Prologue
The Victorian
Elven Supremacist
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Well, is is something a little different...I've done Let's Plays and Let's Watches, but never have I done a Let's Read before. There's a first time for everything, I suppose.
You may be wondering what prompted this. A few months ago, I started work on my science fiction novel (the tentative title is Captain Shahabi and the Spartans of the Mind), which will only ever see the light of the day in the extremely unlikely event that it gets published. The novel involves a Zoroastrian woman captaining a starship (an old, obsolete ship named the Simurgh) whose crew all have rather checkered careers. Now, if you want to get better at writing, then you ought to endeavour to read as much in your chosen genre as possible. More importantly, you should be read things you consider both good AND bad, see you can have idea of what works and what doesn't. I'm not sure why, exactly, I settled on David Weber's Honor Harrington. Maybe because it's science fiction with a female protagonist, or maybe replaying Mass Effect 2 after all these years has put me in a mood for some military sci-fi.
So I want to emphasise that this is a completely blind Let's Read. I've never read any of these books before (and there are quite a few, so don't expect me to do the entire series), but I have heard two things about them:
I'm going to approach that last point with some skepticism...the term "Mary Sue" has been used and abused so much that it's approached the point of meaninglessness. Too often it's levelled at any female character who has any prominence in the story whatsoever (there's the joke that the male equivalent to "Mary Sue" is just "the protagonist"), and it's often used without understanding the sort of world the character inhabits. Genres such as space opera or heroic fantasy often feature extremely powerful, larger-than-life characters, at which point the barrier for calling someone a "Mary Sue" would be far higher than it would be in a more grounded, realistic setting.
Another thing I ought to point out that, as a rule, I'm usually not a fan of military science fiction. Too often it ends up endorsing reactionary, authoritarian, or even fascist ideologies whether or not the author intended to. This tendency was noticed as far back as 1972 in Norman Spinrad's The Iron Dream, which features a highly-successful post-apocalyptic novel literally written by Hitler. Or, if you want something more recent, Paul Verhoeven's adaptation of Starship Troopers, which thoroughly takes the piss out of the original novel. And while I know nothing about David Weber's political views, let's just say that I won't be surprised if the story takes a sudden, reactionary turn.
All right, enough rambling, let's get into it, shall we? We'll be starting with the first novel, On Basilisk Station, first published in 1992. If you want to read along, you can download an eBook of this novel from the publisher's website here.
Let's start with the blurb that came with the eBook, so we can get a picture of what this story is about:
All right, then.
I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but damn it, that cat on her shoulder just bugs the hell out of me! Look, I like cats well enough (I've never owned one), but sometimes cat people take it too far, and you get the impression that they regard "having a cat" as a meaningful substitute for "having a personality." Maybe this feline is a reference to the ancient maritime tradition of the ship's cat, I don't know, but what if that cat should just happen to cough up a hairball on her immaculately-pressed uniform? What person on the ship has the unenviable task of emptying out his or her box of kitty litter?
I'm reminded of a bit from How Not To Write A Novel, titled "In Which There Is A Cat":
The novel begins with a small map illustrating the basic layout of the Honorverse:
So there's a system called "Manticore." I should point out that the word "manticore" ultimately derives from Old Persian martya-χvāra (literally "man-eater"). Why did I mention this? I don't know...maybe it's because I'm writing a sci-fi story with a Persian protagonist (WHO MOST DEFINITELY DOES NOT OWN A CAT).
There's also two systems called "Midgard" and "Asgard," which make think this is going to be like some futuristic adaptation of Conan The Barbarian. Then there's a system named "Mazapan" which I'm going to misread as "Marzipan" for the entire book. I'm going to assume that the size of the circles corresponds to the polities' size, which means that the Republic of Haven ("Republic" is in scare quotes on the blurb, so I'm assuming that they're in some way despotic).
The first lines of the novel:
"Hereditary President"...looks like I was right! It's formally titled "The People's Republic of Haven" in case it wasn't obvious enough.
The subject of this conversation between the president and his cabinet concerns...economics. Not exactly a thrilling opening ("...and TRADE NEGOTIATIONS!"), but let's not rush to judgement, here. It appears that the Republic of Haven is blowing through its military budget trying to suppress revolts on the various worlds they've occupied, but one admiral suggests that the problem isn't the cost of building ships, but those goddamn benefit scroungers sucking on the teat of Big Government welfare:
The Secretary of the Economy shoots his plan down, however, pointing out that the Basic Living Standard (which I'm going to assume is basically Universal Basic Income) is the only thing keeping "the mob" in check. So Haven can't cut back on welfare, because the people will revolt, and they can't cut back on military expenditures, because then they couldn't suppress the revolts they're already experiencing. More worryingly, Haven is also surrounded by potential enemies who might take advantage of any sign of weakness. So Admiral Parnell (the one complaining about welfare expenses earlier) comes out with a brilliant plan - launch a preemptive war against their neighbours and, once they're no longer a threat, they can finally cut back on their military spending.
(Does this sound like a campaign of Stellaris gone wrong or what?)
The admiral explains the situation regarding Haven's neighbours. Most of them are single-system governments who, by themselves, would not pose much of a threat. Unfortunately, these systems are economic backwaters, and would actually cost more money to subjugate than they would earn from conquering them. The only place nearby that would be profitable to annex would be Erewhon, but they're protected by the powerful Solarian League. The only other target is Silesia, but there's a problem:
"Royal" Manticoran Navy? So they're a monarchy, then? (Which would make sense, if this is indeed inspired by Horatio Hornblower).
The next paragraph answers my question:
Now, keep in mind that the Honorverse takes place the year 4000 or so. I find it a bit hard to believe that political terms like "liberal" or "progressive" would still be used, but I'm willing to go with it for now. I'm also going to assume from this paragraph that the Kingdom of Manticore is essentially a constitutional monarchy like Canada or the UK.
Finally, President Harris comes to a decision:
And with that we end the prologue. My prediction for how this novel is going to go?
Haven invades Manticore, at the exact place where the titular Honor Harrington has been reassigned, and she DEFEATS THEIR ENTIRE FLEET with her BRILLIANT MILITARY MIND and the POWER OF HER KITTY.
You may be wondering what prompted this. A few months ago, I started work on my science fiction novel (the tentative title is Captain Shahabi and the Spartans of the Mind), which will only ever see the light of the day in the extremely unlikely event that it gets published. The novel involves a Zoroastrian woman captaining a starship (an old, obsolete ship named the Simurgh) whose crew all have rather checkered careers. Now, if you want to get better at writing, then you ought to endeavour to read as much in your chosen genre as possible. More importantly, you should be read things you consider both good AND bad, see you can have idea of what works and what doesn't. I'm not sure why, exactly, I settled on David Weber's Honor Harrington. Maybe because it's science fiction with a female protagonist, or maybe replaying Mass Effect 2 after all these years has put me in a mood for some military sci-fi.
So I want to emphasise that this is a completely blind Let's Read. I've never read any of these books before (and there are quite a few, so don't expect me to do the entire series), but I have heard two things about them:
- They're basically Horatio Hornblower...IN SPAAAACE!
- The main character is an ENORMOUS Mary Sue.
I'm going to approach that last point with some skepticism...the term "Mary Sue" has been used and abused so much that it's approached the point of meaninglessness. Too often it's levelled at any female character who has any prominence in the story whatsoever (there's the joke that the male equivalent to "Mary Sue" is just "the protagonist"), and it's often used without understanding the sort of world the character inhabits. Genres such as space opera or heroic fantasy often feature extremely powerful, larger-than-life characters, at which point the barrier for calling someone a "Mary Sue" would be far higher than it would be in a more grounded, realistic setting.
Another thing I ought to point out that, as a rule, I'm usually not a fan of military science fiction. Too often it ends up endorsing reactionary, authoritarian, or even fascist ideologies whether or not the author intended to. This tendency was noticed as far back as 1972 in Norman Spinrad's The Iron Dream, which features a highly-successful post-apocalyptic novel literally written by Hitler. Or, if you want something more recent, Paul Verhoeven's adaptation of Starship Troopers, which thoroughly takes the piss out of the original novel. And while I know nothing about David Weber's political views, let's just say that I won't be surprised if the story takes a sudden, reactionary turn.
All right, enough rambling, let's get into it, shall we? We'll be starting with the first novel, On Basilisk Station, first published in 1992. If you want to read along, you can download an eBook of this novel from the publisher's website here.
All right, then.
I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but damn it, that cat on her shoulder just bugs the hell out of me! Look, I like cats well enough (I've never owned one), but sometimes cat people take it too far, and you get the impression that they regard "having a cat" as a meaningful substitute for "having a personality." Maybe this feline is a reference to the ancient maritime tradition of the ship's cat, I don't know, but what if that cat should just happen to cough up a hairball on her immaculately-pressed uniform? What person on the ship has the unenviable task of emptying out his or her box of kitty litter?
I'm reminded of a bit from How Not To Write A Novel, titled "In Which There Is A Cat":
The novel begins with a small map illustrating the basic layout of the Honorverse:
There's also two systems called "Midgard" and "Asgard," which make think this is going to be like some futuristic adaptation of Conan The Barbarian. Then there's a system named "Mazapan" which I'm going to misread as "Marzipan" for the entire book. I'm going to assume that the size of the circles corresponds to the polities' size, which means that the Republic of Haven ("Republic" is in scare quotes on the blurb, so I'm assuming that they're in some way despotic).
The first lines of the novel:
"Hereditary President"...looks like I was right! It's formally titled "The People's Republic of Haven" in case it wasn't obvious enough.
The subject of this conversation between the president and his cabinet concerns...economics. Not exactly a thrilling opening ("...and TRADE NEGOTIATIONS!"), but let's not rush to judgement, here. It appears that the Republic of Haven is blowing through its military budget trying to suppress revolts on the various worlds they've occupied, but one admiral suggests that the problem isn't the cost of building ships, but those goddamn benefit scroungers sucking on the teat of Big Government welfare:
The Secretary of the Economy shoots his plan down, however, pointing out that the Basic Living Standard (which I'm going to assume is basically Universal Basic Income) is the only thing keeping "the mob" in check. So Haven can't cut back on welfare, because the people will revolt, and they can't cut back on military expenditures, because then they couldn't suppress the revolts they're already experiencing. More worryingly, Haven is also surrounded by potential enemies who might take advantage of any sign of weakness. So Admiral Parnell (the one complaining about welfare expenses earlier) comes out with a brilliant plan - launch a preemptive war against their neighbours and, once they're no longer a threat, they can finally cut back on their military spending.
(Does this sound like a campaign of Stellaris gone wrong or what?)
The admiral explains the situation regarding Haven's neighbours. Most of them are single-system governments who, by themselves, would not pose much of a threat. Unfortunately, these systems are economic backwaters, and would actually cost more money to subjugate than they would earn from conquering them. The only place nearby that would be profitable to annex would be Erewhon, but they're protected by the powerful Solarian League. The only other target is Silesia, but there's a problem:
"Royal" Manticoran Navy? So they're a monarchy, then? (Which would make sense, if this is indeed inspired by Horatio Hornblower).
The next paragraph answers my question:
Now, keep in mind that the Honorverse takes place the year 4000 or so. I find it a bit hard to believe that political terms like "liberal" or "progressive" would still be used, but I'm willing to go with it for now. I'm also going to assume from this paragraph that the Kingdom of Manticore is essentially a constitutional monarchy like Canada or the UK.
Finally, President Harris comes to a decision:
And with that we end the prologue. My prediction for how this novel is going to go?
Haven invades Manticore, at the exact place where the titular Honor Harrington has been reassigned, and she DEFEATS THEIR ENTIRE FLEET with her BRILLIANT MILITARY MIND and the POWER OF HER KITTY.
Last edited:
Ah yes, the old "she's not conventionally attractive!" dodge. 
