We know we’ve been enjoying this Honorverse adventure for a while when we realize the book we’re discussing this time wasn’t published when we began the podcast. David Weber keeps writing and we’re happy to have more content to read, enjoy, and discuss with you, our co-adventurers! What Price Victory is the seventh book in the Worlds of Honor anthology and brings us five short stories written by six authors: Timothy Zahn, Thomas Pope, Jane Lindskold, Jan Kotouč, Joelle Presby and David Weber. We have some familiar faces and a few new folks, too.

What Price Victory is 320 pages (hardcover), published in February 2023.

The first story in the book is Traitor, by Timothy Zahn and Thomas Pope.

It takes place sometime around 1528 PD and focuses on events surrounding a significant challenge to Andermani Emperor Gustav. What initially appears to be quiet and professional concern that Gustav may not be fit to lead the Empire, as the concerned parties assemble, it becomes clear that the real intent is to stage a coup. Things get wild!

Your hosts gave this story three ‘thumbs-up”.

The second story, Deception of Gryphon was written by Jane Lindskoldt.

The last book we discussed was A New Clan which featured Stephanie Harrington and her friends. This short story brings us back to Stephanie and Karl shortly after the events in A New Clan, but now these two heroes are on Gryphon with Stephanie’s parents. While there, they find themselves involved in what initially looked like a suicide, but quickly questions surface about whether or not it may have been a murder. As a credentialed law enforcement officer, Karl gets involved along with Probationary Ranger Harrington and the story unfolds.

We gave this story three “thumbs-ups”, as well.

The Silesian Command was the third story, written by Jan Kotouč.

Now we find ourselves early in the days of what is usually called the Second Manticoran-Havenite War, probably in 1919 or 1920 PD. The Star Kingdom of Manticore is growing and we’re seeing some of the struggles of the war spilling over into Manticore’s efforts to manage new territory gained when the Silesian Confederacy was split between the Star Kingdom and the Andermani Empire. There’s intrigue, nuclear weapons, a rogue People’s Republic of Haven State Security officer, and pirates!

Your hosts scored this one with two “thumbs-up”, and a “neutral” vote.

If Wishes Were Space Cutters, written by Joelle Presby, was our fourth story.

Joelle takes us back to Grayson and a character named Noah Bedlam. This young man dreams of bigger things in the future, then finds himself with a new job helping to build a space station. He takes the job and leaves his mom (who he lives with) behind—hopefully the new work will pay him enough to improve both his and her standard of living. High drama ensues when space debris hits the ship (a cutter) he’s stationed on, causing critical damage. With the help of a new acquaintance, he works to stem the unfolding catastrophe and save many lives. As a result, he’s recommended to attend pilot training.

We struggled with this one, scoring it with a “neutral” vote and two “thumbs-down”.

The fifth and final story is written by the man himself, Mr. David Weber, titled First Victory.

The events in the story unfold across a significant period of time between March 1846 and December 1877 PD. Most of the story is at the front end of this window culminating with Honor’s birth, then there’s a leap forward to when she’s 17.

Lots of tension and love in this story. Tension that is the relationship between Jennifer (Allison’s mom) and Allison (Honor’s mom)...

It seems too soon, but we’re already talking about the fourth book in the Star Kingdom series: A New Clan, once again written by David Weber and Jane Lindskold. If there was a sassy tag line taken from the summary of the book, it’s “Sex! Drugs! Rock and Roll! And Treecats!”

Published in June 2022, we’re hit with 420 pages full of fresh, new adventures in the Honorverse. As we mentioned in the podcast, there’s now also a fifth book in this series. We’ll certainly cover that when the time comes.

While our treecat friends are a key part of the story, here we’re following Stephanie and friends as they find themselves involved in uncovering the details behind what may be an illegal drug ring. Is this Forestry Service work? Not necessarily, but this well-written story comfortably explains how Probationary Ranger Harrington along with colleagues and friends find themselves involved in determining if a new drug in what is the beginning of common use has ties to a number of accidents involving other youths. Needless to say, things get messy and a little ugly, quickly. These “kids” are growing up!

After seeing the Rangers and Stephanie involved in significant wildfires previously, this is an interesting adventure as forestry work takes a side seat to more traditional law enforcement business in what is revealed to be a somewhat gray area. Like the others in this series, A New Clan is written with a young adult audience in mind, but still a good read for fans of any age. As always, we discuss our pros and cons with this novel from our perspective as Honorverse fans and hope you join right in with us.

We rated A New Clan with a 4, another 4 and a 3.5 (out of 5), for an overall rating of 3.8.

As always, thank you for listening and big thanks to those of you who also take the time to like and follow us on social media, to comment on our posts or even reach out to us with a longer note. At the end of this show we truly enjoy when we can read your comments and questions. Please keep them coming!

Next time on the Honorverse Today podcast, we’re turning our attention to Shadow of Freedom by David Weber. This book is the third novel in the Saganami Island sequence. We hope you grab it, read it, and find a friend to join us on the continuing adventure through the Honorverse!

You can find us, and all our episodes at http://honorverse.net, and email us at honorverse@tpenetwork.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Now, let’s be about it!

Suddenly we’re here to talk about the fourth novel in the Manticore Ascendant story arc: A Call to Insurrection.

As before, this novel is co-written with Timothy Zahn and Thomas Pope and published by Baen in January 2022. We’re back in the fight with Travis Long, his wife Lisa and on an adventure following a recent attack on the young Star Kingdom. What rests behind the recent attack is the speculation that the small and insignificant Star Empire might be sitting on something extremely valuable in the context of trade and commerce. With the potential for a significant increase in economic power, someone is trying to ensure that increase is theirs and not Manticore’s. However, Queen Elizabeth I and her government aren’t completely ignorant of what might be behind the attacks. If they’re right, there is a real threat to the Kingdom looming, and therefore a real need for a stronger and more capable navy. Enter the well-timed diplomatic contact by the Andermani Empire, and quickly we find Travis, Lisa and our other friends on what could be a well-timed adventure. Or possibly a disaster. There’s drama, tension, a bunch of mercenaries, and definitely some combat!

As always, your hosts share their thoughts about the book, and in this case the story arc we know as “Manticore Ascendant”. We even refer back to things David Weber shared with us about what may lie ahead for this part of the Honorverse (could there be more?), and a few thoughts and hopes of our own as the overarching Honorverse adventure continues.

Our ratings for A Call to Insurrection were a 4.5, 5 and 4.5 (out of 5), for an overall rating of 4.7 from your hosts.

As always, thank you for taking this journey with us, listening, liking and commenting on the episodes, and sharing this podcast with other like-minded adventurers. We always love your feedback and thoughts. Like the three of us, every one of you is a part of the crew!

Next time we’re shifting back to the Star Kingdom arc and looking at the fourth book there: A New Clan. If you like seeing the development of the treecat-human partnership, the early years on Sphinx for humans, and the further adventures of Stephanie Harrington, don’t miss this one! Grab your copy, invite a friend, and please join us again next time.

You can find us, and all our episodes at http://honorverse.net, and email us at honorverse@tpenetwork.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Now, let’s be about it!

Here we are, finishing the Crown of Slaves series with the fourth book: To End in Fire, once again co-authored by David Weber and Eric Flint.

Consistent with the title, this story arc ends with a lot of fire. For the Babylon 5 fans who are also here with us, we can say there’s lot’s of BOOM. It’s another hefty book, coming in at 704 pages if you read the print version, so there’s definitely room for a lot of fire (or boom), and a lot of action overall. The focus of the story is tied to the continued dealing with the Mesan Alignment, with action taking place in several locations including Mesa and Earth. Lots of threads from previous books are pulled together, and we get to watch the workings of the defeated Solarian League’s Constitutional Convention. We also see the establishment of significant governmental reform on Mesa, with some pretty cool time and attention paid to several of our former Ballroom members, including Saburo X.

We continue to see Honor in action as combat ops have ended (paused?) and follow-on operations occur. Oh, and Honor’s mother Alison (one of our favorite characters) gives birth to twins. For those who read it, you know this is only a summary and there’s SO much more going on as well.

Your hosts rated “To End in Fire” with a 4, a 4 and a 4.5 (out of 5), for an overall rating of 4.17 from your hosts.

We hope you never get tired of hearing it because we don’t get tired of saying it: thank you for listening and especially to those of you who take the time to interact with us, like and follow us on social media, and share this podcast with others.

Next, we’re back in the Manticore Ascendant series, looking at the fourth and final book: A Call to Insurrection co-authored by David Weber, Timothy Zahn and Thomas Pope. As with the others in this series/arc, we’re making a final trip back to the early years of the Star Kingdom of Manticore. As we wrap this series up, be sure to grab your copy, invite a friend, and join us again next time.

You can find us, and all our episodes at http://honorverse.net, and email us at honorverse@tpenetwork.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Now, let’s be about it!

What?! A Third Awesome Interview with David Weber!

Other than the timing, a third interview was probably not a surprise to any of you since we openly mentioned having Mr. David Weber join us again after the second interview, as well as the interview with Jane Lindskold and David.

Most of the questions we asked were directly submitted by all of you, our friends who are with us on this journey through the Honorverse. Several of them were summary / roll-up questions based on common themes that many of you have asked.

We don’t think we discussed anything that would constitute true spoilers, but David was very open with us about several things related to the continuation of the Honorverse, including one already-named anthology (Challenges), the mention of another possible anthology, as well as future novels.

Perhaps the most significant thing we talked about was when David gave additional details about something he mentioned in at least one of the previous interviews: how the Honorverse will continue when the day comes to hand the reins (or not) to someone else. We already knew he does intend to pass the torch to some extent. In our discussion he mentioned more specifics related to his plans, to include a later implementation of the time jump he intended if Honor had died as originally planned.

Mr. Weber, once again we owe you Honorverse-sized thank you for the amazing amount of time you’ve given all of us. You’ve also trusted us with all kinds of wonderful information about the amazing world you’ve built, and where it’s going. You certainly could do what many other authors have done and just let us all wait and see, but you’re shining a wonderful light on the future of the Honorverse (and a few other projects)! Again, thank you kind sir.

On the next episode of Honorverse Today, we’ll resume our voyage as we discuss To End in Fire.

As always, we have to thank each of you for listening, and especially those of you who have found the time to send us comments. As you’ve seen, we really do share those with Mr. Weber. We still have a list of questions and comments we haven’t been able to ask him yet, but if you all join in with us at our request, I suspect we can lure him back into the studio for another session.

If you haven’t already done so, consider spreading the word to others you know are already Honor Harrington fans, and even to those who might enjoy the Honorverse!

You can find us, and all our episodes at http://honorverse.net, and email us at honorverse@tpenetwork.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Now, let’s be about it!

It seems time has passed too quickly in terms of the podcast, but here we are already talking about Uncompromising Honor, the 14th novel in the main story arc. For those watching where we are relative to what’s left, you know this is technically the last novel in the main series, but that’s only sort of true. Depending on where you look, you’ll see a fifteenth novel called Toll of Honor. Other places list it as a stand-alone novel, or even the first novel in another related story sequence called the Expanded Honorverse. We’ll sort that out as we read it and as time passes, and also perhaps with some amplification from David Weber. The big point is we still have quite a bit of content ahead of us, plus we understand there are even more books coming (!), so stay strapped in.

Uncompromising Honor brings the two (or three, depending on perspective) major and enduring story arcs together, culminating with the Grand Alliance and the Solarian League staring at each other across the battlefield. The story in this book is huge, has plenty of action and emotion, and several surprises.

As those of you who have been with us from the start know, the story we’ve enjoyed isn’t quite what David Weber imagined early on. Even so, as great authors do, he adjusted the plan and brought us a very satisfying (and significantly large) novel to discuss in this episode. If you’ve read it and didn’t bother with the Afterward, please go back and read it. It’s short and full of information directly from David himself. There are nuggets in there that he touched on during his interviews with us, but this is more concise and focused primarily on the changes from his original plan that brought us what we’ve read up to this point.

Your hosts rated Uncompromising Honor with a trifecta of 5s (out of 5), resulting in an overall rating of 5.

We were able to cover (and I think catch up) with feedback we’ve received. As always, thank you all for listening, but special thanks to those who take the time to further participate in the show through your comments and questions.

Next time we’re going to cover To End in Fire, the fourth and final novel in the Crown of Slaves series.

As always, please grab your copy, invite a friend, and join us again for another voyage through the Honorverse!

You can find us, and all our episodes at http://honorverse.net, and email us at honorverse@tpenetwork.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Now, let’s be about it!

It’s time for the third novel in the Manticore Ascendant story arc: A Call to Vengeance.

Co-written with Timothy Zahn and Thomas Pope and published by Baen in March 2018, this is another of David Weber’s lengthier novels, but with good reason. We’re watching a more mature Travis Long (and colleagues, including Lisa Donnelly) participate in operations of the maturing Royal Manticoran Navy. The Manticoran government continues to struggle with the roles, relationships and funding competition between the RMN and MPARS. In a subplot we see the establishment of the Special Intelligence Service (known quietly but openly as Delphi) and an associated struggle in terms of roles, responsibilities and authorities between the Office of Naval Intelligence and Delphi. As those pots simmer (or boil), Elisabeth works through a potentially significant political fight that manifests as a “Constitutional crisis”. This all sounds serious, right? It is, but there are definitely a few very funny events that occur within the pages within both plot lines.

Our ratings for A Call to Vengeance were a 5, 5 and 5 (out of 5), for an overall rating of 5.

As always, thank you for taking this journey with us, listening, liking and commenting on the episodes, and sharing this podcast with others. Don’t forget, it’s never too late to comment on previous episodes either. We love your feedback and thoughts. Like the three of us, every one of you is a part of the crew!

Next time we’re stepping back into the main story arc as we dive into Uncompromising Honor as things get very heated between Manticore and Mesa. As always, be sure to grab your copy, invite a friend, and join us again next time.

You can find us, and all our episodes at http://honorverse.net, and email us at honorverse@tpenetwork.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Now, let’s be about it!

This time, we dive right into the final book in the Saganami Island series: Shadow of Victory.

This chunky novel weighs in at 756 pages and hit the streets in November 2016. The story covers a date range from February 1921 PD through October 1022 PD. For those tracking dates, you’ll realize this is one of those times when David covers events we’ve already seen, but from a different perspective. There’s also some new info in here, too.

The major things that happen reflect the continuing exposure of, or for some, the revelation of, the Mesan Alignment. These include the sneak attack on Manticore itself, destroying a significant segment of their economy and military infrastructure. We also see Operation Janus, the Alignment’s effort to discredit Manticore by making false promises of military support to oppressed segments of other start nations if they decide to rebel. Then there’s the horrific Operation Houdini. These plans are diabolical, especially when taken together. The false promises might embolden revolutions, causing the division and downfall of many when Manticore never shows up with the “promised” support. It would also drain resources from the governments experiencing those revolutions. Additionally, when Manticore appears to renege on promised support (that they never made), it paints them in a light that they can’t be trusted to keep their word internationally. Finally, in the context of the hostilities between Manticore and the Solarian League (actually provoked by the Alignment!), Manticore looks like they’re acting consistent with the propaganda that paints them as improperly seeking to expand their empire by force, employing their military to engage the Solarians directly and indirectly. There’s certainly a lot going on here.

We’ll warn you now: your hosts didn’t particularly enjoy this book. Tune in to find out why and let us know if you agree or not. We rated Shadow of Victory with a 2.5, a 2 and a 3 (out of 5), for an overall rating of 2.5.

As always, thank you for listening. Special thanks to those of you who take the time to like and follow us on social media, share this podcast with others, and to even comment on our posts.

Next time, we’re excited to discuss A Call to Vengeance, book three in the Manticore Ascendant story arc. That’s right: we’re going to see what happens next with Travis Long, Lisa Donnelly and others as the young Royal Manticoran Navy continues to struggle against emerging mercenary threats to the Star Kingdom while the government struggles with how well to fund the Navy in light of possibly decreasing funds for the navy while increasing funds for the Manticoran Patrol and Rescue Service. Yes, we’re about to enjoy some more great storytelling from the dynamic trio of David Weber, Timothy Zahn and Tom Pope! As always, be sure to grab your copy, invite a friend, and join us again next time.