I may be exaggerating slightly. At any rate, the Honorverse is a huge series with multiple complex relationships and you really need to start it at the beginning, with On Basilisk Station.  You'll thank me.

Bottom Line:  4.5 out of 5 Laser Heads

On Basilisk Station
David Weber
Baen Books, 2018


Uncompromising Honor is available for purchase at the following link:



And, since I mentioned them, We Were Soldiers Once... and Young and  We Were Soldiers are available at the following links as well:

David Weber's On Basilisk Station

(Before I even get started: I am a huge fan of this writer and this series. I am, in fact, a member of The Royal Manticoran Navy, the fan club of all things set in the Honor Harrington universe. My recent re-read of this book was because I had joined the TRMN and gotten nostalgic.You may find yourself questioning my objectivity while writing this review. I assure that your suspicions are well founded. Then again, if it wasn't a good book, would I really be a fan?)

Once upon a time I worked at a Super K-Mart in Warren, Michigan. There I had a friend who WOULD NOT STOP telling me what an awesome author this David Weber guy was and how I ABSOLUTIVELY, POSILUTELY had to read his Honor Harrington books. Like, since I was a science fiction fan, I had no choice whatsoever. He pretty much redefined the phrase "overenthusiastic pain in the neck." The thing was we had zero authors that we read in common and I was skeptical. I did my best to ignore him.

Then one day I found myself at the mall (Oakland, if you're local) with my then-girlfriend (now ex-wife) and she decided to detour into a shoe store. Being me I gave the battlecry of all real men who refuse to be mistreated in such a way (Uhh... Honey? I think maybe I'll head over to the bookstore. If... That's okay?) And trudged off in search of a good time and aiming to misbehave.

I then checked over the work of my favorite authors at the time and found zero new books by them. I had narrowly avoided the hell of the shoe store in vain. I was going to die of boredom anyway. But then I remembered that I had to look at my friend the next time I went to work and figured I might as well pick up one of those Harrington novels.. Only, uhh.. Which one was the first one again? I had no clue. I'm not too sure he had mentioned it.

So I walked up to one of the cashiers and asked her if she knew what the first book was. She got excited. "Oh, my dad and my brother both love those books. The first one is On Basilisk Station and it's right over here." She actually took me by the hand and led me to the book. That makes twice that a woman has done that. The other time was when I first found out that The Lord of the Rings existed. ( I was the only geek in my house. These things happen.) So, yeah, I bought the book and took it home. That was a damn good decision.

On Basilisk Station is the kind of book Space Opera fans spend their entire lives looking for. It's that good. Our main character, Honor Harrington takes command of her first cruiser (she had commanded a destroyer "off screen" previously) and is as excited as all get-out. Things, however, don't go as planned initially and well...

Life gets interesting, in the sense of the ancient Chinese curse. This is Honor Harrington though. She could lay down and die but she doesn't. Seriously, reading Honor was good prep for my eventual divorce because I could use those books to remind myself that no matter how much life sucks it's possible to keep on keeping on. This is just the first lesson but it's a good one.

As things start going wrong, we not only get to see how Honor reacts to it, but we get to see how her subordinates react as well. Making a crew run right isn't always easy and it's harder when things start to suck. Honor gets that, Weber gets that and On Basilisk Station centers around those conflicts. Don't get me wrong. There is violence galore and ugly doesn't begin to describe some of it, but at the end of the day this is a book about people. To me, that's what separates a great work from a merely good one.

Listen, Star Trek in all it's iterations (except possibly ST:DIS which I haven't watched because I don't have CBS All Access) contains a large amount of Social Justice, but it's not a Social Justice show. It's a show about people and the liberal parts of the agenda come through story and not sermonizing. The History Channel show Mail Call was awesome and it was, in theory about questions regarding the military but it was really about R. Lee Ermey (RIP Gunny) and the people he was working with. Yes, SF in particular and especially Space Opera features cool widgets and big ships and lots of traveling, but dammit it's the people who make it fun. Weber gets that.

And, of course, not everyone is a hero. I can think of one particular character in On Basilisk Station that I would dearly love to strangle. Believe me when I say that there is no more deserving person. Fortunately, he's fictional and so I won't end up in jail but that dude irritates me.

Of course a good story is more than just a conversation between two people and Weber gets that too. On Basilisk Station never stops moving. It starts with a promotion and a blow-up and finishes with a bang. There are no boring moments here. This thing never drags. It never lets up. It's freaking captivating. I sat down yesterday to read a couple chapters before I jumped in the shower and ended up reading over four hundred pages and finishing the book and oh, by the way, I knew how it ended. Thankfully, I'm a Lyft driver so I didn't get myself in trouble for starting late.

I have no complaints about On Basilisk Station. One that I have frequently heard, though, is that Honor is too good at too much, but I'm not sure that's the case. She's simply a quick-thinking woman who gets stuck in bad situations and has to find her way out somehow.What some see as competence, I see as refusal to fail. Feel free to disagree if you must, but I calls 'em as I sees 'em.

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Energy Lances (even though they're non-canon now)

On Basilisk Station
David Weber
Baen Books, 1992

On Basilisk Station is available for purchase at the following link:

Like A Mighty Army by David Weber

David Weber's Like a Mighty Army is the latest in his Safehold Series, a post-apocalyptic step back in time. In some ways the older books have read almost like a period piece set in the European Renaissance, although the Harchong Empire does seem similar in ways to feudal China. Like a Mighty Army and, to a lesser extent its predecessor, Midst Toil and Tribulation read more steampunkish. This is a good thing as one of the major goals of the series protagonist, Merlin Athrawes, is to gradually increase the tech base of the planet Safehold until it is capable of fighting against an genocidal alien race known as the Gbaba.




The story itself covers a year of campaigning in a war pitting The Empire of Charis against the Church of God Awaiting and its corrupt leadership, the Group of Four. This war is not new to this book and has in fact been going on for nearly the whole series. Things are looking grim for The Empire of Charis and its ally, the Siddarmarkian Republic. They were pushed back hard in Midst Toil and Tribulation and may crops were burnt in the fields. Hunger stalks the land and several large masses of homeless refugees are putting a strain on not just food stocks, but also the amount of homes available and just about every other conceivable item as well. The Charisians have a higher tech base but they're outnumbered many times over. I wonder if Mr. Weber hasn't done some reading about the Korean War, because the situation is in some ways reminiscent.




That brings up another strength of this story. Weber has very obviously spent hours and hours in research for his series. His knowledge of various subjects is used to make the story believable in ways I would not have anticipated. Fans of Weber's Honorverse will recognize the author's trademark use of naval battle,  this time with a lower tech base. The suspicious part of my mind wonders if perhaps Weber didn't study land based warfare in an effort to shut those of us who wondered if he could write it up. Regardless of why he wrote it, he delivers. Weber's combat scenes are fast-paced, bloody, graphic and utterly believable. His knowledge of early industrial processes is impressive as well.



Weber, mainly through a character named Edwyrd Howsmyn, walks us through every step of the improvement in technology for both sides of the conflict. Some of it is quite frankly above my ability to evaluate for accuracy (he has done the research, I have not) but it all makes sense. He has taken the economy from being powered by wind, water and muscle to hydraulics, pneumatics and steam. It's a fascinating trip.



The characters and their motivations make sense. Merlin Athrawes is a survivor of the war that exterminated most of humanity and is out to save his species when a second round of fighting comes. Cayleb Ahrmahk is the Emperor of Charis and is fighting both to avenge the wrongs done to his people by the church and to improve the standing of both himself and his empire in the world. Maikel Staynair is a priest searching for the true meaning of his religion and steadfast in his faith. Clyntahn Zhaspar is a member of the Group of Four corrupted by power and fully commited to ending the threat to himself, his wishes and Mother Church.



For all of that, the story is not perfect. Readers may have already noticed part of the problem. The naming conventions that Weber uses can make it a bit difficult to read some of the names. This does detract from the story in a fairly significant way. He has admitted this himself in interviews, but states that it's too late to change it now. Also, much of the knowledge I mentioned earlier is presented to the audience in a series of infodumps that are frequently several pages long. The cast of characters is also quite frankly enormous and it does get a bit confusing. There is a dramatis personae at the back but that is a bit more work than I typically like. Also, this book is not by an stretch of the imagination a good place to start the series.


Safehold is a world that is rich and varied but it is not one that is easily understood this far in. I would recommend the first book in the series, also known as Safehold to just about anyone. That much being said, this is one series that it is best to read in order. The relationships between both characters and nations and the history that led to them are best absorbed one step at a time. Start this one at the beginning and you will save yourself some major confusion. All of that being said, I still really liked this book.

Bottom Line: 4 out of 5 cannonballs.

Like a Mighty Army
David Weber
Tom Doherty Associates 2014


On Friday: Jeb Kinnison's Red Queen: The Substrate Wars