Uncompromising Honor by David Weber
Cover art by David Mattingly
Published by Bren Books
Reviewed by Leigh Kimmel
This novel brings to a close the central storyline of Honor Harrington which began with On Basilisk Station. It's interesting to note that, over two and a half decades of writing the series, that storyline has gone in some very different directions from what was originally foreseen by David Weber when he sat down with Jim Baen to discuss writing a series that was planned as such from the beginning, rather than writing a novel and having two or three sequels grow from it, as had been the case previously.
Weber's original plan was to have Honor die heroically in battle against the Peeps, in a manner reminiscent of Nelson at Trafalgar, living only long enough to tell Queen Elizabeth of Manticore to make an end to this war. However, Weber had not foreseen the immense popularity of his character among his fan base, and was taken by surprise when a number of people told him in no uncertain words that he was not to kill off her or her treecat Nimitz unless he wanted to lose a reader forever. As a result, he had to completely remodel that part of her storyline, and what was supposed to have been one bittersweet night together between her and Hamish Alexander became the three-way marriage that came very close to destroying the series for me, not so much over any ontological issues about the nature of marriage, but because it seemed like "playing tennis with the net down," an easy way of obviating what had been a deeply powerful conflict.
However, fannish unwillingness to say goodbye to the protagonist were not the only reason for rearranging the original plan for the storyline. As Honor Harrington's popularity grew, fans began to badger Weber for information about various aspects of the 'verse, especially events that were just a little beyond the scope of the novels. That, combined with the runaway success of the Man-Kzin Wars anthology series, led Jim Baen to suggest the possibility of a novel of ancillary stories, written by professional authors with Weber's authorization. The result was More than Honor, which spawned a whole series of anthologies. By the time the third was being put together, Eric Flint was a big enough author in the Baen stable to be invited to write a story. Given Flint's political background, it's probably unsurprising that he should want to write about a sympathetic Havenite character, and asked Weber about the sorts of situations that would lead to a Manticorean agent co-operating with a Havenite agent without being a sellout or a collaborator.
The result was the novella "From the Highlands" in the anthology Changer of Worlds, in which just such a temporary alliance is created when the Manticorean's daughter is kidnapped and the perpetrators turn out to be agents of a notorious network of human traffickers. However, this had the result of bringing the practice of genetic slavery to the fore far earlier than Weber had planned. In his original schema, the world of Mesa and its infamous corporation Manpower would have remained in the background until after the climactic battle against Haven in which Honor would've been killed. Only a generation later, as her children were coming into adulthood and taking up their life's work, would the issue of genetic slavery become a major issue on the interplanetary stage.
The compression of that timeline had an awkward result in the sudden broadening of the scope of the subsequent novel, to the point that a number of fans found it diffuse, even disappointing. Some readers even raised the question of whether David Weber might be getting "too big to edit," with the result that Jim Been decided it was time to reassess the way Weber had been approaching the writing of the series. Together publisher and writer identified two major side threads that should be broken out from the main series and given their own series. These were the Saganami series, beginning with Shadow of Saganami, which dealt with Honor's various friends and proteges, but increasingly came to deal with politics in the Verge, the systems on the periphery of the Solarian League, the largest and most powerful star nation in the Honorverse, and the genetic slavery series, which began with Crown of Slaves and chronicled the liberation of the infamous world of Verdant Vista, commonly called Congo (as in King Leopold's).
On one hand, this decision did make the individual novels much more manageable. On the other hand, it meant that individual storylines might be moving forward at a different rate, such that it was necessary to make certain that information in a novel from one sub-series would not spoil important revelations in books from other sub-series that were running behind. And even with such precautions, there was still the problem that reading a book that was out of step could feel like the beginning was dragging the reader through old material, no matter how carefully the writer tried to handle matters from a different perspective.
This novel begins right after the infamous Yawata Strike, in which a Mesan stealth ship attacked Manticore's primary orbital industrial platform, with horrific casualties both in orbit and on the surface below. However, that puts its beginning quite a bit earlier than the events of Cauldron of Ghosts and Shadow of Victory, with the result that the activation of Operation Houdini, with all its consequent atrocities, is just beginning. After having read it, I really wanted to re-read several of the earlier books, as well as some stories in the latest anthology, just to see exactly how all these storylines fit together after having read them separately.
However, the Yawata Strike and Operation Houdini are most significant in this novel for showing us how little the Mesans value human life, especially if it's not one of their precious Alpha lines, and just how willing they are to play a game of Let's You and Him Fight if they think they can gain an advantage. And given the situation in the Verge that has been developing in the Saganami series, it's pretty clear that the Solarian League is becoming increasingly determined not to allow these systems to leave peaceably. In fact, the more it becomes clear that the Manticoreans outclass their ships by at least an order of magnitude, the more willing the Solarian League becomes to take any measures necessary to break the Verge systems.
This leads to Operation Buccaneer, which is effectively the Solarian League terrorizing dissident worlds by destroying their orbital manufacturing capacity. Given the absolute criticality of orbital manufacturing to maintaining a modern economy in the Honorverse (unlike space operas of earlier days, Weber does not make the mistake of being excessively focused upon shirtsleeve-environment planets, and understands the importance of microgravity and orbital activities, a benefit of having grown up in the Space Age), the destruction of a system's orbital infrastructure effectively consigns its inhabitants to poverty. At first, when they are attacking worlds with relatively small orbital assets, they are willing to allow the necessary time to evacuate the installations, ensuring that they will only cause property damage.
However, when those early strikes fail to produce the desired results, the commanding officers become increasingly less willing to give their victims time to evacuate. Part of it seems to be a sense that the systems in question have been stalling for time, as well as abusing it to evacuate material wealth as well as human beings. But there's also a growing sense that Mesa is manipulating things behind the scenes, having compromised key people in the Solarian military hierarchy.
At Hypatia (a system named for the last librarian of the Library of Alexandria, who was brutally murdered by religious fanatics), this conflict comes to a head when the commander of the attack force insists that no further time can be given for the evacuation, irrespective of the capacity of local transport. Although a Manticorean unit is in the system, it is not exactly something that can stand up against a full fleet, even one as outdated as the Sollies' has become. But as the commander of the attack force gives the order to start firing while the evacuation remains incomplete, the Manticorean commander decides he cannot stand by and watch. Meanwhile, more than a few Sollie officers begin considering whether they have just been given an illegal order, and whether they will obey it.
On the firing line, people's true souls are revealed, and this battle is no exception. And it also marks a turning point, as terror has the exact opposite effect upon those it was intended to cow. The Maya Sector declares its independence from the Solarian League, which only angers the Mandarins even further, enough to attack Beowulf, one of Earth's oldest and most prestigious colonies.
Here Mesa takes its "let's you and him fight" game to a completely new level. Not only are they manipulating the Solarian Navy into committing what may well be war crimes; they've also smuggled explosives aboard Beowulf's orbital installations to increase the damage, ensuring that significant amounts of debris will deorbit and at least some of it will strike inhabited areas.
Meanwhile, Mesa's also trying to get Manticore out of the game by accusing the good guys of the very atrocities they themselves committed in covering their tracks for the people whisked away by Operation Houdini. The evidence to exonerate the RMN is extremely technical, and brings to mind recent events -- if I hadn't known that this novel came out in 2018, it would've been very easy to think David Weber was writing out his frustrations about the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election and the difficulties of getting anyone to give a proper examination to what was admittedly very technical statistical evidence that is really understandable only to a professional auditor.
When the destruction of Beowulf's orbital installations is carried out, Honor is at home with her sister-wife Emily, keeping her company while Hamish goes to the meetings taking place in Beowulf space. He's visiting with his uncle by marriage, Honor's mother's elder brother, when everything goes kaboom. To all evidence both of them, along with many of Honor's other relatives and respected colleagues, have perished in the horrific destruction -- and when the news comes to Manticore, the shock proves fatal to Emily.
Honor's temper has always been one of her great flaws. Way back in The Honor of the Queen she was only narrowly kept from committing a serious war crime in response to an atrocity committed by the Masadans. And that atrocity was just against colleagues. This time it's personal, and worse, she is not only carrying a load of survivor guilt, but she has also convinced herself that she killed Emily by telling her that Hamish, their co-husband, was dead. Fully prepared to die in a spectacular act of revenge, she takes command of a Manticorian fleet and heads for Sol system.
Given this is a Baen book, we can rest assured that no, Honor is not going to be self-destructing in some grief-maddened act of revenge, any more than Robert A Heinlein would have Hugh Farhnam go out in an act of self-destruction when his back is against the wall. However, it takes some very close timing and a surprising revelation (which was foreshadowed if you pay close attention to the maneuvers of a particular ship in Beowulf space) to get her back on an even keel emotionally that she can carry out an act of retaliation that will break the power of the Mandarins for good without becoming a moral monster in the process. And in the end Honor goes not into the grave, but into honorable retirement, in a way that actually would have been far more satisfying to me than the three-way marriage business.
There were many other fascinating bits, including a double agent who is adopted by a treecat whose entire clan was wiped out by this man's machinations, and how he is changed from a Morden figure a la Babylon 5 to something far more sympathetic. And yes, there are hints that we may be seeing more of Honor in the future, even if only as a supporting character, an elder to be called upon for advice.
Buy Uncompromising Honor from Amazon.com
Review posted September 5, 2021
