(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:
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