Shadow of Victory (Honor Harrington)

To much of this book, this story, has been tòd before in other honerverse books and short stories. There are new big events, but not enough to justify a novel. Any more honor verse books like this and I'm checking out.

This work brings characters in concurrent 'Honorverse' books up-to-date with the saga timeline all at once. Not a stand-alone work. If you're not a fan and haven't read all the previous books, this book will make no sense to you.

The book is really good, but it doesn't substantially move the main story forward except for a couple chapters at the very end.
If you are looking for Honor you will only find her in about half a page ... same for most of the other usual characters.
As others mention, this book tells some already known stories from different points of view and also fills a lot gaps, I believe that the reason for this book is to complete the foundation for the new book (PLEASE DAVID, PROVE ME RIGHT !!!!)
One problem of the book is that it develops in multiple different "star nations", each one with a different set of characters and some of them with really complicated names and last names, this tends to make following the story a bit complicated (thanks the store for the X-ray functionality)
The worst part of the book is the first chapter, I believe that DW made a huge mistake starting the book with such complicated names and last names. Don't get me wrong it's interesting chapter, and the whole time I was cheering for the characters to achieve their goal, but I was hard to know who was whom.
Unsure about buying it? download the free sample, survive the first chapter, and you will be hooked for the rest.

I understand the need to fill in all the background and gaps left by 2 divergent story lines set against the same backdrop and am glad to see them begin to converge again. But David, please don't be quite so wordy. There are times when it takes forever to come to the point. And please do not take so long for the next book!

Thought it has taken several books, the interwoven plot lines finally seem to be rejoining back into a common story line. It does get a little repetitive at times to witness the same events from several points of view, but the story is truly epic in scale.

A lot of spy stories, a lot of political underground, not enough space warfare in my opinion. Also, there's a torrent of new places and characters, which makes it harder to keep track of, even though the attempt to fully flesh them out is good.

I am a dedicated sci-fi reader...I own literally every science fiction novel that has been published in the last 20-30 years. I am also a big fan of the Honorverse series. This, is worst book Mr. Weber has published. And its not because his book is poorly written. It's because this is book 19, and it ends the same place book 18 did. You spend the whole time reading about people with bizarre names on backward planets that you won't care about. The characters you want to read about have bit-player roles at best, or aren't in the book at all. And nowhere is this book are the trademark battle scenes that makes his books so interesting to read. I wanted to give up on this series 3 books ago, but this is the end of the road for me.

One of Weber's weaker efforts in the HH series. Plowing too much old ground without really advancing the story. Some interesting characters, but overall, very disappointing, especially with the long wait since the last book.

I should have known from the "Honorverse" on the cover that this would be peripheral to the main Honor Harrington series, and that's what I've been hoping for for a long time: a continuation or conclusion to her story. On the other hand, I enjoyed the book and appreciated the way some gaps were filled. I guess I'll just have to wait longer for Honor, but I'm not getting any younger so I hope David hurries!

This is NOT the book to start with if you've never read the series. This book has no real plot or timeline, it's a series of snippets tying up loose ends, adding detail or seeing things from another point of view to things that have happened in many other books! Rather than put weird quotes at the beginnings of some of the chapters it would have been much more useful for Weber to give a hint of which book and/or which place we should re-read to figure out just why he wanted us to know these bits of information. Or give a reading list of which books to re-read BEFORE reading this one. It's almost as though these are things that should have been in other books and, for some reason, Weber thinks we need to know before the next book comes out... and yes, the skipping around gets confusing. As does the sudden inclusion of crazy Czech names on a planet whose name I can't come even close to pronouncing!

I really, really hoped for more and it would be nice for the next book to actually have a plot! I'm just happy that they didn't charge $14.95 for it! Definitely not my favorite...

As everyone else says there is very little new information here. To an extent it reads like a school assignment: Write several short stories about different types of revolutions. These stories are about characters I don't care about and do not expect to see again.

This is NOT the book to start with if you've never read the series. This book has no real plot or timeline, it's a series of snippets tying up loose ends, adding detail or seeing things from another point of view to things that have happened in many other books! Rather than put weird quotes at the beginnings of some of the chapters it would have been much more useful for Weber to give a hint of which book and/or which place we should re-read to figure out just why he wanted us to know these bits of information. Or give a reading list of which books to re-read BEFORE reading this one. It's almost as though these are things that should have been in other books and, for some reason, Weber thinks we need to know before the next book comes out... and yes, the skipping around gets confusing. As does the sudden inclusion of crazy Czech names on a planet whose name I can't come even close to pronouncing!

I really, really hoped for more and it would be nice for the next book to actually have a plot! I'm just happy that they didn't charge $14.95 for it! Definitely not my favorite...

As everyone else says there is very little new information here. To an extent it reads like a school assignment: Write several short stories about different types of revolutions. These stories are about characters I don't care about and do not expect to see again.

A bit disappointed with the amount of rehashing involved, but it does fill in some backstory missing from earlier volumes. I have to admit, I'm curious what happens to "Firebrand" now. And I just don't see how anyone, except maybe the Sollie's, will be able to lay what happened on Mesa after 'Mike' arrived on Manticore.

Shamefully I didn't even know another Honorverse book was out there! Stumbled across it while looking for Scalzi's latest. Glad I did.

Like some of the other reviews mentioned, there isn't a LOT of movement to advance the plot. However calling it a total rehash of events we've already seen from other points of view is unfair.

For one thing, seeing the effects of things like the Yamata Strike on secondary characters reminds us that although Mr. Weber can wipe out millions of people in a flash, those people leave behind other people who loved them. For another, if you are writing a sprawling space opera, sometimes it's going to sprawl.

We meet at least two more planets that have fallen for the maskirova that Mesa is scamming them with. Unfortunately David chose planets with Czech ethnicity and Polish ethnicity. So hard to pronounce names are worse than the weird pronunciation shifts he gifted to us in the Safehold books. Ugh. That's one reason I took away a star. That sort of thing pulls me right out of the story.

I bought the Kindle edition so don't know how big a physical book this translates to. I skimmed the parts we've already seen, and concentrated on the new material.

It was an enjoyable read and really did add movement towards the final confrontation with the Solarian League. Although I wish we had skipped one of the new planets rescued in the nick of time and seen how things were going on Beowulf.

If you're a fan of Weber and know how he writes these sprawling stories, you should enjoy this.

If I could give this book 3.5 stars I would, however I cannot, so I give it three. The authorship and superior writing is the usual excellent Weber, and there is little that I can say that has not already been said in other reviews, except leading up to this book those of us who follow the series knew the previous book did not include everything Mr. Weber wanted to put in the backstory. Also, I would like to point out this Kindle book was only eight bucks and I'm not certain but perhaps Mr. Weber felt strongly the remainder of this backstory needed to be told. Also, perhaps knowing this book does not advance the story line very much, Baen, the publisher and the author decided to price the book and a very reasonable 7.99 for the Kindle version. So for that I am grateful and look forward to the coming conclusion of the Honor Harrington universe series.

I waited and waited for the new Honor Harrington book, still waiting. No Honor in the book, the storyline is a rehash from other view points. Not pleased. If I could get a refund I would. If you are a fan of the Honor Harrington book don't both. I may just consider the series ended.

I am an avid reader of David Weber books. Unfortunately for me this was mostly a wrap up of what has been happening. It has a few new things, but it's mostly more of the same as the other honorverse novels. I hope the next one has more meat to it.

Im a long time HH and Weber in general fan. But, I couldnt even finish this book. Horribly conveluted, booring, and totally lacking in character development. All sense of adventure you would normally expect of Weber is missing in action, which is also missing. Just Terrible!

This book contains essentially all the context that was left out of previous books in the series.

Essentially it is a mashup of bits that got left out or were removed that really should have been included in the first place.

That being said I understand why people who were upset by the true my annoying pacing.

I re-read the whole series in chronological order by flipping between various books and found that the new events go a long way towards fixing the problems with the previous stuff.
Honestly I don't get why weber left this stuff out in the first place. It makes the whole storyline much more coherent.

I am also fairly sure he WROTE most of it when he wrote the previous stuff. It seems too similar in style to be new.

I like safehold more than the first few honor Harrington books. I enjoy worldbuilding. The technical stuff is extra verbiage...

But so is a description of a spaceflight I have already read.
People interacting makes for a much more enjoyable reread.

I liked the book and the entire Honorverse universe it takes place in. The book starts slowly as it covers events that as already happen in previous books but from different character perspectives. In my opinion it starts slow and until halfway thru the book than the pace really picks up. The book definitely wants to read the next book in the series I just hope it does not hake 2 years to come out. Characters development is what makes this book fun to read, however, you will need to read the previous two books to fully understand this one. Highly recommend the series to read.

David Weber does not write bad books, but this is a strange one. It is a compilation of the last three books with additional details, but no advancement of the story. It is as if he is gathering every thread together in order to launch the final battle. Rumor has it that the next Honor book is intended to be the last. This book seems to give reality to the rumor.

This is a good installment in the series, but after such a long wait for it I wanted more of the main storyline. Also, I almost dropped it another star for the over use of Polish and Czech words, phrases and spelling. While I understand you want to set a cultural stage, the over use was distracting and I found myself losing track of who was who and what organizations were what on those two planets.

Overall it advanced the storyline in a small way, but it's not enough after a 3.5 year wait.

I would hesitate to call this amongst his finer works, but I still thought it was pretty good. And while I was hoping for more plot advancement of the overall Honorverse timeline, I think filling in a lot of the gaps that were in the storyline from the previous Shadow/Rising Thunder books were necessary. I enjoyed most of this fleshing out, as I like Tourville, Terekhov, Helen, Barregos/Roszak amongst others. To me, it was a good read. Not great, but good. I'm not totally understanding some of the more hyperbolic of the reviews as if you take the story of this book itself, it's good. I certainly never thought to chuck it against the wall or just bury it in my bookshelf never to be looked at again. I mean, I understand feeling disappointed with minimal Honor in the novel and maybe first glance of it being a simple rehashing of previous books, but if one looks past that, it looks like things are now set up for the next Honor novel. My last comment is that book was an Honorverse book, which usually means Honor herself usually appears only briefly.

I am a huge Honor Harrington fan but this book is impossible to read all the names of people and organizations are in multiple foreign languages slowing me down so much I just gave up. Really Mr. Webber try using Bob and Jane the plot would remain the same.

Not the best from Dave, but mostly OK. It was very difficult to get started as each chapter is not directly related to the previous one. Not unbearable, just felt disjointed. While it gave a lot of background to the previous books in the series, it really didn't advance the storyline very much. A good read, but more talk than action, as in a few previous installments.

This is a good installment in the series, but after such a long wait for it I wanted more of the main storyline. Also, I almost dropped it another star for the over use of Polish and Czech words, phrases and spelling. While I understand you want to set a cultural stage, the over use was distracting and I found myself losing track of who was who and what organizations were what on those two planets.

Overall it advanced the storyline in a small way, but it's not enough after a 3.5 year wait.

I would hesitate to call this amongst his finer works, but I still thought it was pretty good. And while I was hoping for more plot advancement of the overall Honorverse timeline, I think filling in a lot of the gaps that were in the storyline from the previous Shadow/Rising Thunder books were necessary. I enjoyed most of this fleshing out, as I like Tourville, Terekhov, Helen, Barregos/Roszak amongst others. To me, it was a good read. Not great, but good. I'm not totally understanding some of the more hyperbolic of the reviews as if you take the story of this book itself, it's good. I certainly never thought to chuck it against the wall or just bury it in my bookshelf never to be looked at again. I mean, I understand feeling disappointed with minimal Honor in the novel and maybe first glance of it being a simple rehashing of previous books, but if one looks past that, it looks like things are now set up for the next Honor novel. My last comment is that book was an Honorverse book, which usually means Honor herself usually appears only briefly.

I am a huge Honor Harrington fan but this book is impossible to read all the names of people and organizations are in multiple foreign languages slowing me down so much I just gave up. Really Mr. Webber try using Bob and Jane the plot would remain the same.

Not the best from Dave, but mostly OK. It was very difficult to get started as each chapter is not directly related to the previous one. Not unbearable, just felt disjointed. While it gave a lot of background to the previous books in the series, it really didn't advance the storyline very much. A good read, but more talk than action, as in a few previous installments.

Overall I thought this book was a great read. I was a little disappointed that almost the first two thirds of the book were catching us up to the present, but as seen from completely different viewpoints. Weber can get a little long winded in very detailed dialogue and this book is no different.
Thankfully the book ends with an epic naval space battle! Of course there are plenty of loose ends remaining for at least a few more books in the series.

I have read all of Weber's works. This is not as gripping as most. It seems a transition book, both in terms of plot and in terms of characters. While there are some growth in some of the previously introduced characters, I found it less satisfying than most of Weber's books, and in particular less than the rest of the Honorverse.

Not in the same league as earlier books. A slow start that doesn't reach other books level of anticipation, action until around 2/3 's of the way thru.
More of an in depth look at previous events then advancing The Honorverse time line.
Not a bad read, also not one I couldn't put down for later.

Overall another well written book. A bit long in the set up and rehash. Establishing the political systems for many star systems in order to explain the Frontier Force's unwitting collusion with the Alignment/Mesa's diabolical plot might have been over done. Yet, Weber remains a master story teller. What's next....

I had to read this book twice.. The first time I was expecting my favorite characters to be the main plot..They weren't and I found myself initially disappointed and skimming pages...Luckily I decided to read it again.. Turned out to be an excellent book, despite the meager appearances of the characters I expected. Almost missed a good read...

A great addition to a wonderful universe. Webber's "Honorverse" is some of the best space opera ever written and a wonderful way to spend a day relaxing and reading. I have enjoyed all of his writing in this series to date and look forward to the next chapter in the on going adventures of the Star Empire of Manticor. This addition to the series fills in a huge amount of backstory and prepares the reader for the next step on the ongoing conflict between the Star Empire and the Mesan Alignment.

I was very disappointed in this book. Well written, as is usual for Weber. Great characterization, great action sequences, great book, right? Well, not really. Basically nothing at all new happens for the first 2/3 of the book, and no plot advancement for the entire book. Just filling in previous events from new viewpoints and filling in a few plot holes. I think Weber hates to finish the series, and we are at the point where having three different sequence books is starting to hinder the storytelling.
You can basically give this book a complete pass and not be behind on the story.
I expected better.

Excellent. Weber readers MUST understand that he delights in giving detail about weapons and ships and such, which some folks find tedious. If you get interested, however, it contributes to the story and the story is usually powerful.

It was as usual very well done with multiple threads and great detail. I was a little disappointed that after taking so long to come out it actually went backwards in the timeline. It added a great amount of detail on the Talbot Sector events, but it was almost like running in place. Hopefully his next one will move forward.

This book is good, and I was surprised in a few places. It's a good continuation of the Honor Harrington series. The villains of the show are very ruthless, with one mastermind and his lover letting themselves get killed off to try to cover their tracks.

I generally enjoyed it, but didn't think it was his best book.Some of it covered the same ground as in other books, but from a different perspective and with some new insights. I had trouble tracking the names of some characters especially the Czech names..

Well written with good character development and plot, as usual for David Weber. However, it doesn't move the story very far past where it was in the last novel. It's more of a side line of things that are happening at the same time as prior novels. I often felt I was reading the same one again. Still, all in all, a good read.

Shadow of Victory is a fun continuation of the Star Empire of Manticore's story. It is not, however, a good place to pick up the series as this entire book is built directly on the events of the last four or five books.

If you've enjoyed the rest of the series you'll probably like this one too. It's biggest weakness is simply that so much of the book is disconnected and a little disjointed. Weber is good at writing casts of thousands in his novels, but here so much of the cast is doing their own thing it really reads as a dozen smaller novellas rather than an overall narrative. Additionally the book has a great deal of chronological overlap with the last few books in the series, which leaves the cast reacting to events that happened in other books rather than this one (many of the events covered being climactic moments in previous books).

As a bridge to where the series is going next it's very good, and catches back up with characters that have been missing for a while. It also finally starts to show us what the Mesans are up to. It's been two years since the last book, and four years since A Rising Thunder. I'm just happy to get more Honorverse. Hopefully the next couple books will be a little more directed.

Very Disappointing.

Did you read A Rising Thunder? Did you enjoy watching Firebrand go through and foment rebellions in the Talbott Quandrant? Well guess what... Firebrand gets promoted and does the exact same thing throughout the Verge in this book. If you want to read another book with planets you've never heard of, that has no meaningful storyline development, and the just has simplistic "good guys" vs "bad guys" garbage then this 2nd bridge book is for you.

I don't know what's wrong with Weber anymore? Harrington was his bread and butter, but now he can't write a book that advances Honor's storyline AT ALL anymore. The book is well written like normal but watching Firebrand foment more rebellions on Mobius, Loomis, Seraphim, Wladlowek (sp), Swallow, etc was a waste of time. I've already read a book when he did that... we got the point with the LAST book.

This book simply existed to "catch up" our Talbott Quadrant characters with everything that has already transpired. They learn about the battle of Lovat, the Battle of Manticore, the treaty between Haven and Manticore, and the Yawatta Strike. Other than that, what meaningful thing happens as far as advancing the plot... in the last 50 pages of the book Michelle Henke relocates her fleet -> and there's not even a battle to be fought. This book is what A Rising Thunder was supposed to be, coming on the heels of that though it's not worth spending a dime on.

Whenever Weber remembers that Honor is supposed to lead the RMN into battle and emerge victorious and would like to stop providing an over abundance of characters that can't matter in the final end of the series it might be worth getting another book. He needs to get over himself and trying to show that there are good and bad people on every side and just GET ON WITH IT ALREADY and move the damn storyline along.

Weber's been doing something odd in these last few books that really comes to a head in this one. He's been hopping back in time with each book, reviewing past events through alternate eyes (and occasionally dropping entire chapters from previous books into the new one). This one, for instance, opens when Haven and Manticore are still at war. Oyster Bay happens just shy of the book's midpoint. We see the lead-up to events we'd seen in previous books. It's odd, and a touch frustrating for someone who's terribly eager to see what happens next!

This book has a HUGE cast of characters, and it wasn't always easy to keep 'em all straight. I'd get a page into a chapter before I was clear on who we were talking about and what they were doing. However, the plot is so tight, all the character stories overlapping so closely, that I really enjoyed the huge cast. There was never a point where I was reading about characters I thought were boring, aching to skip ahead to the characters I really cared about. I cared about everyone. (Yes, Weber's really got my number.)

That all said, this is still a classic Honorverse book: the villains are terribly villainous, the heroes are just so gosh-darned decent. Better than the first half of the book ratchets up the tension, then some of the villains get what's been coming to them while what should be a tense space battle is won through cleverness and skill. Then surviving villains do some terribly villainous things to set things up for the next book.

If you're an Honorverse fan, you'll enjoy it. If not, I doubt there's much here that will change your mind (and I'm not sure how much sense this book will make if you haven't read all the others from 2010 on). Excellent, addicting, page-turning fun, as always.

Weber has been "reworking" the same period over a number of novels now and the basic effect is rather frustrating. BUT ... if you consider his work as a kaleidoscopic approach to telling a complex story, then the re-re-re-revisiting of the same events begins to make sense. New characters that are potentially important ones are introduced in essential elements of the "bigger picture." The biggest problem is that a lot of the story telling here could have been withheld as back story. essential to the writer but not to the reader. If you sit down and re-read the Honor Harrington and related novels you will note that the story line passes from a clear, very limited field in On Basilisk Station to far more complex plots that giver War and Peace a run. The inspiration for the earlier novels has clear lines of influence in writers like CS Forester and similar writers inspired by the Napoleonic wars. Now it looks like the story has taken over and is running the show to suit itself.

Horatio Hornblower in the distant future after the gender reassignment surgery. (No that is not any part of the plot) The universe that contains Honor Harrington is a complex place as it should be and while the stories are fairly predictable I love the way David Weber spins his tales.

I really do not understand the negative reviews of this book. I own every book written in the Honorverse and have read and reread them all at least twice. Yes most of this volume was somewhat of a recapitulation of material covered before. However, What I got most from this edition was a new perspective and back story to the story. New characters and how they fit into the grand sweep of Mr. Weber's most excellent series. I found myself engrossed with every page. Maybe I enjoy the details of the story more than most. Still, it more than met my expectations of David Weber's writing and I am looking forward to what he has waiting around the corner. Sooner rather than later.

I found the storyline from the perspective of the "Bad Guy" quite interesting. The development of multiple planetary resistance movements got a bit hard to keep track of at times, but I sorted it all out by the end. A good read and I can't wait to see what happens next.

This book is not a read for those looking for more Honor Harrington. Which is to be expected at some point in stories and series.
This book is about the many other characters that are in the Honorverse. I enjoyed seeing some more of the thoughts and processes of the antagonists. Seeing some of the midshipman become captains and deal with grief. If I was making a movie this would be a fan book for the universe and explain things that a movie wouldn't even begin to have time to explain.

I've been reading the Honor Harrington series for over 2 decades, when I found "On Basilisk Station" in my public library. Weber's characters and stories are always well done, and they are in this book as well. Several books ago, he told us that he would start retelling portions of other books from different points of view, and that Honor herself was becoming too "mature" for the "death rides." So Weber has introduced new characters and retold some of the previous story lines from different points-of-view. I, like others, would have liked to see the series move forward in chronology, but I believe this book is well worth the read.

This was one long book this time, that sometimes dropped into the tedious, but in doing so filled in many blanks along the way. It's not recommended as a first exposure to the Harrington saga by any means, but is good for those that have "read them all".

I was hoping for more combat with the Sollies, including an invasion closer to their home planets, but didn't get that. The few combat sequences were on the thin side, to say the least.

Spoiler alert, there is virtually no warfare with the Mesan Alignment, which should have been the ending sequence.

Not perfect, hence the 4 stars, but pretty good for the fans.

Pleased with the novel. In this series I have never been disappointed with any David Weber novel. Was hoping this book would get us more into the Mante - Sollie conflict but it is during the same time period as we saw in the previous novel in this series. Nothing new but a good story from a different perspective.

I enjoyed this episode on the honerverse series, even though it repeated several of the stories in previous books. It did flesh out some of those stories and also provided a medium by which further revelations and plot twists may be manufactured.
Overall a good read.

Another of David Weber's installments in the enormous and entertaining Honorverse. Like the rest of his work, the characters are dense and real people, interesting and lifelike. The plot continues to thicken and I wait with nearly uncontrollable impatience for the next installment.

David Weber doesn't disappoint. His depth of character portrayal, combined with his exciting and engaging plot lines, makes for another great read in a universe with established characters I have come to care about. I recommend his books to fans of science fiction as well as those of character-driven drama

It is true that this novel spends 99% of the time flit in scenes from the same time period covered in the previous 3 books. The reason for this is simply that when David Weber let Eric Flint into his Honorverse, it threw off a lot of the preplanned story. By writing this novel, DW has now set up the final showdown with the Mesan Alignment. My largest complaint was all the Czech and Polish words spread throughout. They made it difficult to keep track of which planet was which. All in all an enjoyable read that left me anxious for the next book.

A friend turned me on to the first book in this series years ago and I was immedietly hooked and have thoroughly enjoyed every book in the series and have been fascinated with how the characters have developed. My problem is that I read too fast and then get bummed that I will then have to wait for the next installment. If your into Military Sci-Fi you will really enjoy this series. It never fails to keep me involved.

The last several books in the series have more or less run parallel chronologically and this one is no different. I enjoyed all the side stories in the Verge as the Alignment 'pushed' several star systems towards independence from the Solarian League. The story lines seem to be converging to a showdown with the Alignment and a reconfiguration of the Solarian League. Plenty of storytelling yet to do.

I don't understand the bad reviews this book has gotten. To my mind, this is a logical progression in the series, as, to be quite frank about it, even with prolong Honor is getting a bit too old to be the main protagonist in these novels. Come on, here! Weber has taken her from a lieutenant commander to admiral of the green (I'm not quite sure what is meant by that, but still...) over the course of a span of at least 25 years. That means she's GOT to be at least 50 if not older, but more importantly, how many admirals do you know of who go out on risky missions themselves? They send junior officers, just from the fact that they are too valuable to risk losing. So, Honor is more peripheral to this novel than in earlier ones. That doesn't mean this is a weaker entry. This is still a tightly plotted, swiftly moving book, with engaging characters and enough drama to drive any two books from a lesser author. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and to be honest, isn't that the point of a book? To be enjoyable?

I hold two divergent views of "Shadow of Victory"; first of the book ans its story, second of the book as part of a series.

The book is very, very good. That is to be expected; I don't think Weber can write a bad book. He may bore you to tears at times with exquisite and excruciating detail, but that is his style and, frankly, I enjoy it. I can be reading along and suddenly find myself thumbing through earlier pages, or even another volume, to recall what he said earlier about this situation, or that piece of technology or why the RMN does things a certain way. This book ties up a lot of loose ends and fleshes out characters and actions that were sketchy in earlier volumes. It is a really good read!

As part of a series, though, I can understand the frustration many loyal readers feel. Other than positioning the reader for the next volume, it does nothing to advance the story line. I suspect Weber needed to do this book to help him figure out where the story line goes.It was easier, both as a writer and a reader, to cheer the RMN and boo the Peeps than it will be for Haven and Manticore to ferret out and defeat a highly decentralized Mesan Alignment. I will say this: I am committed to the next installment just to see how Weber handles it.

This was a good book not great but good. It did fill a lot oh holes from a couple other book in this timeline but not the Shadow series. I liked the stories of the verge planets freedom fighters those were very good a I liked the end. Sorry no spoilers.....,

I posted almost this same review over the next-to-last Safehold book, but here I go again: Jim Baen, we miss you!

David Weber has apparently reached the stature as a writer where no one at Baen is willing to actually edit his work. Almost every book he's published since Jim's death has been a wreck: overly detailed, poorly plotted, involving a giant cast of forgettable bit characters, and moving so slowly that if it went slower the words would be going off the page and back into David's computer. The Harrington series has suffered the most, with the last three books being essentially the same story from three different points of view. There's no forwarding of the plot, no new information presented, and nothing much happens. Dozens of throw-away tertiary characters are introduced and then abandoned. The political systems and histories of backwater planets with no bearing on the main conflict are described in excruciating detail. Minor bureaucrats in the Solarian League have long, expository discussions about the administrators of esoteric departments. Weber has, unfortunately, fallen in love with the sound of his keyboard, and there's apparently no one able to stand up to him and tell him that no one wants the third re-telling of the Battle of Monica from the point of view of a gunner on the smallest frigate in the fleet.

Don't buy this one.

Because of the wider exploration of our planetary politics onto a galactic arena. A warning to all of us not to transfer, however slowly, the selfish, nationalistic, individualistic, antagonistic, profit riddled policies of today to the far future progeny ... a warning... and yet very entertaining, emotional and always gripping story (-ies). - I only wish that there were not so many, and lengthy, repetitions of past events, from story/book to story/book. I suspect that this is a result of editors' pressure on behalf of the publishers. Good editing is like good painting: editors need to know, and allowed to, stop, without destroying the flow of the story. Thanks. :-)

Let me start by confessing that I am a big fan of David Weber’s books. I have read his Honor Harrington series several times and I’ve read just about all of his other books as well. However, Shadow of Victory was so frustrating that it’s making me reconsider my commitment to Weber’s novels.

First off, he made us wait four years for this sequel. Four years is a lot of time when the author has left the reader in the middle of a crisis and seen fit to write several other books in the intervening time. So when I learned that the new Honor Harrington book was finally coming out and that we would finally see how the war between Manticore and the Solarian League would progress, I was very excited. So imagine my crushing disappointment when the book arrived on my phone and I learned that it starts way back in time and by the end advances the storyline only about a day beyond where we had been four years ago. But things get worse…

Shadow of Victory appears to be all of the padding from A Rising Thunder (the previous novel) that the editor cut out because it was unnecessary. (Note: I don’t know that Weber’s editor cut anything out of the previous book.) That is to say, that we have more examples of how nefarious Manticore’s enemies are but nothing that substantially evolves our understanding of them or their machinations. Put bluntly, the tiny smidgeons of new material in this book could have been included in a half dozen pages of the next novel and the reader would have lost nothing. There was absolutely no point to this novel and as a reader I am insulted that the author published it. I now have a sour taste in my mouth when I think of this series and frankly, I’d have rather never seen another book in it than to have my enjoyment of the previous novels dampened in this way.

So it’s with great pain and the aforementioned crushing disappointment that I award this book a single star. It’s too bad we can’t go lower. Weber is far too good a writer to produce this drivel.

Overall very entertaining finished it in 4 days. First half is a bit sluggish and as normal picked up towards the end. Don't want to spoil things but nice to see some character/career advancement for some characters that we've known for awhile

It's terrible that this is how far this series has sunk.

3 variations of the exact same plot happen on three planets you've never heard of before. The characters that you know and love either never show up or play a minor role at best, and the new characters are flat and interchangeable.

The overall story arc doesn't move forward at all because this book happens at the exact same time period as the last 3 books. (Seriously. After being promoted to Commodore in the last book, Terekhov is back to being a captain at the beginning of this book.)

And out of some formulaic requirement, you get a short, inconsequential ship battle thrown in at the very end.

Good continuation of the series. Less content overlap with previous works would have been preferred, but necessary to some extent in order to tie the story arcs together. Hope the next one comes out soon.

Because of the wider exploration of our planetary politics onto a galactic arena. A warning to all of us not to transfer, however slowly, the selfish, nationalistic, individualistic, antagonistic, profit riddled policies of today to the far future progeny ... a warning... and yet very entertaining, emotional and always gripping story (-ies). - I only wish that there were not so many, and lengthy, repetitions of past events, from story/book to story/book. I suspect that this is a result of editors' pressure on behalf of the publishers. Good editing is like good painting: editors need to know, and allowed to, stop, without destroying the flow of the story. Thanks. :-)

Let me start by confessing that I am a big fan of David Weber’s books. I have read his Honor Harrington series several times and I’ve read just about all of his other books as well. However, Shadow of Victory was so frustrating that it’s making me reconsider my commitment to Weber’s novels.

First off, he made us wait four years for this sequel. Four years is a lot of time when the author has left the reader in the middle of a crisis and seen fit to write several other books in the intervening time. So when I learned that the new Honor Harrington book was finally coming out and that we would finally see how the war between Manticore and the Solarian League would progress, I was very excited. So imagine my crushing disappointment when the book arrived on my phone and I learned that it starts way back in time and by the end advances the storyline only about a day beyond where we had been four years ago. But things get worse…

Shadow of Victory appears to be all of the padding from A Rising Thunder (the previous novel) that the editor cut out because it was unnecessary. (Note: I don’t know that Weber’s editor cut anything out of the previous book.) That is to say, that we have more examples of how nefarious Manticore’s enemies are but nothing that substantially evolves our understanding of them or their machinations. Put bluntly, the tiny smidgeons of new material in this book could have been included in a half dozen pages of the next novel and the reader would have lost nothing. There was absolutely no point to this novel and as a reader I am insulted that the author published it. I now have a sour taste in my mouth when I think of this series and frankly, I’d have rather never seen another book in it than to have my enjoyment of the previous novels dampened in this way.

So it’s with great pain and the aforementioned crushing disappointment that I award this book a single star. It’s too bad we can’t go lower. Weber is far too good a writer to produce this drivel.

Overall very entertaining finished it in 4 days. First half is a bit sluggish and as normal picked up towards the end. Don't want to spoil things but nice to see some character/career advancement for some characters that we've known for awhile

It's terrible that this is how far this series has sunk.

3 variations of the exact same plot happen on three planets you've never heard of before. The characters that you know and love either never show up or play a minor role at best, and the new characters are flat and interchangeable.

The overall story arc doesn't move forward at all because this book happens at the exact same time period as the last 3 books. (Seriously. After being promoted to Commodore in the last book, Terekhov is back to being a captain at the beginning of this book.)

And out of some formulaic requirement, you get a short, inconsequential ship battle thrown in at the very end.

Good continuation of the series. Less content overlap with previous works would have been preferred, but necessary to some extent in order to tie the story arcs together. Hope the next one comes out soon.

I was inspired by the tagline for the book about Honor and Manticore's fight for survival... all I got was extra backstory for plot points that were resolved two books and several years ago. In the first third of the book the only reference to Honor was a "wink, wink, you know who we mean." It did not even go as far as addressing the main character in the series by name while faceless nobodies talk about someone sort of like her that we are supposed to now care about.

Nothing in this story made me feel as if I better understood the characters or motivation. None of the threads look to be leading into major developments in the story or tied up loose ends. There are piles and piles of threads to be picked up which are apparently now to all be crammed into the last book. Why not put something of interest in this one? This was a book of scraps that should have been left cut out, not stitched back into a dreary Frankenstein's monster of a book.

It almost could have been interesting in parts, except an almost obsessive use of Polish and Czech words for every name, organization, title, and location on two of the main planets in the story. It is as if someone commented positively on the hard to read names in the Safehold series and Weber went all "If a little is good, more must be better and most must be best".

I am a habitual reader who generally considers anything under a trilogy as to close to a novella to bother with. I am not afraid of dense or convoluted story lines. However, this was a boring and agonizing read from a man that is easily one of my favorite authors and was hands down the most important author of my youth. If you are at all interested in this book, wait until they release a compilation that puts all of these bland scenes back in the books they belong in and provides some modicum of progress for your reading effort.

Honor herself has stepped back, leaving the action to other players. I found the chronology confusing as it moved from the prior book, to what these characters know, to prior times in new locations. Weber gives us the month and year for each chapter, but I felt a need to go to earlier books to catalog the dates, actions, and protagonist of those earlier chapters.

I felt disorganized and not up to the challenge. I wish he had decided to write them as two individual books rather than cut up this way.

Quite simply, what the heck is this? The Honorverse has clearly been left to wilt on the vine. This book isnt narrative and its barely a novel as its only a rehash of events and scenes going all the way back to Mission of Honor. We see the Attack of Oyster Bay? AGAIN? For what possible purpose? It even goes past the previous Shadow of Freedom, back to before the major Mantie Sollie military engagements, just to showcase minor expendable characters and their reaction to those events.

Loud and clear: We. Dont. Care.
We dont care that Manpower is pushing rebellions on Verge planets and blaming the manties for them
We dont care that Mesa has a rebellion of its own, whoever or whatever is behind it
We dont care that Manticore is going to be blamed for bombing Mesa
We dont care about all these nickel and dime explosions on nickel and dime Verge planets and the yawning heroics and last minute escapes of nickel and dime Verge resistance fighters who we've never heard about before.
We dont care about the Hexapuma, especially since it was blown up FOUR BOOKS AGO.

The Honorverse is supposed to be about Honor Harrington. Baring that, the adventures of the Star Empire as a whole against the galaxy around it. But this book is about anything else. We dont get any legitimate advancement on the Mantie/Sollie War. We dont find out if the Sollies are going to attack Beowulf, as promised in A Rising Thunder. This book is just dozens of barely related scenes, from ultra-minor characters, scattered over the events of the last 5-6 Honorverse books. The timeline doesnt make sense, and the characters have nothing interesting to offer.
Its like every time Weber got tired of writing Safehold, he'd take an hour off to write a random Honorverse scene, with a random character, in a random spot on the Honor timeline. Then when he had 150,000 words he just taped them all together and said "Goody here's that new Honor novel I promised!"
An abject waste of everyone's time.

I didn't go very far into it, but I am not impressed particularly. I keep wondered why it is called the 14th book of the "Honor Harrington" series, but the 4th book of the "Saganami" or whatever series. It definitely does not pick up where Honor Harrington ended. Seems like it would need a previous book or two before it. Maybe Saganomi 1 - 3?? With the war with New Haven already a going affair, you know you have to miss something. It is discouraging seeing as it isn't easy to know how the books are arranged chronolgically
I bought this because I was trying to find the next book/series after the original. This book is misrepresented as being the 14th book of Honors.
I will be getting a refund for this book if I can and do some more research before I continue reading in any of the several Honor series. Too many bad reviews and I don't have the time to spend trying to locate something there's a good chance I won't like, I am pressed for enough time to do actual reading.

This “book” is terrible. Lots of new names, lots of new planets, lots of mindless drivel. It’s all immaterial. I thought all the negative reviewers were wrong. Turns out it was me. After the fifth, sixth, or was it 7th new planet or liberation movement, I simply closed the book and moved on.

This really is as bad as the reviewers state.

This book is the 14th in the “Honor Harrington” series. It parallels events from the last few years covered by earlier books in that series, from the “Crown of Slaves” series, and the “Saganami Island” series. To avoid spoilers, fans of the series should know it happens in the same time frame as Yawata, Houdini, and Neue Rostock.

An earlier book dealt with a false flag stratagem: someone persuading dissidents on a planet to rebel against their corrupt government by delivering weapons to them and promising Manticoran naval support if the Solarian Office of Frontier Security sends warships to put down that rebellion. But that someone was lying about Manticore support. So if the rebels succeeded, it would anger the Solarian empire. And if the rebels failed because Manticore did not send naval support, other dissidents on other planets would not trust Manticore. This book follows a half dozen new false flag strategies in parallel while also providing glimpses of other developments in the escalating conflict between the Solarians and Manticore.

David Weber’s writing is enjoyable, as usual, with well-developed characters, zingy dialogue, and unusual plot twists. And, of course, it has a complicated naval battle. To enjoy the book more, the reader might want to bookmark the appendix that has translations of the Polish terms used on one of the planets. And it would help the reader to keep notes on each of the planets: its name, its government leader, and its dissident leader. Otherwise, the constant shifting from planet to planet would become confusing.

However, this book was published three and a half years after the 13th book, and does not actually advance the major plot line, which was a major disappointment to many readers. Robert Jordan, author of the famous “Wheel of Time” fantasy series died before finishing that series. Fortunately for his fans, he left an outline of the plot of the concluding books and his family was able to hire someone to write them. Let us hope that David Weber lives long enough to finish the “Honor Harrington” series himself. Or, if he doesn’t live that long, that he at least leaves an outline so that someone else can finish it for him and his millions of fans.

I actually purchased an advanced reader copy with the idea that I'd post a review the day this book became available on the store, but then forgot to post. It looks like there is no real danger however, the general consensus coming from the reviews is in agreement with my feelings.

For those who want a simple one sentence review: "Just about everything in this book you already read about, its not worth the time or money."

More seriously, this book isn't even about Honor, or the Star Kingdom of Manticore. There is no main character. This is all about the Mesan Alignment and their covert operation where they convince planets controlled by the Solarian League's Frontier Fleet and the interstellar companies that hire them as mercenaries to enforce unfair contracts, to rebel and expect help from Manticore.

4 of the planets were actually already mentioned in previous books.

Loomis - where the rebellion fails and all we see is the capture of the leader and a reference to her quick summary execution in Shadow of Freedom
Swallow - Also in Shadow of Freedom where we see a bit of the planned rebellion.
Seraphim - with the two young Graham children working with "Firebrand" the agent provocateur who first appears in Shadow of Saganami.
Mobius - the planet that sends for help during Shadow of Freedom.

Two more planets are added, but quite honestly I can't remember the names and I have no interest in trying to find them. I do remember that one appears to be largely populated by people of Polish descent, and the other is also largely eastern European. This is based on character names as well as the names of organizations and such. The fact that the two planets both used a lot of unusual names turned me off and also made it hard to tell the two planets apart. Its funny, but I could quickly identify a chapter covering Swallow and tell it wasn't the same as one about Mobius, but these 2 planets blurred together quickly.

The timeline of this tale is also way too long. The story actually starts before the end of Shadow of Saganami as far as the timeline is concerned. We are treated to glimpses of the aftermath of the Battle of Monica, and even the return of Hexapuma to Manticore. But we never really get to see any of the major events from the previous books, just references to them. Of course this means that the final fight between Haven and Manticore, the battle of Spindle, the Yawata strike and even the first battle between the Solar League and the Grand alliance all occur during the period covered by Shadow of Victory.

Honestly, the only thought I had when I finished reading this book was "how in the hell did the editor not reject this outright." There is no central character. There are characters introduced that will probably never appear again, but who had a disproportionate amount of page space here. The main tale wasn't advanced at all. And worst of all, nothing in here was necessary. Every scene just fleshed out things that had already been covered. Even the space battles, while interesting lacked punch because anyone who had read the last 3-4 books knows that a Manticorian destroyer can take on a Solarian battle cruiser and win easily. The only question was what new insults would be thrown by the officers as they maneuvered to the first (and almost always last) missile salvos went out.

If you got this far, you'll probably get the book for completeness, but honestly, I'd recommend staying far, far away from it. It's not worth the money and Weber will keep doing this until people stop paying for it.

For those that hoped this plot would move on. It did, about 2 light micro-seconds....For the most part, this book has been done in a previous book, just changed a couple of planet names to flesh out the nonsense. If you were hoping to get any interaction with Harrington, nope, that's not in the cards either. I'm not sure if the author is just overwhelmed with the scope of the Honor Harrington universe or his commitments to other story lines (those are starting to go down hill as well) but this book was not worth waiting for.

Mr Weber, I've loved reading your books for years now but it seems that most of your most recent works, or the works of others in this universe, have dragged down the quality of what you started. If you need to kill off Honor Harrington and bring this pain to an end, please do so with a final book worth the wait and the money. This effort (or lack thereof) was terrible.

I read through a number of the other one and two star reviews before posting this. Many/most of them covered the high points of my problems with this book. This feels like David took a bunch of material that was written for earlier books but were pulled during the editing phase -- then broke them into three or four pages each and then shuffled them all together in roughly chronological order. Imagine taking the 'deleted scenes' from six different films -- then splicing them all together as a few seconds of film one followed by a few seconds of film two followed by a few seconds of film three... This whole book feels like that.

David has continued with his recently adopted habit of creating characters with deliberately bizarre names. I'm not sure what he thinks this adds to the reading experience. For me it simply makes it really hard to keep track of (or care) about the characters. There ere two planets in this book with this issue that I did not distinguish between until the last ten percent of the book because the story lines were so similar and the characters so unmemorable.

That said -- I'm much less upset than the reviewers who purchased advance copies. I borrowed mine from the library. In fact my library allows user to suggest titles for them to purchase (which I did for this book), so a copy was immediately reserved for me once they got it in. Since I got the book for free, I don't actually regret having spent time reading it even though only about 5% of the book was substantive in terms of the Honorverse story line. If Weber had simply compiled this stuff and made it available free as a PDF on his website, he'd have likely gotten a lot more positive reviews and pleased his fan base greatly. The problem is that he expects his fans to pay for stuff he pulled out of his recycle bin and stuck together with bubble gum and baling wire.

Not the best of books and not the worst of books. It was enjoyable reading, filling in some spots and setting the scene for possible future books, though I think a lot of opportunities were missed. I'd really like to see a lot more info of the events and reactions within the Solraian league. Consider that Manticore is starting an economic war, since the Solraian fleet has (for some unexplained reason) become completely and utterly incompetent and only serves for target practice. So how did the economic war affect the league? Is the ordinary citizen going hungry? Or lacking certain goods? What it the unrest in the league as it becomes impossible to travel?
Weber has the tendency to spend the first quarter or third of a book in setting up for the action and resolution. In this book, it seems like he spent more than the normal time in setting things up. And some of the setup was taxing - I don't really care to try to separate the complex polish names of various (evil?) agencies when I'm reading for pleasure.
And the resolution seemed to be a bit miraculous. Like "Pouf! 300 ships of the wall become available". Possible this book is a middle book, and those "Pouf" ships will be desperately needed int he next one? Who knows - looking forward to the next book....
(Don't remember if I bought this book from the store or Baen, by the way)

Yes, this IS a book about stuff that we already know ALL the major details of.
My guess is that this book is a collection of all the pages that the editors cut
out of previous books on the Mesan Alignment plotline.

My humble opinion is that the first 3 chapters with all the ridiculous names is
just a bad joke played on us readers. After that, the book goes back to
normal Honorverse names. From a 'plot' standpoint, the only names you need
to remember from those first 3 chapters are those you've seen in the previous
books, so feel free to ignore all the rest. When reading the names, it helped
me a lot to ignore the Z's and change the Y's to I's. The names were much
less jangling after that. And again, the 'joke' is over by the end of chapter 3.

While it's certainly true that this book doesn't advance the storyline in any way,
I still found it to be a decent read. You learn QUITE a bit about Damien Harahap,
who I expect (due to what happens in this book) will be a major character in the
next book.

Same events from the viewpoints of what I'd describe as peripheral characters. This book fleshes out the timeline of other stories but is not essential to the main characters' lives. Interesting in its own right but no more than fill material and an extra paycheck for the author.

I just finished Shadows of Victory, and I'm really disappointed. This is coming from a huge Weber fan. I won't spoil specific plot points, but for about the first third of the book I was just skipping whole chapters because they were either lifted wholesale from earlier books, or were giving me pointless details about life on s***ty planets I just don't care about. I get it, the Verge is full of s***ty planets with s***ty governments, I don't need to follow the life and complaints of idiots on 4-5 of them (The only one I remember is Space-Poland). The middle third was mostly just different people reacting to events we already saw in other books too, but at least they seem somewhat relevant. Things picked up a little in the final third, as we see some more of the Mesan Alignment, but aside from one wrinkle they mostly just carried out the plans they'd said they were doing in previous books...Overall it just seemed like he was required to do another Shadows book but he only had enough content for 1/10th of a book.

I find most of the David Weber books very interesting good plot and follow through, The plot is good and action fair. Sometimes the discussion between the actors is long and I start to loose interest.

First I am an avid Weber fan. His Shiva Option had me hooked, I typically find his books to be a 2-3 day read. This one was a week and a half. It's not a book but a series of short stories revolving around the current state of affairs. Honor makes no appearance. We may or may not need the expanded data dump of all the characters but I was hoping for the continued development of the history. Perhaps David, Eric, and Steve White need to have a week long retreat/collaboration to build a future for this series. Perhaps David is trying to let the series die a slow death. I have quit reading the Safehold series due to verbosity. Maybe Bahzell needs grandkids to carry on that series.

Like my review title says... This is still better than the bottom 45% of books I try to read, but compared to most Honorverse books this is horrible.

Given all the reviews I'll just make 2 suggestions:

1. If you aren't extremely familiar with the Honorverse books DO NOT READ THIS BOOK, it is useless as a stand alone (unlike most of Weber's stories). Even if you are, not reading it is a pretty good choice.

2. Skim the first 2/3rds... The last third was "written" (how well I leave to you) the first two seem like they were cut and pasted from rejected early drafts of other books.

I hope this book is an exception and all goes back to wonderful with the Honorverse books.

I am a big fan of this series and the author but I am sorry to say I have lost respect for Mr Weber in putting out this "new" book. As other have mentioned, this is the exact same story as told in Shadow Freedom, over 90% occurs over the exact same period of time, the same setup, etc, with just a few different point of view characters who you n ever get to care about because you already know where the story is going and what is going to happen. In fact we have seen many of the events depicted here such as the Yatawa Strike 3 or 4 times in previous books, with nothing really new or interesting added as far as I can see. Basically if you read Shadow of Freedom, over 500 pages of this 700 page book is a giant waste of time and money. The small bit that is new plot, etc, is basically what anyone would have predicted and takes us no where new. I was really looking forward at the end of Shadow of Freedom to see how the conquest of Mesa and all its consequences would play out, and I am no closer to knowing that now. I am frankly shocked that this is a David Weber book. This is unacceptable and if we continue to get book that do not move the plot forward and are obviously simply money grabs that tell the same basic plot points over and over, I may have to stop reading these books, which would be a huge shame. I know you can do better Mr Webber, you are better than this or so I thought.

Calling this book a Honor Harrington Novel is like calling Deadpool a Stan Lee movie. One Cameo does not make a Harrington novel. If you like politics, and not just any politics but that of revolution, short pointless battle scenes from ship to ship to assassinations this book covers all the bases. I realize Mr. Weber must come up with alot of background to tell his stories, but characters that are so confusing that you forget them right after you read about them. Sadly there are so many names you can't speak that you give up and just stop reading. I made it through but I'll be damned if I buy another Honor Harrington novel without waiting to find out if it really is a Honor Harrington novel and not a Shadows of Saganami cornucopia of crap.

Loved David Weber's early books in the Honor Harrington series. Unfortunately, over the years his books have gotten longer and longer and filled with bloatware. This book is an illustration of the problem. The book has too many side characters and plots and too much background material. The result is the real story line is submerged, and the book becomes a drudgery to read. PLEASE, David Weber, look inside and find that younger author that I loved!

The one good thing you can say about Weber's latest batch of books is that they have become fast reads. It is entirely possible to read a page skip ahead two, read a page, skip ahead two, and miss nothing of any importance to the plot or of the character conversation underway. Conversations that languish in wordy, overly-florid turns of circumlocution designed with one purpose in mind - to devour blank paper. Maybe dialogue at the upper echelons of power structures do become more formal, but with this sort of dense complexity, most people would pull out a pulser and shoot themselves in the head rather than attend another meeting witih these people. Why the Solarian League doesn't simply attack during a staff meeting is beyond me - they should have smoked the Star Kingdom a long time ago.

Painfully, tooth-achingly, torturously, BORING.

If you love sitting through long meetings, where the presenter speaks in a monotone and shows lots of powerpoint slides with pie charts in the same colors with only minimal deviation from the last slide, then boy, are you in for a treat!

I love science fiction. I have read science fiction for decades. This isn't science fiction. This isn't adventure fiction. This is a bland retelling of Byzantine plotting with all the intrigue left out for fear that someone might enjoy themselves. 100 pages in there's 2 action scenes, one tragic accident and a fight scene so contrived and Mary Sued to move the "plot" forward. The characterizations are minimal and the bookmark characters are only distinguishable by the bizarre name conventions that the author seems to delight in.

This is only the 2nd book I've set aside in my entire career as a sci-fi reader. The first was the 2nd Thomas Covenant book. And compared to Shadows of Victory, I think I'd rather hear Covenant's self flagellating cries of "Leper. Outcast. Unclean." again.

I remember when Weber could tell an interesting plot without 300-400 pages of meeting rooms. Was this book ghost-written?

Like almost everyone, I was disappointed in Shadow of Victory. I was expecting to read the war against the Sollies. Weber used this book to set up the next volume which looks to be what I expected this book to be. I hope with the backstory completed, he will write a real Honorverse book with new action and a coherent plot rather than a series of vignettes.

I am a big fan of this series and the author but I am sorry to say I have lost respect for Mr Weber in putting out this "new" book. As other have mentioned, this is the exact same story as told in Shadow Freedom, over 90% occurs over the exact same period of time, the same setup, etc, with just a few different point of view characters who you n ever get to care about because you already know where the story is going and what is going to happen. In fact we have seen many of the events depicted here such as the Yatawa Strike 3 or 4 times in previous books, with nothing really new or interesting added as far as I can see. Basically if you read Shadow of Freedom, over 500 pages of this 700 page book is a giant waste of time and money. The small bit that is new plot, etc, is basically what anyone would have predicted and takes us no where new. I was really looking forward at the end of Shadow of Freedom to see how the conquest of Mesa and all its consequences would play out, and I am no closer to knowing that now. I am frankly shocked that this is a David Weber book. This is unacceptable and if we continue to get book that do not move the plot forward and are obviously simply money grabs that tell the same basic plot points over and over, I may have to stop reading these books, which would be a huge shame. I know you can do better Mr Webber, you are better than this or so I thought.

Calling this book a Honor Harrington Novel is like calling Deadpool a Stan Lee movie. One Cameo does not make a Harrington novel. If you like politics, and not just any politics but that of revolution, short pointless battle scenes from ship to ship to assassinations this book covers all the bases. I realize Mr. Weber must come up with alot of background to tell his stories, but characters that are so confusing that you forget them right after you read about them. Sadly there are so many names you can't speak that you give up and just stop reading. I made it through but I'll be damned if I buy another Honor Harrington novel without waiting to find out if it really is a Honor Harrington novel and not a Shadows of Saganami cornucopia of crap.

Loved David Weber's early books in the Honor Harrington series. Unfortunately, over the years his books have gotten longer and longer and filled with bloatware. This book is an illustration of the problem. The book has too many side characters and plots and too much background material. The result is the real story line is submerged, and the book becomes a drudgery to read. PLEASE, David Weber, look inside and find that younger author that I loved!

The one good thing you can say about Weber's latest batch of books is that they have become fast reads. It is entirely possible to read a page skip ahead two, read a page, skip ahead two, and miss nothing of any importance to the plot or of the character conversation underway. Conversations that languish in wordy, overly-florid turns of circumlocution designed with one purpose in mind - to devour blank paper. Maybe dialogue at the upper echelons of power structures do become more formal, but with this sort of dense complexity, most people would pull out a pulser and shoot themselves in the head rather than attend another meeting witih these people. Why the Solarian League doesn't simply attack during a staff meeting is beyond me - they should have smoked the Star Kingdom a long time ago.

Painfully, tooth-achingly, torturously, BORING.

If you love sitting through long meetings, where the presenter speaks in a monotone and shows lots of powerpoint slides with pie charts in the same colors with only minimal deviation from the last slide, then boy, are you in for a treat!

I love science fiction. I have read science fiction for decades. This isn't science fiction. This isn't adventure fiction. This is a bland retelling of Byzantine plotting with all the intrigue left out for fear that someone might enjoy themselves. 100 pages in there's 2 action scenes, one tragic accident and a fight scene so contrived and Mary Sued to move the "plot" forward. The characterizations are minimal and the bookmark characters are only distinguishable by the bizarre name conventions that the author seems to delight in.

This is only the 2nd book I've set aside in my entire career as a sci-fi reader. The first was the 2nd Thomas Covenant book. And compared to Shadows of Victory, I think I'd rather hear Covenant's self flagellating cries of "Leper. Outcast. Unclean." again.

I remember when Weber could tell an interesting plot without 300-400 pages of meeting rooms. Was this book ghost-written?

Like almost everyone, I was disappointed in Shadow of Victory. I was expecting to read the war against the Sollies. Weber used this book to set up the next volume which looks to be what I expected this book to be. I hope with the backstory completed, he will write a real Honorverse book with new action and a coherent plot rather than a series of vignettes.

I wish I had read the other reviews before buying this book. I feel that I wasted my money. Too much detail and 'cute' dialog between people I couldn't care less about and not enough action. Action is why I became a fan of this series. If I have to wait another three or four years for the next book in the series, I may just give up on it altogether. What a disappointment!

I generally like everything David Weber puts out in the Honor Harrington universe, and I almost always give the books a five star rating. However, this volume doesn't significantly advance the overall story line. It covers a lot of the same material covered in previous books from different viewpoints. It is well written but at times there are almost too many similar characters for anyone without a photographic memory to keep straight as the book jumps from planet to planet. I think Weber did resolve a few loose ends for anyone who is an extremely detailed follower of the series, but at times I found it difficult to keep track of the different characters and details, which is why I gave the book only four stars instead of five.

I got his book as a birthday gift. I told woman who got it for me that it was awesome and best gift I got. Now for the review. It appears Weber got paid by the letter in this book. C'mon man the Czech or Polish names got a bit much. Also, got deja vu while reading it. I stopped reading about a quarter way through ( I read manuals for entertainment) is something I rarely do with any book no matter how bad. This was clearly a money grab and a slap in the face to fans. Paper is so thin it's almost see through. I will not put David Weber ever again on my wish lists.

I have read all of the Honorverse books and love them. However, this is the slowest "Honor" book I have read yet. To give you an idea of its length, the audio version is 37 hours. In all of that time (or pages), it advances the Honorverse timeline with about 20 minutes of new material. Yes, I understand that it is a "shadow" book, and shadow books are supposed to come along side and fill in details. However, this book could have easily accomplished that in one quarter of its the length.

This book fleshed out the last three or four shadow tales. I had hoped that this one would be a sequel to Mission but, it was not to be. the polish part was a bit difficult to read thru,however the story held together. Looking forward to the next one.

99% rehash of the past four or so books, starting back before Green Pines, from a confusing array of viewpoints (it will help slightly to realize that one is Czech with accents and one is Polish without). At the end, Gold Peak arrives somewhere and then nothing else happens.

I liked when Eddings would rehash things because there were fresh elements and enjoyable interplay. This had none of that, and no time to even get to like the new characters before the book ends (by which point they are no longer relevant, even if they're alive).

I call this book "Tying up loose ends and building the back story." It follows multiple threads of the Honor Harrington Series, providing background, expanding on actions just mentioned in other books, and drawing them all to the same point. Although the story doesn't move forward, it is tightened up. Of course, any David Weber "Honor Harrington" book is worth 5 stars. My opinion, of course. The only problem is I've finished it and now it is a long wait until the next one.

This book brings all the various strands of the Honorverse back together. But nothing particularly new happens. The whole thing could have been summarized in about 2 paragraphs. Or, given Weber level verboseness, maybe a chapter. You can skip this book and not miss anything

As prolific as he is, Weber has stumbled and produced some sub-par entries into the Honorverse (Particularly the "Zilwicky and Cachat playing James Bond" ones.) but this was the first time I've been so disappointed that I genuinely think my money was wasted. The plot does not advance... at all. The entire book is just a rehash of what we've already read, ending at the same point as the last book: Mesa's surrender to Admrial Gold Peak. And it's not even a POV change to any of the characters we care about. Harrington herself is part of just a single scene and only offers a brief conversation. White Haven? I he was part of that same conversation as Honor, and I think that's it. Nimitz? Entirely missing. Protector Benjamin? MIA. Alice Truman? Nope. Tremaine and Harkness get a few brief scenes towards the end, but this unsatisfying. Gold Peak and Tourville finally get together at the very end to sail into Mesa. But there is almost no action. Instead were treated to the inconsequential affairs of a couple dozen inconsequential new characters we've never seen before and don't care about, doing repetitive inconsequential things on inconsequential planets. That, and a lot of gratuitous Unicode.

What this book really feels like is a collection of redundant crap that an editor made Weber cut (for good reason) from the Talbott quadrant series. There's just no reason to read this.

The old Honor stuff was about valor and action. It has morphed over time into a meaningless stew of planetary rivalries, corrupt galactic business rivalries, obscure 'alignments' with evil purposes. The telling of this book is extremely annoying, chopped up as it is into tiny fragments of detailed activities of hundreds of largely irrelevant people; all of which assumes the reader has committed the entire honorverse to memory. It is claimed in other reviews that the technology is well managed but there are insane discrepancies. The 'good guys' are able to seize 'transit nodes' and thus cut off interplanetary trade; yet all military craft can can pop in and out of hyperspace at the 'alpha wall' and arrive anywhere else in the galaxy that they please. Missiles in regular space accelerate at '98,000 kilometers per sec per sec' so they would hit light speed in three seconds, yet rival fleets watch their '200 light year display tanks' in horror for hours while the rains of death approach, swerving about at will. There is a whole by-plot involving Slavic planets that use Transylvanian gobbledegook to name everything, that has to be resolved in a glossary of irrelevant facts.
Weber has become one of those fake authors who have a team of hacks to flesh out plots at his direction and I guess this was stitched together in a war-room where teams evaluated the sellability of its components; where space-nuts wrote up nonsensical battle scenarios naming distances to 10 decimal places and wafting 10-million-ton spacecraft about the fields of battle like old war nuts refighting the battle of Kiev.

Many scattered disjointed dialogs that didn't advance the overall story line. It seems like most of the 77 chapters were pieces that were left out of other books. There may have been a single story if you could take 20 or so scattered chapters and put them together in a cohesive whole. Many chapters would have been good background if included in previous books. Honor makes a cameo appearance with perhaps 6 or so lines of dialog. 35 hours of listening was painful to withstand. If I had to actually read the book, I doubt I would have finished it.

This book must have been fun for David Weber to write as he populated it with all sorts of folks --of varying ethnicity and prospects. Polish names which were hard to try to pronounce; people not who they appeared to be; repeated scenes on different planets--which already had been done previously. This book does not move the story forward --the Alignment bad, Mesa bad, Solarian empire bad, Manticore good, Haven good. This book is not a Shadow of Victory; it's a Shadow of What could have been.

David Weber has slowly been falling victim to his own success. His last several books have felt... obligatory. There has been a lot of repeat in those books, to the point that entire paragraphs has been transposed from one book to another. It feels as if he promised the publisher so many words, and, when he couldn't write a story that made the word count, he cheated.

This book goes back over material that started several books ago, and, in some cases, has already been covered more than once, albeit from other perspectives. In a lot of ways, it never actually advances the storyline so much as it backfills information that wasn't needed in the first place. Several revolutionary movements get time in the book, and I found myself able to skip entire sections of the book without losing the gist of the story.

The only thing I can say that actually kept me engaged was the character development. Michelle Henke and Sir Aivars have been two of my favorite characters, with Lester Tourville following closely. All three of them are well written, and their personal plots are worth the time to read. The sad thing is, that is really all that I found interesting. The nod to Scotty and Sir Horace was perfunctory at best, and Ginger Lewis' command felt like it was added because it HAD to be for future reference, not because it served a purpose in the story.

All in all, this book left me feeling like Weber has lost interest in the Honorverse, but has legal obligations to keep writing. I see a lot in common with the ending of the Empire of Man series, and that is not a good thing to be saying.

I have to agree with many of the people who're posting here - this is effectively not a new book to those of us who've been fans of the Honorverse for years, because we already KNOW this stuff.

Oh, don't get me wrong, this is really great background material. It's just that if you were going to have all the background going on, perhaps you should have had it when it happened - not two books later, in the side series of books. It's okay, but it's just not great. (Actually, a lot of it is pretty boring, because it's not an Honor book, it's a Shadows book at best.)

Shadow Of Victory is the perfect library book to read but I would not waste money to buy the hard copy. The book is a rehash of previous books in Saganami series of the Honorverse universe with more details on Mesa Alignments effort to foment rebellion in Operation Janus. However, as the book is a rehash of previous books the main story line is not advanced at all and that weakens the book greatly. What is worst is that most of the characters are completely new on planets we have never heard of and they are impossible to keep track of as the rebellions are on half a dozen planets.
The basis for this books to me appears to be the Weber’s author note at the beginning of “Storm From the Shadows” where he talks about overlap from previous books which covers the same scene but from a different point of view. Shadow of Victory seems like material which could have been in previous books but which was cut out before publication and now has come back to be part of this book.
The book was way too long for the minimal character development of some of the more important characters and was way too long for the lack of story advancement.

Might have been better if Weber had at least (as I recall him doing in other books) posted location (i.e. planet and city where action in chapter is taking place) at the start of each sequence in the book (couldn't even do it by chapter since he jumps from location to location within chapters without any warning) so before the reader started, each sequence, he at least knew where he was in the story. Weber does (kinda/sorta) put dates at the start of each chapter so if you wanted to take the time, you could sort of figure where in the chronology of the Honor universe this "stuff" is taking place. I am really disappointed in this latest effort on his part. I agree with the sentiment expressed by other posters that it looks suspiciously like Weber just took a pastiche of stuff edited out of his last few Honor volumes and sort of pasted them together to produce this volume. This is not really a BAD book, it's just sort of mediocre. I just hope that this is a "one off" and that his future writings in the honorverse will return to his high standards.

Formulaic tripe. I can't believe Weber is descending to this pitiful level. This book is simply boring, with detailed plots regarding people that aren't interesting and events that don't matter. The latter third of the book might merit two stars but I can't give the entire book that amount of respect. I am glad I borrowed this book from my local library. If I had purchased it, I would be even more disappointed.

What ever this is it's not military sci-fi. It reads more like a spy novel without the action. It's well crafted but not anything I would expect in a David Weber novel. It almost seems like it's written by someone else. Reminds me a lot of the Larry Flint 1932 series where has others write for the series and they talk about sheep and put you to sleep. BORING!!!!!!!!! Kept waiting for the action to begin and I'm still waiting. Please no more like this.

Once again we wait for years to see some advancements in the story arc only to find that Weber has once again fooled us. This is yet another book telling the same story as at least the two previous books. I wouldn't mind so much if he was honest about it. "Hey guys, I know you want to see what's going to happen next in the Honorverse but this book is just the same stuff you've already bought twice from yet more, different perspectives. You'd probably be happier if you just wait until I get around to actually writing this story again."

I've read only 18% of the book. It took me that long to realize it was another regurgitation. I really doubt if I will finish it. Really disappointed.

I disagree with those who say there's nothing new in this work, but I have to acknowledge that it covers the same ground as other works, just from a slightly different angle. And there IS one element added (involving the Republic of Haven) that will probably prove significant later. The bottom line is that I love this series so enjoyed reading this addition, but I was very disappointed by the lack of progress in the series story line, especially since the title implied -- to me, anyway -- that there would be developments in the fight against the Mesan Alignment.

A lot of bulk with little reward. This was like getting a huge gift-wrapped box, but upon opening the box it's full of packing peanuts with a $10 gift card in the middle.
I already read this book as it rehashes story line that was released years ago, that's been rehashed several times in several previous books. You could skip to the last 10% of the story and read everything new in the book.
I don't know who came up with this idea that you can string along readers for years by re-writing the same story repeatedly from different viewpoints but it's the reason I stopped following Flint's "1632" series.
If Weber does this again, I'll probably stop following this series also...

This book is a rehash of the story lines that were started in the Saganami Island, Crown of Thorns and Honor Harrington series and ends at about the same place as the Cauldron of Ghosts. David Weber provides additional detail on the characters of these story lines and the perspective is more from the characters in the various resistance movements point of view than from the Manticoran or Haven characters. This is the biggest difference between this book and the books of the other series. The book is absorbing but I was dissappointed that there was nothing new on how the Grand Alliance between Manticore, Haven, Grayson, The Andermani and Beowoelf was going to defeat the Mesan Alignment. The description of the book was misleading because it sounded like the Grand Alliance would start taking steps to stop the Mesan Allignment, but it did not.

I recommend this as a a good read for those who are following the series but I do not recommend buying the book. Instead, wait until your local library has a copy and then check it out from them. If you are keeping an Honor Harrington Collection then that would be onereason to buy this book. Otherwise, save your money.

Disappointing entry in the series. Some of the previous books had a problem with covering the same ground over and over (particularly Ziliwicki and Cachat returning from Mesa), but none of them were as bad in that regards as this one. This book covers the major events of At All Costs through the end of Cauldron of Ghosts except from other perspectives and doesn't add much to the narrative other than fleshing out what the Mesan Alignment was up to and providing mini-stories of the various insurrections that they were instigating to ruin Manticore's reputation (but which are now irrelevant to the main story).
As with Shadow of Freedom, the ending was anticlimactic very little buildup and a too-easy conclusion of events.
Cauldron of Ghosts raised my expectations for this one, but those hopes were dashed.
I'll probably get Uncompromising Honor if/when it is published next year and see how the series ends, but I hope Weber lays off rehashing things from previous books.

This book mostly, but not completely, covers the same time period as others, but in other places, in very different circumstances and with other characters. This book is faster paced than some earlier ones. All in all, an excellent read that carries the story further along.

I love David Weber books and the Honorverse in particular, with that said this book was painful for me to read. I found myself skimming / skipping many of the chapters in the first half the book (This is something I never do), they were filled with characters with unpronounceable names. A ridiculous number of words are spent setting up revolts in star systems we don't care about, against "stereotypical" corrupt governments. All stuff we have seen before in the previous three Honorverse books. By seen before I mean the he plot of the Honorverse is not advanced at all, we knew all the outcomes of the plot before starting this book.

The last main line Honorbook was released March 3, 2013 in a little over 3.5 years that story line has had NO forward movement. This is an insult to fans who have read and collected all David Weber's works. He started this alternate viewpoints a few books back in the "The Saganami Island" series I thought this was just to start a new branch in universe but that doesn't appear to be the case as that branch's characters are front and center in the main line book "Shadow of Victory"

I was very disappointed in this book.

DW usually writes an excellent opening followed by some necessary filler followed by a battle or two followed by filler, followed by an excellent ending. This book had neither a good opening, a decent middle, nor a captivating end. It was Pathetic opening, bad middle, and poor end.

I have bought nearly every book DW has ever written. Though all of his recent books(last 5+ years) have been abysmally bad. Sad. Very sad.

If this book had been MASSIVELY edited and combined with Shadow of Freedom which also suffered from massive amounts of; NO ONE CARES about these faceless nameless forgettable characters, it could have been a decent book. Instead Shadow of Victory was horrific without a plot or character development. It is bad.

Don't waste your money buying this book.

If I could give a zero stars I would.

I didn't bother to finish reading it. I bought from the publisher, and they release sections of the book early. By the time I was 3/4 of the way through, I wanted my money and time refunded. Fails to advance any of the storylines in any meaningful way. Fills in a lot of details that I really could care less about.

This feels like a) Mr. Weber wasn't ready with the next book, so he released some filler material he had laying around or b) Someone is trying to milk the series for every penny that can be obtained.

David Weber is a victim... of well, of himself. The project size he has here is like unto writing out the plans for a Superdreadnought. All of them.
David Weber is a cross between Tom Clancy and C.S. Forester “innnn SPAAACE” for the joke for anyone who watched the Muppets as a kid.
The story line for any Weber book is always long. With this book, he's been painting one heck of a big canvas with this story. With those of us that have been reading and re-reading the books from what feels like the 1970’s (first book was 1993, I checked), this has been a problem at times. The story and crafting is amazing in its scope and breadth. This book is an installment in this series as well. It patches up a lot of things and brings parts of the story forward.
I had put off reading this story until now since I’d seen some bad reviews complaining about the story not moving forward. I should not have listened to those voices. This is a dang good book that ties up quite a few items in the story line. Yes, it is long winded. You knew that before you bought this book. If you’re new to the Weber books DON’T start here. Go read “On Basilisk Station” first and the rest of the Honor books. These are enrichment to the primary story, it has so much extra. The story moves forward a lot. However, there are whole other book series that Weber and Flint wrote together (that are excellent!) that this book ties in with. Too much happens in all of those to bring this up, even in this book.
Many complained about this book not moving the story forward, it wasn’t supposed to. It’s supposed to be a comfy chair around the rest of the story line before even more unpleasant things happen all over the galaxy.
I finished this book and started immediately into the new Honor Harrington Book “Uncompromising Honor” (the Early Reader Copy) from the Baen website. David hasn’t lost a step. That book and this one are really excellent and tie together extremely well.

This book was bad.

There was a lot of overlap with the previous Shadow book. No good reason.

Plot was minimal and scattered. A bunch of stuff happens at the same time in lots of different places. And none of it matters.

Don't buy. Can be skipped without missing anything.

The first HH book I won't read more than once.

This book is a rehash of the story lines that were started in the Saganami Island, Crown of Thorns and Honor Harrington series and ends at about the same place as the Cauldron of Ghosts. David Weber provides additional detail on the characters of these story lines and the perspective is more from the characters in the various resistance movements point of view than from the Manticoran or Haven characters. This is the biggest difference between this book and the books of the other series. The book is absorbing but I was dissappointed that there was nothing new on how the Grand Alliance between Manticore, Haven, Grayson, The Andermani and Beowoelf was going to defeat the Mesan Alignment. The description of the book was misleading because it sounded like the Grand Alliance would start taking steps to stop the Mesan Allignment, but it did not.

I recommend this as a a good read for those who are following the series but I do not recommend buying the book. Instead, wait until your local library has a copy and then check it out from them. If you are keeping an Honor Harrington Collection then that would be onereason to buy this book. Otherwise, save your money.

Disappointing entry in the series. Some of the previous books had a problem with covering the same ground over and over (particularly Ziliwicki and Cachat returning from Mesa), but none of them were as bad in that regards as this one. This book covers the major events of At All Costs through the end of Cauldron of Ghosts except from other perspectives and doesn't add much to the narrative other than fleshing out what the Mesan Alignment was up to and providing mini-stories of the various insurrections that they were instigating to ruin Manticore's reputation (but which are now irrelevant to the main story).
As with Shadow of Freedom, the ending was anticlimactic very little buildup and a too-easy conclusion of events.
Cauldron of Ghosts raised my expectations for this one, but those hopes were dashed.
I'll probably get Uncompromising Honor if/when it is published next year and see how the series ends, but I hope Weber lays off rehashing things from previous books.

This book mostly, but not completely, covers the same time period as others, but in other places, in very different circumstances and with other characters. This book is faster paced than some earlier ones. All in all, an excellent read that carries the story further along.

I love David Weber books and the Honorverse in particular, with that said this book was painful for me to read. I found myself skimming / skipping many of the chapters in the first half the book (This is something I never do), they were filled with characters with unpronounceable names. A ridiculous number of words are spent setting up revolts in star systems we don't care about, against "stereotypical" corrupt governments. All stuff we have seen before in the previous three Honorverse books. By seen before I mean the he plot of the Honorverse is not advanced at all, we knew all the outcomes of the plot before starting this book.

The last main line Honorbook was released March 3, 2013 in a little over 3.5 years that story line has had NO forward movement. This is an insult to fans who have read and collected all David Weber's works. He started this alternate viewpoints a few books back in the "The Saganami Island" series I thought this was just to start a new branch in universe but that doesn't appear to be the case as that branch's characters are front and center in the main line book "Shadow of Victory"

I was very disappointed in this book.

DW usually writes an excellent opening followed by some necessary filler followed by a battle or two followed by filler, followed by an excellent ending. This book had neither a good opening, a decent middle, nor a captivating end. It was Pathetic opening, bad middle, and poor end.

I have bought nearly every book DW has ever written. Though all of his recent books(last 5+ years) have been abysmally bad. Sad. Very sad.

If this book had been MASSIVELY edited and combined with Shadow of Freedom which also suffered from massive amounts of; NO ONE CARES about these faceless nameless forgettable characters, it could have been a decent book. Instead Shadow of Victory was horrific without a plot or character development. It is bad.

Don't waste your money buying this book.

If I could give a zero stars I would.

Great story with TONS of storylines to follow. This is typical of Weber. I did find it a bit hard to follow at times, but worth it. I would have liked a larger glossary that explained people as well as other things. I was a LITTLE disappointed that we saw very little of Honor. However it was very nice to see so very many familiar faces.

Do not read this on its own. The references to previous stories are more clear if you have read all the Honor books and all the Honor verse books written solely by DW. However if you have done that as I have, then you will find this well worth the wait! And although I understand all that goes into making a super-complex story like this, I can't wait for the next installment which is why I titled this review like I did!

I didn't bother to finish reading it. I bought from the publisher, and they release sections of the book early. By the time I was 3/4 of the way through, I wanted my money and time refunded. Fails to advance any of the storylines in any meaningful way. Fills in a lot of details that I really could care less about.

This feels like a) Mr. Weber wasn't ready with the next book, so he released some filler material he had laying around or b) Someone is trying to milk the series for every penny that can be obtained.

David Weber is a victim... of well, of himself. The project size he has here is like unto writing out the plans for a Superdreadnought. All of them.
David Weber is a cross between Tom Clancy and C.S. Forester “innnn SPAAACE” for the joke for anyone who watched the Muppets as a kid.
The story line for any Weber book is always long. With this book, he's been painting one heck of a big canvas with this story. With those of us that have been reading and re-reading the books from what feels like the 1970’s (first book was 1993, I checked), this has been a problem at times. The story and crafting is amazing in its scope and breadth. This book is an installment in this series as well. It patches up a lot of things and brings parts of the story forward.
I had put off reading this story until now since I’d seen some bad reviews complaining about the story not moving forward. I should not have listened to those voices. This is a dang good book that ties up quite a few items in the story line. Yes, it is long winded. You knew that before you bought this book. If you’re new to the Weber books DON’T start here. Go read “On Basilisk Station” first and the rest of the Honor books. These are enrichment to the primary story, it has so much extra. The story moves forward a lot. However, there are whole other book series that Weber and Flint wrote together (that are excellent!) that this book ties in with. Too much happens in all of those to bring this up, even in this book.
Many complained about this book not moving the story forward, it wasn’t supposed to. It’s supposed to be a comfy chair around the rest of the story line before even more unpleasant things happen all over the galaxy.
I finished this book and started immediately into the new Honor Harrington Book “Uncompromising Honor” (the Early Reader Copy) from the Baen website. David hasn’t lost a step. That book and this one are really excellent and tie together extremely well.

This book was bad.

There was a lot of overlap with the previous Shadow book. No good reason.

Plot was minimal and scattered. A bunch of stuff happens at the same time in lots of different places. And none of it matters.

Don't buy. Can be skipped without missing anything.

The first HH book I won't read more than once.

Finally, a detailed follow up to the strike at Honors home planet. The details and character development are excellent. However, I hope the next installment is soon! This was a great cliff hanger , but why wait so long when the story continues to evolve ( so well).
Please write faster !!!!
I love this series....

I loved Weber's early Honor Harrington books and for a while they got better and better. Then they peaked and started to slide into tedium. Up to now I managed to finish them, but after 100 pages of trying to remember dozens of unpronouncable Polish and Czech names I gave up on Shadow of Victory as much out of sheer boredom as anything else.

This is one strictly for the true believer.

In a word boring, boring!! I had high hopes that Honor Harringtion would return in force - not so mentioned a few times but the character herself didn't show! There was hardly any real appearance of the RMN for that matter. Filled with political and scheming talk and endless plotting by boring characters, with virtually unpronounceable names! I love the Honor Harrington character and only got this new book because of her likely extended appearance through the book. I will not get another David Weber book, certainly not per-release purchase, until I see the reviews - do not bother with this one. I dint find the the Honourvese series of books interesting books either! I feel ripped off.

I found this book fulfilling by sheets he scythe I say

I found this book fulfilling in that it gave me a fuller picture of what's been happening and why. In truth, it wasn't what I was expecting but it did clear up a few minor points. The slavic names and titles were cumbersome to read but acceptable. At 73, I'm finding this one of the best series I've ever read.

Anything by David Weber goes to the front of the unread stack as soon as it comes in. In this book, he continues the story of the Mesan Alignment to disrupt Manicore's world by encouraging remote worlds to revolt by claiming to represent Manticore and providing weapons with a promise to send navy support if needed. Since Manticore knows nothing about all this going on, what should they do next.

There were two things that I missed, first, I want to see more of the thinking going on back at Earth, and of course I'd like to see more of Honor Harrington.

I've seen a number of low reviews for this book but strongly disagree. David Weber's Honorverse is an extremely complex environment with many moving parts. I've really appreciated his view of critical events spread out over several novels and from multiple points of reference. How the Mesan Alignment eventually meets its demise will be a very satisfying experience given just how evil they are. I find Weber's writing very readable and often quite humorous. He has a great eye for irony. If you enjoy a deeply episodic series, this one is the best I've ever read.

A great place holder while we wait for the next novel that has Honor Harrington as the main character and the war with Manpower is continued. It follows up on a series that concentrates on one sector of the Manticorian space. Great stories.

I am not going to go in depth on this book as so many of the reviews given cover it well. I love david webers writing. I even enjoyed reading this book sort of. However, he has left honor Harrington behind. I miss her character. Also as many others have said this book barely moves the needle forward on the plot. I wish he would lean his books down and have a leaner plot with less people. His writing is going the way of a tom clancy book with a half dozen plot lines that gets brought together at the end of the book. However the honor books were always action with polictics supporting the plot line. The action seems to be secondary now and we have barely advanced the plot in the last three books as each book focuses on a different set of characters and advances them through the same part of the plot as the last book. If the last three books were combined it would be a decent plot line advancement but you would have about 20 different sub plots/groups of people you were following and be way to long and complex to keep up with. To be honest this was to complex to keep up with totally. Sometimes I would find myself confused as to which sub plot I was in as it switched back and forth.

Mr Weber maybe take a break from the major complex mess that your honorverse books have become and get back to your earlier style of writing such as early honor books, path of the fury series, inherit the empire etc... Or start something new and self publish stuff in the 200 page length size with a tight plot.

David Weber has done it again. Another spell binding book of the Empire of Manticore. The characters are the same as previous books and the plot thickens. The next book may be the last, but I believe that it may not. I have enjoyed reading these books for many years. I could enjoy them for many more.

I read the first two chapters of this book and then I QUIT!
Who wants to read a SF book, no matter how good it is, when you cannot pronounce the character’s names or understand what a name means.
If I had been born in Poland or one of the nearby countries, maybe I could pronounce these names.
I don’t know who Mr. Weber is trying to impress with these names.
Mr. Weber, I suggest using pronounceable names like, Hamilton, Napoleon, Scott, Beck, Turner, Washington, etc.
I returned this book and got my money back.

Damien Harahap

Ulrike Richbauer

Urrezko Koilara

Ms. Anisimovna

Rufino Chernyshev

Volkhart Kalokainos

Edyta Sowczyk

Karolina Kreft

Lukrecja Wolinska

Roman Sowinski

Andrzej Bicukowski

Wiktoria Lewandowska

Kazimierz Lukaszewski

Ludwik Kezczynski

since their parents worked – when they could find work – for the Stowarzyszenie Elksporterow Owocow Morza, which dominated the spaceport’s business.

The Ladowisko Air Traffic net.

The oligarchowie didn’t like it when

Of the Sily Zbrojne Wloclawka growled

Come on David. Honor needs to end the Mesan Alignment threat, and not dawdle about it. The Solarian League will fracture into a dozen or more regional powers, with some help from the Grand Alliance. "Shadow of Victory" was a side story, with useless details about Polish or Czech -settled planets, with unpronounceable names(to English and Spanish speakers), secret agent intrigues, and generally uninteresting side stories. Get back to the core of the Honor Harrington story. She has vowed to destroy the Mesan Alignment, so let her.

Poor written. Called and asked for my money back. Which they did must be getting a lot of these requests on kindle. I was really looking forward to this new book. I have read all his books and I think someone else did a cut and slice. Is David well or is he ill like Jordan became. If so I'm crushed because in my opinion like Heinlein and Jorden in his early books Weber was a genius.

So disappointed. We waited so long for a main plotline book in the Honorverse, something to progress the story and give us some closure but instead we get this. Chapter after chapter of obscure characters and worlds that add nothing further to the story and are forgot a page later.
Give us an ending and wrap up this trainwreck!

Largely rehash of previous material from multiple new points of view. And with the multiple points of view are multiple sub-stories, but no real overall story to the book. Its more like an appendix of additional material to the ongoing story.

Complex but comprehensible, once I acquired my Czech/Russian Dictionary, and still a good read. Lots of filling in of background and knitting together of subplots on multiple worlds. Only a token appearance by the Duchess but the supporting casts is sufficient to carry the storyline to a reasonable and satisfying conclusion.

I can understand why this book has provoked outrage among Honorverse fans. To begin with, the book covers the same eighteen months from the Battle of Monica to the fall of Mesa that the previous four or five books did. This book should have dealt with several serious issues that were unresolved. 1) Is the Solarian League going to attack Beowulf to prevent its secession? 2) Are the quarter-wits running the Office of Naval Stupidity and the Department of Operational Paralysis going to be replaced by Daud al-Fanudahi and Irene Teague? 3)Can the League fire up its Core planets enough to pay for the massive catchup job needed to eliminate Manticore's technological advantage? 4) Can Manticore thwart the Mesan Alignment's plot to ruin its reputation for honest dealings and eliminate most of the cash flow from the Verge to the Solarian government? 5) Will the occupation of Mesa lead to the destruction of the Mesan transtellars (Manpower and Jessyk) and to useful intelligence about the Mesan Alignment's plans? 6) Can the leadership of the Alignment, now relocated to Darius, carry forward its plot to take over all of human space? Sadly, only the fourth issue is dealt with in Shadow of Victory. In Shadow of Freedom, there were a few scenes with a Mesan agent offering weapons and naval support in the name of Manticore and a detailed account of the uprising on Mobius. Shadow of Victory provides a well-written explanation of the origins and purpose of Mesa's Operation Janus and its efforts to stir up rebellions on more than half a dozen Verge planets. The point of view alternates between Mesa's agents and the freedom fighters. Once Manticore learns from the Mobian Liberation Front what is happening, it must scurry to find the rebellious planets and prevent them from being pounded into submission by the Office of Frontier Security. As one might expect in a Weber novel, the characters are well drawn, the combat and the political maneuvering on the rebel worlds is fascinating and the space battle between a Manticoran task force and an OFS fleet gives Manticore a number of difficult problems to overcome, despite its huge technological advantage. This isn't the book we all have been waiting for, and it could (and should) have been 200 or 300 pages shorter. For God's sake, Mr. Weber, in your next Honorers novel, bring back Honor Harrington and deal with the major issues you have left dangling. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this book and I think that most Weber fans who don't throw their copy against a wall within the first 100 pages will enjoy it as well. 3.6 stars, rounded up to 4.

Don’t waste your time. I’ve read and loved every book in this series. This latest entry is tedious, repetitive, disappointing, and covers well-worn ground. I was so excited to read this when it came out; and now 753 pages later I wish I’d saved my time. Read an online plot synopsis and don’t waste your life plodding through this book. You’ll thank me. I really miss the good Honor Harrington books.

I have read all Weber's Honorverse books (some more than once) and I think this one had to be written as it does fill many little holes left by others. It will be fun to see how the disparate lines going on come together. Probably not for another 10 books or so.. Bring them on David...

Hard core fan of Weber. But on this one, nothing connected and in fact we even had characters speaking Polish, which I do not and was not translated. He just had a bad one or had a ghost writer. Plot meandered. And the climatic end was "to be continued" Characters sounded like a plot outline, not real speaking people. Ah, well, everyone has a bad day.

Perhaps David Weber and his publisher were trying to make the fans happy by giving us the new Honor book we have all been waiting for and since there wasn't a new book ready to publish, they assigned an intern editor to take all the bits as pieces edited out of the last book and put them together in this sad thing and call it a book. I was so excited to get this book and so sad to read it. Especially since I paid $15 for the eARC!!

Though not as bad to me as many of these reviewers I was quite disappointed that Shadow of Victory did not advance the plot of the overall story.

1. If you want to read about Honor Harrington - she isn't in this book.
2. If you skip to about chapter 65 or so and read from there to the end, then it is pretty good.

Waited four + years for this mess and I'm pretty disappointed.

As others have said, a rehash involving mostly unimportant characters.

Remember when Robert Jordan wrote Crossroads of Twilight for the Wheel of Time series? When nothing at all new happened for over 500 pages? Shadow of Victory is that, but even less relevant to its story. Nothing moves the story forward in this book.

Considering it's been four years since A Rising Thunder came out, and that Weber isn't getting any younger, one would think he'd move the story forward when he finally came out with another book. Perhaps it's time to pass the torch to Eric Flint (an excellent writer) with Weber as co-plotter to get the ball rolling again.

I felt burned after 20 years by Jordan's terrible last book in his series, I don't want a repeat for the Harrington stories. This universe is too good and has many, many stories still to be told.