Book Log 18/2011 - David Weber: On Basilisk Station

[jacey]

I confess this isn't a book I'd have been naturally drawn to because I'm neither a great lover of military SF, nor widely read in the sub-genre, however I'm going to Eastercon next weekend and David Weber is one of the guests of honour, so it seemed reasonable to read something of one of his best known (and best loved) characters Honor Harrington.

By the time I was halfway through this I was grinding my teeth. All the reasons that I don't read mil-SF were coming back to haunt me – way too much technical information for starters, which I guess is exactly the reason some people love this stuff. It certainly had a authoritative ring to it. If the tech stuff was bollox it was clever bollox and well thought through.

I read for characterisation and plot not technical details, so I appreciate Honor Harrington as a character. She captains a starship in the equal-ops Manticorian navy, an elegant mixture of discipline with a dash of intuition and some well covered up insecurities. I'd have liked to have seen her being something a little more than a star ship captain, but this book only concerned itself with Honor on duty.

In this novel – the first published – Honor is given her first command of an elderly and badly modified light cruiser, the Fearless, and after a single brilliant move in strategic war games, her controversial ship-board modifications prove such a disadvantage that she's given an assignment in a virtual graveyard posting. It's made even worse by the fact that her new boss, Pavel Young, is someone she made an enemy of whilst still at the academy. He sets her up to fail and then leaves her to (he thinks) sink – the best move he can make because 'fail' is not a word in Honor's vocabulary. Honour pulls her demoralised crew together and sets about not failing and in doing so shows Young up for the incompetent he is by figuring out that there's an invasion plot underway which he's missed completely.

Does she foil it? What do you think?

I can't say that I'm rushing to read any more Honor Harrington books, but as I said, I'm not a mil-SF fan, so that's not to say there's a fault in the book (the Honorverse's popularity says otherwise) rather there's a basic incompatibility with this reader's tastes.

Comments

[charlieallery.livejournal.com]

Yup, this book totally sucked me into the Honorverse, but eventually when I'd caught up on the released books (about book 10, iirc), and had to wait for another to come out, I drifted away to other things and I haven't seen the last few books. May be time for me to get back into them though. I discovered them at the same time as a mate who is a retired RN CPO and we were both totally hooked, though interestingly she's never favoured Voyager/Janeway, so clearly Honor has something Janeway doesn't - and not just the 6-legged cat!

I *am* a big fan of mil SF though and I favour battle tactics/tech gizmos and action over politics, though this may be a result of my preference for character angst and a side-order of h/c where I can get it. David Feintuch is another favourite, though the angst there stretches even my limits later in the Hope series. What can I say, Starship Troopers was a massive influence on me as a kid and my copy is well-thumbed. ;)

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

I have a very vague recollection of reading a Midshipman something-or-other some years ago. It was kind of Hornblower in Space. (I recollect no general problem with Hornblower, BTW, though it's a long time since I've read any.) I'm not sure it was the first of David Feintuch's Seafort books. I found it very stiff and formal and wanted to yell that the 'hero' needed to turn into a human being. I may be doing Feintuch down here - even reading the plot summary on Wikipedia, doesn't convince me that's the same book, though the beginning matches up with what I remember. Any ideas?

It is interesting to note, though, that some of the books I love, notably some of Lois McMaster Bujold's and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough's 'Healer's War' are classed as mil-SF on the Wikipedia list. Healer's War, in particular, has fantasy rather than SF elements dripped into a very authentic VietNam war setting (where Annie actually served as a military nurse).

[charlieallery.livejournal.com]

Yup, probably was the first of the Seafort saga - another one I should pull out and dive into again. He was indeed incredibly stiff as a character and pretty much drowning in angst. ;) Midshipman's Hope is very like Hornblower in that he's chucked in at the deep and and has to *think* his way out, very much like the young Hornblower. And, of course, noble self-sacrifice abounds! *g*

Midshipman's Hope

[wswears.livejournal.com]

It sounds like you're in denial, but you've hit on exactly the book. I own the series, and am a fan, but I told David when if first came out that if I were a citizen of that universe, I'd spend my life trying to tear down the government. Really a nasty, theocratic, culture.

Dave Feintuch and I were both on Delphi, which at the time was the only online service with an internet connection. I had joined Delphi because my wife was attending University of Maryland and we needed to be able to e-mail. Then I got into one of their writer's groups. That was 1991, and I had started Split Affinity already. I had to put it down for several years because being a full time USCG pilot and a writer was more than my tiny pea brain could handle.

Bill

Re: Midshipman's Hope

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Bill, my reaction entirely. Tearing down the government - or getting the hell out of the system - would have been my reaction, too. Interesting that you actually knew D F at that time. FWIW I didn't have the run away reaction to the first chapter of your milSF novel. That grabbed me much more than either Honor Harrington or Midshipman Whatsit.

Re: Midshipman's Hope

[wswears.livejournal.com]

That means a lot to me. I wish that sort of comment meant more to publishers. :-)