A Rising Thunder (Honor Harrington Book 13)

As I've been waiting for this book a long time, I must say, not up to Weber's best or even his middle level.

Having said that, I realize that this is half a book, since the publisher decreed books have to be under a certain length. But still no real action. Just umpteen pages of review and setup, but no meat to this book.

Action slow and incomplete, no surprises, no nothing. Blow up the SLN Fleet, ho humm another day. What everyone expects happens.

About Mesa a few pages to setup next book, or is it the book after that, who knows. you can skip this book, as the next book will have review and setup from this book. hopefully something new happens and moves the plot along.

What you want to see never happens, just tid bits to whet you appetites. Don't expect much, read the last book and make dull guesses about what will happen if Weber would write a dull predictable filler of a book, and you got it.

I guess Weber is getting BURNT out doing his need more money books and leaving his loyal readers twisting in the wind.

Well reading this book is like eating a meal and going away very very hungry, maybe the next book hopefully will be better.

As always a complex, fascinating read....Can't say much more without giving it away, but if you've been following the series, READ IT (even if a library free copy) and if you haven't, start. The first is called "On Basilisk Station."

I have been reading the Honorverse books for many years now. Each new story is better than the last. I look forward to each new novel, trying to guess what happens next. I hope that Mr. Weber continues these most excellent stories for a long time.

An excellent read. Continues the saga of Manticore and shows that evil exists in Mesa even though it it rationalized as the 'right' path to follow, and the Sollies desire to maintain piwer at any cost. Looking forward to the next chapter

A Rising Thunder advances the myriad plot lines in David Weber's fine Honor Harrington series in yeomanlike fashion and keeps the reader turning pages without scratching his/her head too much in trying to keep the legion of characters, plots, sub-plots, relationships and unexpected developments straight. The author manages to present this ever evolving nine ring circus so as to keep the attention and increase the enjoyment of fans of this worthy member of the past military history recast as space opera genre of science fiction.

The latest in the Honor Harrington series continues with its ability to capture your imagination and take you into the future. I would recommend this series to any scifi readers and recommend they start with the first book in the series. I can hardly wait until the next book comes out.

This book is horrible. I've read the entire series and was stoked when I found out about this book. I REALLY wanted to like it, but was repeatedly disappointed.

Repeated Scenes:
200 pages in, I realized that Weber was still summarizing plot lines in the previous novels. OK, we've done that before; however, in the past the events were repeated from a distinct second viewpoint. New twists are revealed, perspective is gained, and it is a little annoying knowing what is going to happen ahead of time, but it is entertaining. In this case, there was nothing new about what was going on. We learn that being trapped on a spaceship for a couple of months is boring (who knew). We learn that being a bureaucrat is boring (or at least I learned that one indirectly). Which brings me to my next topic.

Bureaucracy:
This may be the worst part about this book. For some reason, Weber doesn't think the reader can understand that the Solarian government is corrupt and run by bureaucrats. So he keeps telling us about it and decides to spend most of this book on the political situation in the Solarian League. I like most of the back-story in Weber's novels, but this was just so simplistic and boring. There was no depth to the situation. The Solarian league is old, proud, and has a long history that makes it hard to change. That's it, I don't need to read about various people in the government repeatedly stating that it's too late to go back now and that they can't change the system.

Zero Character Development:
New characters are introduced, but there is no emotion involved in them. I wouldn't care if any of them are ever mentioned again. Wow, it's another military officer, politician, or bureaucrat; except this one has no back story, no "character", and no reason for me to care. WooHoo.

!Spoiler Alerts!

Nothing Happens:
That's it, that's my spoiler. Nothing happens in the novel. Well there is a wedding, what was up with that? How did that take up at least a full chapter instead of a passing mention?

tl;dr: Nothing happens in this novel, so just skip it. Just assume that everyone knows what everyone else is up to (or at least as much as was revealed in the previous books) and I'm sure any details you missed will be included in the ~200 page overlap of timeline in the beginning of the next novel...

As always, David Webber and Honor Harrington deliver. The sharp contrasts in the characters and their systems of government so clearly echo those of our own time. We see played out before us where our own folly can and very well may take us. The Honor Harrington series has it all. Drama, action, endearing characters, evil (but believable) villains and the greatest space battles of all time. I can't wait to find out what happens next.

This novel was very confusing! Too many players and too many subplots going at once. Weber should have narrowed his focus a little better in this one. It was still a very good read, once I was able to sort out all the characters. Well worth the time invested.

ONCE MORE WEBER FAILS TO DELIVER. THE LAST SEVERAL BBOOKS OF HIS ARE TERRIBLE. WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM? THE FIRST DOZEN OR SO BOOKS IN THIS SERIES ARE FANTASTIC. IT IS LIKE SOMEONE ELSE IS WRITING THIS STUFF USING HIS NAME. THESE BOOKS ARE WRITTEN IN THE STYLE OF FEMALE SCIFI WRITERS, YES I SAID IT AND MY WIFE AGREES WHO IS A STRONG WILLED FEMINEST WITH A TASTE FOR MALE TESTOSTERONE IN SCIFI. PLEASE LADIES DONT LET YOUR HEADS EXPLODE.

I looked forward to this continuing saga of Manticore and its "Bad Buddies" in the Honorverse. BUT...Honor's character interacts in only 10% of the book, though she is referred to throughout by the BBs and her story isn't moved forward in any way. It's all political intrigue with just a few points of interest. Could have been called "Mesa Sneaky Dudes." Very disappointing and next time I'll go to Wikipedia first for the summary before I invest in another volume. Please, David, don't call in the next one.

Right now the story line has lots of balls in the air and for someone who doesn't understand and remember those story lines, this book can be confusing. I highly recommend reading some of the previous works before this one.

A Rising Thunder by David Weber (Honor Harrington novel#13)

This novel is a major turning point in the series and I would only recommend this to someone who has read all of the other 12 before this. There is a lot that is absorbed in the other novels that is taken into play in this one and it can be a bit confusing or even drag the reader down if they are not up to speed. I tried reading this before I'd remembered that there were two novels in-between which I'd not yet gotten hold of. I found it bogged me down a bit trying to get into the novel for a number of reasons.

It takes quite a while before you see Honor. There are a lot of changes in players in those two preceding novels. There are several subplots that are concentrated into those two missing novels. There is a lot of world building that has happened throughout and this is one of the few of the more recent books where David Weber has spent less time rehashing old world building. Some of this is good, but I found I needed to at least go back and read the two novels I had missed and that's how I ended up reading the whole series over.

A Rising Thunder reminds me more of a Tom Clancy or even a Robert Ludlum thriller more than it does your typical Science Fiction. This is something that has been building in the series as it has been growing. We move from a heavy military SF to a military political thriller SF to Something that becomes almost a blend of Soft and Hard SF which includes all sorts of political social psychological economical and military elements blended with the Science.

Is it really possible that Haven and Manticore can bury the hatchet and face this new bio-tech threat while wagging a new war against the Solarian League. More important though is; can they recover quick enough to unveil the greater Mesan threat. How much more strain can Manticore take before they lose the edge of being the possible cosmic glue that will bring all of the star kingdoms together?

A Rising Thunder is focused on the world building of the Solar League. We see a pattern developing here and we'll have to wait and see how many more novels it takes to confirm the pattern. Manticore manages to have a war against a another kingdom and they seem to decide victory and defeat almost by which side is the most incompetent. While we also see the balance being adjusted for military leaders who are competent facing each other in battle because of the political incompetence. There's always a fudge factor of a few bad men in the military. And this is what we begin to see in the Solar League in this novel.

As a sub plot we have the building power of Mesa and the growing threat they are to everyone. The question is how will David Weber move all the elements around by the time the Mesa begin to make their move and what kind of terrible battle with that bring.

A Rising Thunder is a bridge novel between the Haven conflict and the Solar League cold war and is in many ways a bit tame compared to the last two novels, yet it is packed with enough Suspense Thrills and Intrigues to keep the reader interested. It's possible that anyone who likes the more political and diplomatic end of conflict might be able to read this without much lead-in but to really appreciate it I think the reader has to know all the players and understand the past conflicts and present political climate to fully appreciate the whole.

David Weber is definitely setting the bar for this type of Military/Political Procedural Science Fiction.

I recommend this for all SFF fans, but again with the recommendation of reading the previous twelve books.
After battling through the 12 I somehow subjectively found this novel somewhat superior in its relative simplicity.

J.L. Dobias

I have read all of the Honor Harrington series and find 'A Rising Thunder' to be the most 'tedious', 'frustrating' and 'tamely' written novel yet.

I believe David Weber to be a genius of this genre (or any other genre), ergo, 'i Humbly expect nothing but excellence' from his writing. I've already put the next one in the series on my the store Wish List hoping for the quality we all should expect.

Thank You, Charlie

The next book becomes available in March. Darn cliffhanger at the end makes me want to spend the the time in stasis to get the next book tomorrow. Time to begin the series again.

Excellent to start from beginning, I also like the young adult series starting with A Beautiful Friendship, best to read from #1.

This book drew me immediately back into the daily events of intrigue, politics, military plots and vast world travel among Star Kingdoms, Leagues and alliances.
It is not for a reader that is not already familiar with the characters, places and history of the earlier books. In fact, I wish that it had the maps and appendices of early books that gave background information to remind me of places and characters.
The rapid pace of events, the carefully integrated plots and the clever character description overcame the lack of suspense as the action moved ahead. We can't believe that it's going to happen again yet it does. BUT there is a glimmer of hope that the underlying cause of the crisis is going to be discovered and things will work out happily. It might take several more books but Weber's world is a fascinating one to curl up with and escape earth for a while.

Have been a huge fan of Weber's Honor Harrington series since the beginning. Despite his sometimes over-detailed descriptions I thoroughly enjoy each of his Honor books and am eagerly awaiting the next installment!

Where is Honor Harrington? Only about 120 pages deal with her. The rest of the book is politics of the league. If I'd wanted politics I could get myself a history or politics book. I wanted Honor Harrington not this drivel. This may have killed the series for me.. Who writes a book where the namesake shows up in chapter 10. Very disappointed.

I don't recommend purchasing this book unless you have a grounding in prior Honor Harrington books. I did plod through and finish the book and feel badly about the two star rating. While I have read the entire Honor series twice, this book lost me.

This is allegedly an Honor Harrington book but aside from one very short mention of her relative to some peace negotiations with Haven, she is not a presence until Page 129. In the meantime all you have are pages and pages of dialogues and background babble. Just how many conversations can you listen to before losing interest? Many typos and excessively wordy sentences (some more than 4 lines long) make it difficult to read

There are just too many characters and titles to keep track of. And, "Permanent Senior Undersecretary Innokentiy Arsenovich Kolokoltsov" is just such a mouthful that I finally gave up on most of them. Fewer, more thoroughly developed characters would have been much more enjoyable and given the book more substance. And what's with all the multi-national hyphenated names (e.g. Jacques Benton-Raminez y Chou)? I would like to know the details (sizes, capabilities, comparisons) on the myriad starships used in the ongoing battles between the warring political entities. While they are the same descriptions used in ancient Old Terra wet navy battles, if you aren't familiar with battleships, destroyers, etc. you can get lost. I've found star maps on Weber's web site which helps, so how about the warships, too? don't have $300+ to purchase Jayne's Intelligence Review.

The first 10 or books of the Honor Harrington series were delightful; might as well go back and re-read again rather than try to contend with Weber's most recent offerings.

A MORE than satisfactory roll up of the hints and new directions from other recent books (At All Costs, War Of Honor), and gathers our favourite allies and former enemies firmly pointing toward a new, shared enemy and new challenges ahead.

The war is finally going to happen- on one side, you have Mensa and on the other side, you have the Solarian leauge. In between you have the Star Kingdom of Manticore, with the Peoples Republic of Haven.

Go pee, grab something to drink, a snack, lock the doors, take the phone off the hook and promise to hurt anyone who bugs you while reading this wonderful, old style space opera!

This is a review I didn't want to write. I genuinely like David Weber's writings. I own most of the books he's produced and loved On Basilisk Station when it first came out. This series has been a huge breath of fresh air in the world of science fiction writing.

Sadly, this series is also a wonderful example of a storyline that has been extended far past the original scope. David Weber seemed to be flailing around more than a bit as he tried to hold the pieces of the plot together.

There are many things that have gone wrong in this world. At first it was about one person and her uncanny ability to get a ship's crew to excel in combat. Yes, the combats were in some ways simple. Originally missles were described as more of a standoff weapon while energy weapons and fighting in a line like 18th century warships was the standard. However, the technology kept becoming more and more powerful, and missiles have become the uberhammer in the universe. This book not only notes it, but emphasizes it with many of the discussions the characters get involved in.

And sadly, the bad guys are showing almost no character development. Haven and its people were textured and deep with many of the characters showing shades of gray in their personalities and motivations. The "five mandarins" of the Solarian League and the Detweiler clones who run the Mesan Alignment are extremely 2-dimensional. Sure the supposed plots that Weber has them conducting might appear complex, but the foundations are simple and the motivations are just too obvious. There is no attempt by David Weber to add nuance to the characters.

And as others have said, this read like a very long setup for later books. Overall, it was like one of hte middle books in The Wheel of Time, there was a lot of filler and exposition, but the plot moved incrementally.

This series has been suffering since the first "Podnaughts" appeared, and has seemed to almost lose it's way. Mission of Honor had many unnecessary deaths and new technologies that appeared to exist solely to help boost the power of a new bad guy. It was almost like reading a bad comic book where the villain suddenly gains a new power just to add in more danger. The early books were character driven, with the personalities of the characters being a major component of hte story. A Rising Thunder downplays the individual characters.

This story is lost in "epic" mode. Weber is best when he can keep the story focused on a few specific characters, rather htan try to write about every action taking place in his universe.

For lovers of the series, this will add a few details and does push towards a couple of major confrontations in later books, but in my opinion it is a major disappointment.

Picture this: There's an executive. He lives for meetings. In his spare time, he attends seminars on meetings. He works three jobs so he can attend more meetings, he loves them so much. He can't understand why other people don't love meetings like he does. So he writes a book about meetings. This is that book.

Weber is obviously out of ideas and has this series on life support. In the typical 100 pages of this waste of ink and paper, we have 60 pages of meetings, 25 pages of analysis and - if you're lucky - 15 pages of action. In the first 100 pages, it was three yes - 3 - pages of action. If I want to read the minutes of meetings, I'll review board minutes or go back to business classes. Unfortunately, apart from the few and far-between action sequences, this book is about as entertaining and exciting as reading corporate meeting minutes. The rest of the book? ZERO action. When we finally see a "battle" Weber sticks it too us. You'll know it IF you make the mistake and read this mess.

This is the perfect example of what happens to a fantastic series that is taken beyond it's logical conclusion, after all the ideas are gone, and the author is just stringing readers along as long and as far as possible to line his pockets. Take this book, the previous two, and the next two, eliminate the meetings, and you have ONE good book. But then again, this is the same author who just copies 100 pages or so from book to book to "catch readers up."

What's worse - this an HONOR book - not "Honorverse" - HONOR. So when do we finally see her? Page 128!!! Now, can you guess how we finally see her?
A) On the bridge of a ship in battle
B) Fighting for her life
C) Saving treecat orphans
D) In the middle of a marathon meeting

Answer: D. In a friggin meeting. And that's the ONLY place we see her. Meetings. Meetings. More meetings. This is NOT military SF. This is a WASTE OF PAPER and ink!

One positive aspect: Weber has increased my visits to the library. I stopped paying good money for his books years ago - now I borrow them from the local branch.

Probably NOT the worst, but not great. It's compulsively readable. BUT. The story is being painfully stretched. Since At All Costs, only the Weber/Flint collaboration Torch of Freedom has had sustained vitality.

This book has battle set pieces that fizzle; yes, we get that war is hell and the Mesans are really, really evil.

There are lots and lots of repetitive political machinations, which consist mainly of the good guys reacting to external forces and the bad guys and incompetent guys proving that they are bad and/or incompetent. At length. And on and on and on.

There are myriad brief check-ins with various good guys and bad guys (but not necessarily the ones you care about) to keep them in mind, one assumes, for later books. We also get glancing views of various naval officers, space station crew, etc., each of whom is given rank/title and full first name(s) and last name(s), carefully chosen to represent the multi-national origins of the galaxy of the far future. The character list for this series--including all minor characters--must be enormous. Most of these people are spearcarriers and don't need names.

We have an improbable seemingly instantaneous complete trust between two sets of good guys formerly sworn enemies. Once the leaders become best buddies, the people fall in line. The people in all these books, especially the later ones, always go along because they are completely manipulated by government-run propaganda machines. This is convenient for plot.

Thing is, Weber does better with individual relatively small groups/units (the early Harrington books, the first Saganami book, the Cachat/Zilwicki adventures), but he gets pretty tiresome when we have to spend so much time with the leaders and their plotting (if they're bad guys) and planning (if they're good guys).

There are incremental improvements in military tech that by this time have become little more than chrome

Then we get an extraneous royal wedding that MAY be set up for a later book because if it's meant simply to show life goes on (especially if you're part of the leader group and even if half your family was wiped out several books ago), it's a waste of pages.

Treecats get more involved, only to be merely decorative.

And so on. At this rate, we're not going to get the final confrontation with the ultimate bad guys for 2-3 more books.

Problem is, I'm not sure I have the patience to stick with it, especially since I don't care very much about the characters Weber focuses on anymore. They're virtually immortal (unless killed in battle or assassinated), and I am not.

This review is based on the e-book version (not the e-ARC) bought directly from the publisher. There were a very few typographical errors, none critical, which I suspect are also in the print version.

I really love the honor Harrington series at first... good story line and pace. However I felt it really got bogged down in later books (That labored French/British war and revolution analogy was painful!). But this book takes the "bogged down" to the extreme. It started out retracing grounds covered in a prior book then moved on to multiple views of the situation where Weber showcases his prose, but doesn't advance the story. This is the last one for me. It was +600 pages to cover minute steps forward in the story line... diplomacy breaks down, manticore forms alliances/seize worm hole, fight of one attack, disrupt economies, Solarian stupid decisions made. Leaves you hanging about the evildoers on Mesa, and how fast the Solaria League will fall apart, but that is about it. At this point I am going to stop reading this series. I can't take another 600 pages that cover so little, in so much (dare I say excruciating) detail.

This book is mainly a filler with only a couple of relevant points in the overall story arc: The corrupt bureaucrats on Earth launch an undeclared war on Manticore, and Manticore allies itself with its longtime foe Haven in the face of the threat. The evil mastermind from Mesa is directing everything from behind the curtain, using a form of mind control. Honor blows a gigantic Terran fleet out of the sky in a few terse sentences. Beowulf finds itself trapped between the two warring factions. That's about it.

When you compare this book to the first few Honor novels, the change is striking. What was once concisely delivered in well-thought-out order is now delivered in rambling chapters that are as predictable as they are bloated. if you counted the actual plot points in the book, they would probably add up to less than half of what was in "Basilisk Station" which is only a fraction of the size.

When you get a "paycheck" book like this one in the middle of a popular series, the best thing to do is get it from the library. There's no deathless prose or compelling scenes in the book that would make me ever want to read it again, so I picked it up and skimmed through it over an evening. Yep, Mesa is evil, check. Terrans are stupid, check. Manty's are noble and urbane, check. Honor is now a mind-reading superwoman who will eventually save the human race, check.

The heartbreaking aspect is that Weber has great ideas and can tell good stories when he doesn't get bogged down in minutiae or expounding on his personal religious beliefs. Part of the failing is that his editor and publisher lets him (if not encourages him) to pump out material without regard to quality because it sells. Only when customers start skipping books with minimal content will this change.

Finally I'm catching up having discovered the Honor Harrington series later than most and I'm wishing I'd waited longer. The first books in the series had great character development and action and if it was a bit heavy on the numbers and capabilities of ships and weapons I glazed over those bits. I liked the tricksy maneuvering and even the political insights as the books followed the trials and successes of Honor. The last Honor book I really enjoyed was Echos of Honor, because of the satisfying prison escape, but since then most of the books with the exception of Torch of Freedom and maybe to an extent Shadow of Saganami have been predominantly chapters of people sitting around talking and just when they get to a really good idea they have.....

Rather than waste pages and pages and pages........frankly, she snorted.........most of the backstory (which this all is) could have been written as excepts from future histories or memoirs of the participants at the beginnings of the chapters, then the chapter could have included actual action rather than endless talk.

I just finished the last page and went to the next (e-reader) and it kicked me to my homepage and the book was marked finished. What?!? That's how it ends? This wasn't even a proper cliffhanger, not that I'm enamoured of those. I think I'm done for a while. I'll wait until the next three books or so have been written. Meanwhile, I'll move on to some other series. I like Military Space Opera not Boardroom Space Opera.

As a compulsive reader, I had high hopes for this apparently long and involved novel...had I known that the content would render all of the engaging romance, intelligence, inspiration and spellbinding plot of the introductory paragraph of my first year microeconomics textbook from 30 years ago, I would have just wadded up a 10$ bill and eaten it -- at least I would have had a little more fiber in my diet, and could have avoided the desire to claw my eyes out. This is the first book I have actually thrown into a garbage can in a decade. I would have given it to a charity, but that would have been unkind. I suppose I might burn it in some sort of hopeful rite of cleansing, but then, I might have to reflect on the nothingness I had recently read, and further castigate myself for continuing to search for a nugget of SOME sort. Alas, and also lackaday. Do yourself a favor, unless you are in need of emergency paper for the outhouse, RUN for Patrick Rothfus, or Brent Weeks -- if space opera and tech interests you, Dan Simmons or some good old Asimov. Just in case I've been unclear, by 200 pages in, we've met about 200 characters, developed none, but examined the perspective of each individual in minute detail ad nauseum. A dictionary or a legal brief would be a far better way to spend your time. NEVER again will I attempt to read a Weber book. Sweet JESUS, find an editor!

A Rising Thunder by David Weber

This is number thirteen of the Honor series. Honor Harrington plays a bit part in the continuing saga of Manticore. Haven and Manticore, Mesa and the Solarian League are all back. That makes is sound very similar to volume 12. The cast of characters is pretty much the same.

The book pretty much characterizes an entrenched bureaucratic morass that is oblivious to anything beyond their personal control. The Mandarins are the true rulers of the Solarian League with an oblivious blind spot to anyone with honor or ethics. Profit and power are the meat and potatoes of the Mandarins every thing else is non-existent.

Once again, the loyalty, emotion and strength of the good guys are what makes these books such and enjoyable read. The action is just icing on the cake.

As I mentioned regarding the last book, Mission of Honor, It is possible that Weber has always been this wordy. I found myself powering through some chapters as the details became tedious. I am still a fan and still enjoy the Manticore saga but the bloom may be off the rose. Considering that this was released early in 2013 I can't move to the next one yet but as a die hard, I am sure I will order volume 14 when it is available.

Body of work of <a type="amzn"> David Weber </a>

I waited a year for this book and got more than I expected. Mission of Honor ended with the expectation of a massive Solarian League fleet taking the long road to the Manticoran star system to force our heroes into submission. I expected the new Manticoran/Haven alliance to handily defeat that fleet, but how they were going to do it has been on my mind for the past year.

Weber had the foresight to see that for that battle to be properly appreciated, he needed to build up to it in the second book. So he took a few steps back in time and laid the groundwork for the battle by showing how the badly damaged and overstretched Manticoran forces were preparing for the coming war with the Solarians by pulling their shipping home while fending off the opposing forces who still can't quite believe the Manticorans are standing up to them.

This build up was very thoughtfully done and artfully constructed. There is also an economic and political background being developed here that is the backdrop that makes Weber's military thrillers so believable and exciting. Most writers can't pull off this level of depth in their works but I've come to expect it from Weber and he doesn't disappoint.

The battle I waited for was even better than I had anticipated. It's hard to build tension into what should have been a completely one-sided affair without making your heroes look like fools, but Weber accomplished this perfectly. He then went on to deal with the aftermath in a believable fashion, showing that even with their disastrous economic problems and horrendous technological disadvantages, the Solarians are going to be a very dangerous opponent.

I only gave this book four stars for two reasons. First, and this may be unfair, as much as I enjoyed this book and look forward to the next one, it didn't hit the absolutely stellar heights of so many other books in this series. Had I not enjoyed those thoroughly, this one probably would have gotten five stars. Second, I would have appreciated a glossary of characters. There is a lot of history here, and I was surprised how well I remembered some of the less important members of the supporting cast, but there are a couple of scenes where I still only have a vague idea of who the heck I was reading about.

I'm really looking forward to the next book in this series.

I absolutely adore the Honor Harrington series of books. I've read all but couple of the short story compilations. I was so looking forward to this book and ended up buying it at a local book store cause I couldn't wait. Sorry, the store.

However, I was really disappointed. The first half of the book or so was spent catching us up to date to where we left off in Mission of Honor. Sort of tying up loose ends which I appreciated might be needed somewhat but that could have been done in a different book like some of the other tie ins to Honor's stories. Even at that, so many bits and pieces and players were left out.

Then the big battle we were waiting on was over in a flash. I should probably go count but it seemed to be over in about 10 pages if that much. What!?

Next there was just too little Honor in this Honor Harrington book. It was like she made a few cameo appearances. Honor is so strong and honorable, she is one of my favorite science fiction heroines. I wanted more but such was not to be in this book.

Just personal opinion, which is what a review is, but I think the scope of the books has just become too big to hold within one book even written the way these have been lately. Of course, since Honor has herself become more powerful with higher ranking and status, it's just not going to be the same as it was when she was just a single ship's captain with a closer in story. Her scope is larger so the books' scopes have to be larger. So are the problems being faced.

But this book just didn't cut it. There are too many threads to follow within the one book. I found myself wanting a mind map of what was going on.

So we have the first half of the book for catching up, a quick battle, and then bouncing around the universe again to learn what all the little threads have happening. OK, maybe some of the threads are the major players but it is a lot of bouncing around. Mr. Weber just didn't meet up to the level of entertainment he has trained us to expect from him.

Many reviewers have already lamented this book, so I will try to add new comments.

First, a star map would have helped matters. Newcomers to the series will be confused by the topology of the stars mentioned in the story. Even readers of the earlier books might do with a refresher. And I use topology precisely in the mathematical sense. Weber has devised a universe where distant stars can be linked by naturally occurring wormholes. This forms a major justification for the economic importance of certain stars, especially Manticore. The wormholes shrink the distances between the points they connect, so it is a topology and not a simple metric.

Second, if you are a Weber fan, you have probably read all the Harrington books as well as the Safehold series. Weber is [surely] consciously making the current struggle in the recent Harringtons as a pathetic fallacy vis a vis Safehold. Fascinating to observe. I do not know of any other author, and not just in science fiction, who has done this to the extent here.

What do I mean? The heroic planets in the Harringtons, Manticore along with its former enemy Haven, are the small island kingdoms of Safehold. While the massive corrupt Solarian League is the oppressive theocracy and its vassals on the Safehold mainland. Even the way Manticore and Haven fell into each others' arms in this book echoes how those island realms patched up their historic rivalries in the first and second Safehold books. Oh, and the 5 mandarins ruling the Solarian League (or so they think) are the Gang of 4 on Safehold.

The similarities go further. The current book has Manticore with a technological naval edge, and both sides wondering how to finance a continuing expensive struggle. Shades of the recent Safehold books. The League mandarins puzzle how to wage asymmetric warfare, and in the end of this book are tending towards hit and run by light forces against Manticore and its allies. Right now, this book and the most recent Safehold text, How Firm a Foundation (Safehold), are at about the same political and military plot point.

Do you know what you could do? Both series are ongoing. At any given time, Weber will only release one book. Try following the series in tandem. If the next book is about Safehold, say, read it for itself in that series. But see if the Church will initiate hit and run against the islands? Also step back and see the other military and economic tactics used by the combatants. This might clue you in about the next Harrington. Tag team.

There's an analogy with what Turtledove repeatedly did with his recastings of the World Wars that began with American Front (The Great War, Book 1), or with his fantasy World War 2 series, Into the Darkness (World at War, Book 1). The difference with Weber of course is that Turtledove casts to a known historical template, while Weber has far more flexibility with an internal dual track.

The Harrington series does have one advantage over Safehold, for those of us human superpatriots. There is not the ever present spectre of a genocidal enemy looming in the space darkness. Here is a fantasy riff. Imagine all the human navies in the Harrington books combined against the Gbaba of the Safehold universe. Grudge match! Because after all the intent of Merlin is to rebuild a new, stronger spacefaring human race, to go looking for that enemy, as the most recent Safehold book intoned.

The constant question I kept asking myself as I read this book was "when do I get to the good part?". The entire novel simply felt like a place holder, long overstretched trying to hold our attention long enough to bridge the gap between Mission of Honor, and what really is meant to come next with just the barest minimum of plot exposition to tithe us over.

I was greatly disappointed with the dismissal of any sort of in depth space combat (There was more detail in a throw away TRAINING moment than there was actual action...), and the introduction of new important players without the same level of depth and build up as has existed in the past.

All in all, I was left feeling like nothing really had been accomplished or resolved other than the waste of my money hoping that this book would begin the epic arc of the war with the Solarian League with the same vigor, energy, and dynamic action as we had for the start of the Haven wars in "A Short Victorious War."

I think this book represents a missed opportunity, and one I'm not sure the next book in the series will be able to recoup. As it stands, you'll get all you need to know from Wikipedia without missing anything.

Long-time fans -- and people who came to know Honor waaaaay back in Basilisk are truly LONG-time fans -- will be disappointed.

Even acknowledging that this may, in fact, be a bridge work it disappoints on many levels. All of the bridging feels flat. If the effort was to provide differing perspective (Solarian, Beowulfian, Havenite, treecat, etc...) it fails. Yes, you get an overlong look into the mindset of those actually running the Solarian League but, in comparison with the rest of the story, it feels overlong.

The only true action could have been included in an anthology or a novella.

Weber's genius has always been in character and world building. This, juxtaposed with some truly epic and memorable space battles, is why Honor fans are such ardent fans and continue to anxiously await installment after installment of the story. It seems hard to believe that the events in "Thunder" couldn't have been handled in the next, longer work or -- if there truly is some purpose to this bridgework -- expanded upon with Weber's usual talent and to provide readers with a reason to care about the story being told from so many differing perspectives. Truly, even the treecats in their attempt to "no longer be kittens" but truly contributory and productive members of Manticoran society just don't elicit the usual tug on your heartstrings.

Perhaps the next book will prove the value of this one.

Several reviews have pointed out how different this book is from the early Honorverse books, which raises the question in my mind. Should I compare this book to the early ones, or should I review it on its own merit.

If compared to the early books, this one is a failure. The early books were full of characters you cared about and high drama. You knew (as a person reading this as fiction) that just about everyone would survive, but you were still on the edge of your seat, wondering how it would be done. "Mission of Honor" and "A Rising Thunder" are mostly talk. (In fact, my review of "Mission of Honor" was titled "A Lot of Talk.") There is some action, but it makes up so little of the book and there is no suspense. You know from the start how it will turn out. So many of the characters, even ones we've known and loved for so long, appear as walk-ons or cardboard cutouts. It's hard to believe that this book is part of the same series by the same author.

On the other hand, if this book is reviewed on its own, it isn't that bad. Loose ends from other books are tied up and there is some plot advancement. Not a lot of advancement, true, but some.

The wedding at the end comes out of nowhere, though. It was a nice touch, but seems tacked on.

I have loved the Honor series since book one, but the last few have been drifting. Weber seems to have decided that it is more interesting for the reader to describe staff meetings with myriad meaningless characters than to write about the wonderful ship and fleet actions of the past books. This book is really just a collection of notes from staff meetings. This seems to be a problem afflicting Weber in other books as well. I can only hope his editors intervene... As for the book, it is readable enough, but I found myself skipping whole chapters. That is something I almost never do. I would pass on this one.

I don't mind the political machinations and such that others have complained of. I even slogged through the pointless hand movement description filler that showed up with the cats learning sign language.
I do draw the line at word for word plagiarizing yourself and copy / pasting whole scenes and passages from the prior book! Everyone suddenly using nearly identical turns of phrase was bad enough. Amazingly lazy writing (or copying).

David Weber could not have written this missive ...... it fails on every point, except maybe the commercial aspect. It certainly is not the writings of the David Weber that I have followed for years.

I, like many others who are disappointed, have all of David's books .... the good, the bad, and sadly, the ugly - of which A Rising Thunder is a, almost, charter member. It is not necessary to go into the problems that this book represents - they have been well documented by readers before me. Suffice to say, I sincerely hope the good guys find David Weber and return him to his studio!
On an upbeat note, the Audible Reading was very well done!

Mr Weber is adept at creating large-scale conceptual canvasses for his works, but all too often then devotes himself to extremely detailed Hudson River School-type portraits in a small corner thereof. The last three books, including this one, in the Honor Harrington series have unfortunately gone to the other extreme, with the plots resembling the efforts of a mad Pointillist to cover the whole canvas--a dot here, a dot there, all in the hopes that eventually a coherent picture will emerge. In time, it might well, but both Mr Weber and I will be long gone by then.
THIS SERIES NEEDS TO END. It doesn't necessarily have to come to a fully happy ending, where justice triumphs, the good guys live happily ever after (literally, with prolong) and every bad guy gets what's coming to him or her. It does, however, need to reach some kind of conclusion. Mr Weber's original idea of having a forty-year gap in the series was a good one; it's too bad he changed his mind. This series--this book--has far too many subplots and not enough continuity to make easy reading, even with Mr Weber's felicity of style (at least when he avoids one of his collaborator's arch cutsiness, that is). The narrative doesn't flow and there is no sense of chronology: where the various parts fit together in time.

At one point this series was Milsf, then it became space opera, which was ok since it was still well done. Over the last few books it's changed again to meeting opera. The Shadow of Saganami at least had a couple battles, most of which all we saw was staff meetings, debriefings and navel gazing before, during and after battles. This had four or five good one liners and not little else.

It doesn't even feel like half a book, it feels like an over written outline.

4 stars. For those who are series fans this is a great book as it fills in a lot of gaps. Its more politics than shoot em up so the shoot em up fan boys will not like it.
2 stars. For those who are casual series readers or who are new to the series this is a decent book but definitely not the place to start. For those who have not read Ashes of Victory (Honor Harrington Series, Book 9) and subsequent novels as well as the two Crown of Slaves (Honorverse) this will be uninteresting.
Its a series of good stories but without the context of the previous books pretty impenetrable.

This is purely a filler book. Keep the series alive, bring in some additional cash from the regular readers, dangle a few (unresolved) plot elements for future publications, and all without having to go to the trouble of writing anything interesting. The most exciting thing that involved Honor Harrington in this book was a wedding she attended, but don't get your hopes up because nothing happened there either. The last few entries in the Honor Harrington series barely qualify as space opera anymore-- certainly none of them should be recommended as a good example to introduce a newcomer to the genre.

I won't bother with the details...the other 1-3 star reviews are accurate. I saw an interview with Weber in which he said his biggest fear was "that his publisher would figure out that he would continue to write, regardless of if he got paid or not". Well, I guess I could say that my biggest fear is that Weber would figure out that I would buy Honorverse books, regardless if they sucked or not. Sadly, I think he's figured it out.

When looked at together with the painfully pendantic prose of such recent efforts such as Hellsgate and the Safehold series, I am truly concerned that we have lost Weber to the all-mighty dollar. My only hope is that he doesn't really realize how badly his quality has slipped while quantity has skyrocketed. I like to think that he would care, and that perhaps once the new house/car/whatever is paid off, that he will return to writing books I love to read.

This is the 17th full length novel in the science fiction series set two thousand years in the future which David Weber initially created for his character Honor Harrington. (That doesn't count the prequel series set fifteen hundred years in the future and featuring her ancestor Stephanie.)

The previous book, "Mission of Honor: Honor Harrington, Book 12" concluded with a handshake between Queen Elizabeth of Manticore and President Pritchard of Haven which clearly marked the final end to the war between these two nations which dominated the first eleven Honor Harrington books.

Unfortunately for the people of Manticore this does not mean they can relax and enjoy a period of peace: during the past five books the situation between Manticore and the biggest power in the galaxy, the Solarian Republic, has been getting worse and worse, a conflict which the reader knows is being manipulated by the sinister "Mesan Alignment." It was clear before the start of this book, both to the reader and to many characters in the series, that the entire galactic order is in danger of collapsing into a catastrophic series of wars.

"A Rising thunder" largely follows on from "Mission of Honor" except that David Weber adds a little more detail about the trip back home from Mesa of two super-spies who discovered in the book "Torch of Freedom" what the Mesans are really up to. This forces him to recapitulate a couple of scenes from the previous book including the final one with the handshake between Elizabeth and Eloise Pritchard.

At one point six of the books in the series were organised into three linked but distinct sub-series which portrayed unfolding events with the focus on three different perspectives of the developing crisis, but Weber appears to have abandoned that approach with "Mission of Honor" and both that book and this one cover the whole picture.

If you have not read any of these books and are interested in doing so, do not start with this one: these stories work best if read in sequence, so start with the first book, which is "On Basilisk Station (Honor Harrington)."

The first eleven "Honor Harrington books, despite the futuristic setting, exhibited strong parallels with Nelson's navy. Assumed technology in the stories to this point imposed constraints on space navy officers similar to those which the technology of fighting sail imposed on wet navy officers two hundred years ago. Similarly, the galactic situation in the novels up to the eleventh book. "At All Costs" had marked similarities to the strategic and political situation in Europe at the time of the French revolutionary wars. However, after the gigantic battle at the end of that book, which roughly corresponds to Trafalgar, the story has started to go in a wholly different direction.

This divergence applies to both the political and naval history and to the technology: for the first few books you could see close parallels for the characters, nations and ship classes with those in C.S. Forester's "Hornblower" series or the real history of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. E.g. Manticore was Britain, Haven was France, Honor Harrington was a mix of Horatio Nelson and Horatio Hornblower, Rob. S Pierre was Robespierre, the Committee of Public Safety was the Committee of Public Safety, "ships of the wall" were ships of the line with superdreadnaughts as first rates, etc, etc. One book, Echoes of Honour (Honorverse) was even an almost exact parallel to the Hornblower book Flying Colours.

However, as the story diverges from that of the Napoleonic wars, so the parallels with 20th century naval warfare or with space battle games like "Starfire" (of which Weber was one of the creators) have become stronger than those with the age of fighting sail. First he brought in Q-Ships, then spaceships which correspond to aircraft and carriers, and a ship type introduced in "Mission of Honor" could be seen as equivalent to submarines.

Before the tensions between Manticore and the Solarian Republic led to actual hostilities, those tensions could be seen as equivalent within Nelson-era parallels as imposing similar strategic considerations on the Manticoran navy that the threat of war with the USA (which, of course, eventually happened as the war of 1812) had on the British Royal Navy prior to 1812. But the Solarian Republic in this series is so much more relatively powerful than the infant United States was in 1812 that the Nelson era parallels are no longer at all helpful.

If you are trying to work out in what order to read the "Honorverse" books, here is a description of the sequence of the first 17 novels. The main sequence of 12 novels prior to this one follows the career of Honor Harrington herself, and consists of

1) On Basilisk Station
2) The Honor of the Queen
3) The Short Victorious War
4) Field of Dishonour
5) Flag in Exile
6) Honor among Enemies
7) In Enemy Hands
8) Echoes of Honor
9) Ashes of Victory
10) War of Honor
11) At All Costs
12) Mission of Honour

I would have considered this book as the next in that list because it is the next one in which Honor Harrington herself is a major character, but David Weber himself apparently does not. The author's own website lists only the above 12 books as the "Honor Harrington" books and then describes all subsequent novels in the same universe including "A rising thunder" as "Honorverse" books. I presume this is because, although she is still a major character, Honor herself does not dominate this book to the extent she does most of the twelve listed above.

The "Torch" or anti-slavery sequence focusses on the battle for freedom of people who have been held in slavery by "Manpower," which at first appeared to be a huge and corrupt company corresponding to the slave trader interests in Britain and America some two hundred years ago. The books with this focus are

(i) Crown of Slaves (set at about the same time as "War of Honor"), and
(ii) Torch of Freedom (set at about the same time as "At All Costs").

The "Shadow" or Talbot Quadrant sequence consists of two books which focus on that area of the Galaxy, and particularly on the rapidly worsening crisis between Honor Harrington's home planet Manticore and the Solarian republic. These books are

(a) The Shadow of Saganami (overlaps the 1st half of "At All Costs"), and
(b) Storm from the Shadows (overlaps "At All Costs" but starts and finishes later.)

"Mission of Honor" pulled the threads together again, beginning shortly after the end of "Storm from the Shadows" and taking forward the characters and stories from that book, "At All Costs" and "Torch of Freedom." As explained above, this book the carries the story on after "Mission of Honor."

The next book in the Honorverse series after "A Rising Thunder" (not counting the prequel series) is called "Shadow of Freedom" and is due for release in March 2013. Up to now every even-numbered Honor Harrington book has had "Honor" or "Honour" somewhere in the title. But this doesn't, presumably to make the point that it has a broader focus than just Honor's story.

There will also be another book in the Shadow/Saganami sequence, provisionally titled "Cauldron of Ghosts" which will presumably be set in the Talbot Quadrant.

I ought for completeness to add that besides the volumes listed above there are several collections in the "Worlds of Honor" series of short stories by Weber and co-authors set in the same universe, and featuring a range of characters, some from the main series of books, others new.

Having mentioned the prequel series I should also explain that one of these short stories was extended to form the first of a new Honorverse series for young adults, with the eponymous novel "A Beautiful Friendship" released in October 2011. It features Stephanie Harrington, a member of an earlier generation of Honor Harrington's family, who lived about 500 years before Honor and was the first human to be "adopted" by a "Treecat," a member of the planet Sphinx's native intelligent species. The Treecats are telepaths among themselves and can read human emotions, and some of them form a lifelong telepathic bond with humans: for example Honor Harrington has been adopted by a treecat called Nimitz.

At the time of posting this review the second book in the prequel series is due for publication imminently, and will be called "Fire Season (Star Kingdom)," and this will be followed by "The Treecat wars."

"A Rising Thunder" is slightly shorter than some of the recent books in this series, and a better book for it. Weber has also been working on his tendancy to give far too much detail about the vast size and power of the fleets which his characters are commanding or in which they serve.

The "Mesan Alignment" behind Manpower, who have been moving other characters in the story around like chess pieces for the past few books, begin to act more openly with devastating consequences in the last one. But this time they are frantically trying to cover their tracks.

The best way I can think of to give a potentially interested reader a hint to help you decide whether you want to read about these guys, without spoiling the story, is to say that their leader Albrecht Detweiler is what you might get by combining

* Dr Soong from Star Trek Enterprise (Link:Star Trek - Enterprise - Series 4 - Complete (Slimline Edition) [DVD]) but without the scruples,

* the rulers of Lois McMaster Bujold's Cetaganda but without the humour, and

* the arch-villian from the James Bond stories, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, without the cat. Honor and some of her friends are the ones with cats - or rather treecats - in this series.

I can recommend this book. My biggest concern about David Weber is that he has so many projects on the go: he says on his own website that

"I have more stories I want to tell than I have time in which to tell them."

He quite rightly adds that this is a better problem than the reverse. At the moment he is working on or considering books in no fewer than eight different series. These are

1) the Honorverse (with sub-series set in various quadrants and different centuries),
2) the Multiverse series which begins with Hell's Gate, although this one is stalled for the moment while he works on other things,
3) the Bahzell Bahnahkson/War God series in which book four "War Maid's choice" has just come out and there will be at least one more,
4) The Safehold/Nimue Alban series which begins with Off Armageddon Reef), and in which "Midst Toil and Tribulation" is about to come out,
5) The Prince Roger/Empire of Man series in which a prequel about the founding of the empire is being considered
6) The Dahak trilogy which he would like to expand to five books by adding a prequel to the currently first book "Mutineer's Moon" and a sequel to the third one, "Heirs of Empire."
7) Dave Weber would also like to write a couple of additional books in the "In Fury Born" universe, and
8) His editor has asked him to consider extending the book "Out of the Dark]]" to a series.

Wow! That should keep him busy for a few decades!

If you have read the last couple of Honor Harrington books then you already know how this book is going to go. A lot of talk, a lot more talk, some building towards a battle and then a battle that is over in a few pages and then a lot more talk. That being said its not a bad book. There are a few useless scenes as usual with characters that you've never head of before and don't care about at all, but for the most part its pretty much a logical continuation of where this series has been going. I also suggest reading this book with a wiki open on a computer so that you can look up the 100 characters mentioned in this book that you probably won't remember.

I think that problem is that Mr. Weber has written himself into a corner. He had planned to end this series and it easy to see why. The technologies used by the fleets in these battles has developed to the point where everything is over before the first shot is fired and the first shot fired usually ends the battle.
This is of course caused by the massive walls of missiles fired by their new pod systems. When you combine this with the huge range of their new missiles it eliminates the need for any of the fancy maneuvering that made the early HH books so excellent.

That being said I still have hope for the rest of the series and will continue reading and suggest other fans do too.

<b><i>Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley.</b></i> I've only given this a 4* because it just wasn't as satisfying as the previous Honorverse books. It had all the trademark Weber touches that I expected but it seemed to be lacking a little something. Maybe it's because it was setting up for the next book or because it didn't have as much substance as usual. Mind that doesn't mean I won't be getting book 14 as soon as I can afford it because I will. I am totally addicted to David Weber's Honorverse :D

1st off I have all the honor Harrington books and 1 cd plus the oath of swords series except the ones not by D.W. & once you skip all the filler parts they are good books to read. There are lots and lots of repetitive stuff so if he would just stick with honor & less of the side story's & quite trying to make his books bigger with a lot of filler they would be a good read.
I get lost in all the side story's and filler and just skip it anyway.

I am a very devoted David Weber fan and have read virtually everything he has written. This book is a significant disappointment. It is simply a "bridge", as described by other reviewers, that does very little to advance the saga; and leaves many unanswered questions for those of us who have followed this adventure from the beginning. What is present is well written (in my opinion); there is simply too little there and much of it is seemingly tangential. There is no ending to the "book" and the very few concluded events. Some new sub-plots are introduced, but none are carried very far. The story simply and abruptly stops. I see this work as an expansion of the political situations across the "Honorverse", but not a real story. I like the fact that Weber is detailed and creates a complex environment for his stories, but there is no story here in my opinion, only more background. I will not criticize the richness of the background or the lack of detailed space battles, only the lack of moving anything anywhere near to a conclusion (or even an interim stopping point).

I believe it would serve the publisher right if you simply delayed the purchase of this introductory volume to the release of the next book. "Interesting choice, don't you think?" In spite of the warnings, I didn't wait because I am personally very interested in where this series is heading, but I am not left with any warm fuzzy feelings.

I am thankful I bought this book used, as I'm tired of funding a series that is slowly going nowhere. I have enjoyed the series and like to re-read the earlier books. It was a series of military sci-fi, but is now full of political dialogue. For nearly every event, we have the politicians discussing what they should do, doing it and then more politicians discussing what happened. And many events need several perspectives reflected in the dialogue. Where once books covered entire years, now we must read a month or two of story. Where once we could read the Battle of Lovat, Manticore and others. In this work there was more detail in the simulation of the major battle than in the battle itself. Where once I ordered the books and picked them up on the release date, now I look for used copies that don't reward the author for stretching out the story.

Three stars only because I can't do 2-1/2 stars. I share the disappointment so eloquently expressed by others. Far too much villain dialogue, far too many battle preparations and battles that go nowhere, far too little Honor Harrington and other characters I've come to care about.

I'll continue reading the series, but future entries in the series will come from the library until/unless Weber writes one worth owning.

Let me start out by saying that I really think that ART feels like it was the second part of the manuscript for, say, Mission of Honor. While filling in the 'offstage' parts of that and recent earlier volumes in the Honoverse saga, it really doesn't stand alone, per se. It won't be the first volume in the series that I'd recommend to someone trying to get into it.

That said, I'm a Weber fan who strongly believes that his weakest will likely always be better than a lot of published writers' best. I'm glad to have it in my library, and it glad to once again spend time with characters I've grown to love (and loathe in some cases) over the last decade-plus. The writing is up to Weber's normal high standards, with no plot clangers that had me scratching my head. It's definitely a must-have for the Honorverse fan.

this review is a warning, that david is so successful, the origional plan of honor dying in a vast battle...and then the series hurtling to a 20 year far off adventure with her progeny was "over taken by events",,, which in the military says your plans ran into reality.....such as the gen. bradley hope the germans will surrender before Christmas... so he don't deliver sweaters, and winter boots....

david weber is a fine writer but so popular he can't take all the time he had to develop and surprise and tantalize us.. and this new menace will be a bear to juggle, across a galaxy or at least a spiral arm

it is a catalog, and roster of personel, and set up of the future events, and if your a fan.... it is somewhat slow...but those new to his universe... need the organizing bits and pieces of why we loved honor in the first place.....

so as with horatio hornblower, who ran out of french vs. british warfare... we can only hope another clash of good vs. evil slavers, will be as mesmerizing as the havenite war!!!

This is the 17th full length novel in the science fiction series set two thousand years in the future which David Weber initially created for his character Honor Harrington. (That doesn't count the prequel series set fifteen hundred years in the future and featuring her ancestor Stephanie.)

The previous book, "Mission of Honor: Honor Harrington, Book 12" concluded with a handshake between Queen Elizabeth of Manticore and President Pritchard of Haven which clearly marked the final end to the war between these two nations which dominated the first eleven Honor Harrington books.

Unfortunately for the people of Manticore this does not mean they can relax and enjoy a period of peace: during the past five books the situation between Manticore and the biggest power in the galaxy, the Solarian Republic, has been getting worse and worse, a conflict which the reader knows is being manipulated by the sinister "Mesan Alignment." It was clear before the start of this book, both to the reader and to many characters in the series, that the entire galactic order is in danger of collapsing into a catastrophic series of wars.

"A Rising thunder" largely follows on from "Mission of Honor" except that David Weber adds a little more detail about the trip back home from Mesa of two super-spies who discovered in the book "Torch of Freedom" what the Mesans are really up to. This forces him to recapitulate a couple of scenes from the previous book including the final one with the handshake between Elizabeth and Eloise Pritchard.

At one point six of the books in the series were organised into three linked but distinct sub-series which portrayed unfolding events with the focus on three different perspectives of the developing crisis, but Weber appears to have abandoned that approach with "Mission of Honor" and both that book and this one cover the whole picture.

If you have not read any of these books and are interested in doing so, do not start with this one: these stories work best if read in sequence, so start with the first book, which is "On Basilisk Station (Honor Harrington)."

The first eleven "Honor Harrington books, despite the futuristic setting, exhibited strong parallels with Nelson's navy. Assumed technology in the stories to this point imposed constraints on space navy officers similar to those which the technology of fighting sail imposed on wet navy officers two hundred years ago. Similarly, the galactic situation in the novels up to the eleventh book. "At All Costs" had marked similarities to the strategic and political situation in Europe at the time of the French revolutionary wars. However, after the gigantic battle at the end of that book, which roughly corresponds to Trafalgar, the story has started to go in a wholly different direction.

This divergence applies to both the political and naval history and to the technology: for the first few books you could see close parallels for the characters, nations and ship classes with those in C.S. Forester's "Hornblower" series or the real history of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. E.g. Manticore was Britain, Haven was France, Honor Harrington was a mix of Horatio Nelson and Horatio Hornblower, Rob. S Pierre was Robespierre, the Committee of Public Safety was the Committee of Public Safety, "ships of the wall" were ships of the line with superdreadnaughts as first rates, etc, etc. One book, Echoes of Honour (Honorverse) was even an almost exact parallel to the Hornblower book Flying Colours.

However, as the story diverges from that of the Napoleonic wars, so the parallels with 20th century naval warfare or with space battle games like "Starfire" (of which Weber was one of the creators) have become stronger than those with the age of fighting sail. First he brought in Q-Ships, then spaceships which correspond to aircraft and carriers, and a ship type introduced in "Mission of Honor" could be seen as equivalent to submarines.

Before the tensions between Manticore and the Solarian Republic led to actual hostilities, those tensions could be seen as equivalent within Nelson-era parallels as imposing similar strategic considerations on the Manticoran navy that the threat of war with the USA (which, of course, eventually happened as the war of 1812) had on the British Royal Navy prior to 1812. But the Solarian Republic in this series is so much more relatively powerful than the infant United States was in 1812 that the Nelson era parallels are no longer at all helpful.

If you are trying to work out in what order to read the "Honorverse" books, here is a description of the sequence of the first 17 novels. The main sequence of 12 novels prior to this one follows the career of Honor Harrington herself, and consists of

1) On Basilisk Station
2) The Honor of the Queen
3) The Short Victorious War
4) Field of Dishonour
5) Flag in Exile
6) Honor among Enemies
7) In Enemy Hands
8) Echoes of Honor
9) Ashes of Victory
10) War of Honor
11) At All Costs
12) Mission of Honour

I would have considered this book as the next in that list because it is the next one in which Honor Harrington herself is a major character, but David Weber himself apparently does not. The author's own website lists only the above 12 books as the "Honor Harrington" books and then describes all subsequent novels in the same universe including "A rising thunder" as "Honorverse" books. I presume this is because, although she is still a major character, Honor herself does not dominate this book to the extent she does most of the twelve listed above.

The "Torch" or anti-slavery sequence focusses on the battle for freedom of people who have been held in slavery by "Manpower," which at first appeared to be a huge and corrupt company corresponding to the slave trader interests in Britain and America some two hundred years ago. The books with this focus are

(i) Crown of Slaves (set at about the same time as "War of Honor"), and
(ii) Torch of Freedom (set at about the same time as "At All Costs").

The "Shadow" or Talbot Quadrant sequence consists of two books which focus on that area of the Galaxy, and particularly on the rapidly worsening crisis between Honor Harrington's home planet Manticore and the Solarian republic. These books are

(a) The Shadow of Saganami (overlaps the 1st half of "At All Costs"), and
(b) Storm from the Shadows (overlaps "At All Costs" but starts and finishes later.)

"Mission of Honor" pulled the threads together again, beginning shortly after the end of "Storm from the Shadows" and taking forward the characters and stories from that book, "At All Costs" and "Torch of Freedom." As explained above, this book the carries the story on after "Mission of Honor."

The next book in the Honorverse series after "A Rising Thunder" (not counting the prequel series) is called "Shadow of Freedom" and is due for release in March 2013. Up to now every even-numbered Honor Harrington book has had "Honor" or "Honour" somewhere in the title. But this doesn't, presumably to make the point that it has a broader focus than just Honor's story.

There will also be another book in the Shadow/Saganami sequence, provisionally titled "Cauldron of Ghosts" which will presumably be set in the Talbot Quadrant.

I ought for completeness to add that besides the volumes listed above there are several collections in the "Worlds of Honor" series of short stories by Weber and co-authors set in the same universe, and featuring a range of characters, some from the main series of books, others new.

Having mentioned the prequel series I should also explain that one of these short stories was extended to form the first of a new Honorverse series for young adults, with the eponymous novel "A Beautiful Friendship" released in October 2011. It features Stephanie Harrington, a member of an earlier generation of Honor Harrington's family, who lived about 500 years before Honor and was the first human to be "adopted" by a "Treecat," a member of the planet Sphinx's native intelligent species. The Treecats are telepaths among themselves and can read human emotions, and some of them form a lifelong telepathic bond with humans: for example Honor Harrington has been adopted by a treecat called Nimitz.

At the time of posting this review the second book in the prequel series is due for publication imminently, and will be called "Fire Season (Star Kingdom)," and this will be followed by "The Treecat wars."

"A Rising Thunder" is slightly shorter than some of the recent books in this series, and a better book for it. Weber has also been working on his tendancy to give far too much detail about the vast size and power of the fleets which his characters are commanding or in which they serve.

The "Mesan Alignment" behind Manpower, who have been moving other characters in the story around like chess pieces for the past few books, begin to act more openly with devastating consequences in the last one. But this time they are frantically trying to cover their tracks.

The best way I can think of to give a potentially interested reader a hint to help you decide whether you want to read about these guys, without spoiling the story, is to say that their leader Albrecht Detweiler is what you might get by combining

* Dr Soong from Star Trek Enterprise (Link:Star Trek - Enterprise - Series 4 - Complete (Slimline Edition) [DVD]) but without the scruples,

* the rulers of Lois McMaster Bujold's Cetaganda but without the humour, and

* the arch-villian from the James Bond stories, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, without the cat. Honor and some of her friends are the ones with cats - or rather treecats - in this series.

I can recommend this book. My biggest concern about David Weber is that he has so many projects on the go: he says on his own website that

"I have more stories I want to tell than I have time in which to tell them."

He quite rightly adds that this is a better problem than the reverse. At the moment he is working on or considering books in no fewer than eight different series. These are

1) the Honorverse (with sub-series set in various quadrants and different centuries),
2) the Multiverse series which begins with Hell's Gate, although this one is stalled for the moment while he works on other things,
3) the Bahzell Bahnahkson/War God series in which book four "War Maid's choice" has just come out and there will be at least one more,
4) The Safehold/Nimue Alban series which begins with Off Armageddon Reef), and in which "Midst Toil and Tribulation" is about to come out,
5) The Prince Roger/Empire of Man series in which a prequel about the founding of the empire is being considered
6) The Dahak trilogy which he would like to expand to five books by adding a prequel to the currently first book "Mutineer's Moon" and a sequel to the third one, "Heirs of Empire."
7) Dave Weber would also like to write a couple of additional books in the "In Fury Born" universe, and
8) His editor has asked him to consider extending the book "Out of the Dark]]" to a series.

Wow! That should keep him busy for a few decades!

If you have read the last couple of Honor Harrington books then you already know how this book is going to go. A lot of talk, a lot more talk, some building towards a battle and then a battle that is over in a few pages and then a lot more talk. That being said its not a bad book. There are a few useless scenes as usual with characters that you've never head of before and don't care about at all, but for the most part its pretty much a logical continuation of where this series has been going. I also suggest reading this book with a wiki open on a computer so that you can look up the 100 characters mentioned in this book that you probably won't remember.

I think that problem is that Mr. Weber has written himself into a corner. He had planned to end this series and it easy to see why. The technologies used by the fleets in these battles has developed to the point where everything is over before the first shot is fired and the first shot fired usually ends the battle.
This is of course caused by the massive walls of missiles fired by their new pod systems. When you combine this with the huge range of their new missiles it eliminates the need for any of the fancy maneuvering that made the early HH books so excellent.

That being said I still have hope for the rest of the series and will continue reading and suggest other fans do too.

<b><i>Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley.</b></i> I've only given this a 4* because it just wasn't as satisfying as the previous Honorverse books. It had all the trademark Weber touches that I expected but it seemed to be lacking a little something. Maybe it's because it was setting up for the next book or because it didn't have as much substance as usual. Mind that doesn't mean I won't be getting book 14 as soon as I can afford it because I will. I am totally addicted to David Weber's Honorverse :D

1st off I have all the honor Harrington books and 1 cd plus the oath of swords series except the ones not by D.W. & once you skip all the filler parts they are good books to read. There are lots and lots of repetitive stuff so if he would just stick with honor & less of the side story's & quite trying to make his books bigger with a lot of filler they would be a good read.
I get lost in all the side story's and filler and just skip it anyway.

I am a very devoted David Weber fan and have read virtually everything he has written. This book is a significant disappointment. It is simply a "bridge", as described by other reviewers, that does very little to advance the saga; and leaves many unanswered questions for those of us who have followed this adventure from the beginning. What is present is well written (in my opinion); there is simply too little there and much of it is seemingly tangential. There is no ending to the "book" and the very few concluded events. Some new sub-plots are introduced, but none are carried very far. The story simply and abruptly stops. I see this work as an expansion of the political situations across the "Honorverse", but not a real story. I like the fact that Weber is detailed and creates a complex environment for his stories, but there is no story here in my opinion, only more background. I will not criticize the richness of the background or the lack of detailed space battles, only the lack of moving anything anywhere near to a conclusion (or even an interim stopping point).

I believe it would serve the publisher right if you simply delayed the purchase of this introductory volume to the release of the next book. "Interesting choice, don't you think?" In spite of the warnings, I didn't wait because I am personally very interested in where this series is heading, but I am not left with any warm fuzzy feelings.

I am thankful I bought this book used, as I'm tired of funding a series that is slowly going nowhere. I have enjoyed the series and like to re-read the earlier books. It was a series of military sci-fi, but is now full of political dialogue. For nearly every event, we have the politicians discussing what they should do, doing it and then more politicians discussing what happened. And many events need several perspectives reflected in the dialogue. Where once books covered entire years, now we must read a month or two of story. Where once we could read the Battle of Lovat, Manticore and others. In this work there was more detail in the simulation of the major battle than in the battle itself. Where once I ordered the books and picked them up on the release date, now I look for used copies that don't reward the author for stretching out the story.

Three stars only because I can't do 2-1/2 stars. I share the disappointment so eloquently expressed by others. Far too much villain dialogue, far too many battle preparations and battles that go nowhere, far too little Honor Harrington and other characters I've come to care about.

I'll continue reading the series, but future entries in the series will come from the library until/unless Weber writes one worth owning.

Let me start out by saying that I really think that ART feels like it was the second part of the manuscript for, say, Mission of Honor. While filling in the 'offstage' parts of that and recent earlier volumes in the Honoverse saga, it really doesn't stand alone, per se. It won't be the first volume in the series that I'd recommend to someone trying to get into it.

That said, I'm a Weber fan who strongly believes that his weakest will likely always be better than a lot of published writers' best. I'm glad to have it in my library, and it glad to once again spend time with characters I've grown to love (and loathe in some cases) over the last decade-plus. The writing is up to Weber's normal high standards, with no plot clangers that had me scratching my head. It's definitely a must-have for the Honorverse fan.

this review is a warning, that david is so successful, the origional plan of honor dying in a vast battle...and then the series hurtling to a 20 year far off adventure with her progeny was "over taken by events",,, which in the military says your plans ran into reality.....such as the gen. bradley hope the germans will surrender before Christmas... so he don't deliver sweaters, and winter boots....

david weber is a fine writer but so popular he can't take all the time he had to develop and surprise and tantalize us.. and this new menace will be a bear to juggle, across a galaxy or at least a spiral arm

it is a catalog, and roster of personel, and set up of the future events, and if your a fan.... it is somewhat slow...but those new to his universe... need the organizing bits and pieces of why we loved honor in the first place.....

so as with horatio hornblower, who ran out of french vs. british warfare... we can only hope another clash of good vs. evil slavers, will be as mesmerizing as the havenite war!!!

I have read and generally liked the majority of the preceding books in the Honor Harrington series, wordy and slow though some of them were, but this volume was just totally uninteresting and very, very wordy. Say, do SF authors still get paid by the word?

The plot just never grabbed me--it just laid there, like a dead fish and, moreover, there is just so much exposition, palaver between characters--explaining things, plotting strategy, or analyzing this or that event--that I can take, unleavened by some action; just too much talk and very little action.

Really, it is starting to look like the blood is running thin in this series, and perhaps things should have been wrapped up a few books ago, when that fish was still alive and at least flipping around a little.

A Rising Thunder (ART)

from my review of "Storm from the Shadows":
========================
I have enjoyed many David Webber book series. I think I first started reading Webber in the mid 1990's. I somehow expected a 4th for the Dahak series.

Honor Harrington in general is an exceptional universe. I know the time line was originally to kill off Honor in "At All Costs" (AAC) and have something like Zilwikki be the antagonist for Honor's twins.

I always found these books page-turners and would be up all night reading them.

"Storm from the Shadows" has been the first one I have struggled to read. It took me 3 or so months to finish the book.
========================
ART

I read a review somewhere that when you read ART, you should stop at chapter 32. Several reviews say the book in total is more like an unfinished work.

I read to chapter 32 and and review the first part only.

The book was more like the original writings (The Honor of the Queen), much more fun. Since Honor is the third highest ranking person in the Star Empire and a ruler of her own steading, What is left for her to win? Ruler of the known universe?

The melding of the old arch enemies (Haven) and the Star Kingdom is logical but makes too many main characters.

The dumb beuracracy of the Solarian empire and the newer power of Mesa and the Alignment seems to make the entire honorverse too cumbersome.

HOWEVER, this was once again becoming more like the earlier portions of the series. I read it in two days instead of one and look forward to seeing if this can be pulled back together for the correct amount of politics (not just talking to pass time), action and characters. Ginger Lewis/Abry Wanderman growing up was fun.

I see a sign that Webber is nor burned out, The new short story with Stephanie Harrington is great. Weber still has it but can it survive in the HUGE honorverse he is now saddled with?

I wrote this to David Weber:

Dear Mr Weber,
I am a real fan of your books. I own all of the Honorverse and the Safehold books and some others, as well in english language as in german language. But meanwhile I feel really betrayed, of course not by you, but by the german publishing company (Bastei Lübbe), which is selling your books. I give you an example:
Your book "A Rising Thunder" (paperback) contains 480 pages. A normal paperbook, not even one of the thickest. In Germany the publisher made 2 books of it, one with 448 pages and one with 416 pages. To make them not look so absurd thin, the last 85 pages in the first and the last 94 pages in the second book are just a nomenclature!
That is not the first time, they have done that. All of the Safehold books are this way and a lot of the Honorverse books.
Could you PLEASE do something against this rip-off?
Best regards
Ulrich Vos from Munich, Germany

This book was a necessary evil, but it was predictable. Guess what, Mesa keeps manipulating the Solarian league. The Maya sector is still going to be a big player in the future of the League. The League looks like it'll break up as Honor proposed to the Queen, etc. There's one small surprise, the rapidity with which things spin, but this is a book is a complete setup novel. You don't even get to enjoy what happens to the Solarian fleet at Manticore.

I don't agree that the series will be over in 2 books, I think it could be stretched out a lot. We have 4 players now, the Solarians who realized something was wrong, Mesa, the Manticoran Alliance, and the Maya sector. They could spend a lot of time on how things break down and the rise of Mesa before the bad guys get stomped. Just telling the story of all the players will take more than 2 books if he gives us any details...

Update - I did some research online and A) the series will clearly not be over in 2 books and B) we know now why this book was so slow.

Weber wrote 'this' book while Flint was working on the next spin off novel. Weber finished his book and was reviewing the novel by Flint. Based on the timeline and contents of Flint's novel they decided to split A Rising Thunder in half so the content in Flint's novel wouldn't be spoiled. So, the next book by Weber is really the 2nd half of A Rising Thunder, it's already FINISHED (Shadow of Freedom) and will be released after Flint's book. Hopefully this means we'll get 2 Honor books in the next year.

If you're looking for a real "Honor" book, don't buy it. Even if you don't care about Honor and just want to find out what happens next in the universe, you should probably bypass this book and wait for the next one to come out. If you want nothing more than background for the future, go ahead and buy it. You probably won't be satisfied with it, but at least you'll have plenty of time to learn all about the characters. Even those you'd rather never have met.

For me, I miss Honor. I get there's a limit to how many times Honor can save the day and still hold interest. And I'm not saying I haven't enjoyed books like "Torch of Freedom" and "Storm from the Shadows". I do, however, object to a book being marketed as the 'latest Honor Harrington book' when she hardly even appears in it. She made almost as many appearances in the non-Honor books as she's doing in this one.

And how much value is there in re-reading the same exact scenes over and over??? Okay, so the perspective is a little different. So what? If David Weber wants to explore his writing capabilities he can do so without boring the rest of us. There's more than enough wealth of material for references he makes that AREN'T written out. Stop rehashing what we've already read.

Most of all, stop publishing incomplete books. Starting with "In Enemy Hands", Weber and Baen seem to have gotten caught up in soap opera style cliff hangers. The first one or two were understandable on the grounds that the stories were simply too involved to be contained in one book. By the time we get to "Mission of Honor" that excuse is worn thin. Not only was the book noticeably shorter than some earlier novels, several chapters were reiterations of chapters from other books. And then "Rising Thunder" comes out and I'm dismayed to learn that "Mission" wasn't such a bad book in comparison! Cut out the repeats and give us more new material. I doubt I'm the only one willing to wait a few extra months in order to get the WHOLE book, not just the first installment.

I've been a fan of David Weber, and especially the 'Honorverse', since high school. He used to know how to write a book with enough detail for those who need it without belaboring the point so much people lose interest in the story. That no longer seems to be the case. He appears to be consumed with his own cleverness and frankly he's losing entertainment value. Weber, here's some advice. Tell one story at a time, tell it thoroughly, and let it lie once it's done. Spare your audience the ADD tendencies, stop trying to avoid writing by cutting and pasting from previous novels, and PLEASE stop dragging this out!

First, if the name of the NEXT book in this series is named "A Breaking Storm", I think I'll track Dave down and smack him on the head with a wet noodle.

Second - well, this had better not be your introduction to the Honorverse, because you'll be confused as hell.

In reading the other reviews, I think what many of the readers are missing is that this is, literally, a bridge work. Right now we've SO much going on from a political stand point that David had two choices. He could blow things off in a couple of paragraphs - or he could lay things out. And since, effectively, this entire book is research that had to be done by Weber to make and keep things consistent in the Honorverse - well, here it is. Not two paragraphs, but an entire novel dedicated to all the back story and notes that an author must do when such a detail story is written.

So that sums this book up in a nutshell. This is a foundation work on where the next book in the series are going to go, and gives you background so that, two books down the line when the suddenly a group of four Solarian officers and police take over, you won't go, wait, what? You'll know why and when things started.

I also can't see this series going much past two more decent sized novels. Not because I don't WANT it to continue - it's just that it's reaching a crescendo. Mesa is going to get blown up, the Solarian League is going to break apart, and the new force in the galaxy will be the Grand Alliance.

Quick edit: I came up with the name "A Breaking Storm" on my own. It's nice to see that other Weber readers think the same way I do - which is scary...

Yah, gotta admit there are meeting to excess. Then there's Honor whining about all those people who, evidently, she personally, eye ball to eye ball killed over and over, book after book.
And now there is a mess load of Honorverse books to add a big confusion factor to the mix.
Two years and no follow up to this book. Oh, I forget, He's in a meeting.

Solid but not outstanding.

I love the Harrington series, but as some others have noted its getting a bit Verbose. The Author is to be commended on his level of detail but goodness we might have been done in half the space and not lost much. I give extra points for the combat, what there is of it. And deduct for the endless meetings, Its interesting to know the backroom detail but good gravy there is a lot of it.

I also take the author to task for the story arc. The Solarian League would have been a serviceable foe and I look forward to its demise. I would have been content with watching HH hammer them to scrap. Act snooty at the surrender ceremony and then flying home. But no, we have the much overdone racist conspiracy playing puppet master and everyone is just caught in the gears. YAWN....

Five stars because its addictive and I still buy these on day one. So the author must be doing something right. I only do that for Harrington and for Bujold's Vorkosigan novels.

Many of my readers have complained about this book, for a multitude of reasons, and I wanted to add my thoughts. I understand that this book is very different from earlier works, but that is to be expected. Why people are surprised at this is a mystery to me as it was inevitable from the point peace came between Manticore and Haven, that things would change in a very big way...

Consider that this book was originally conceived (as I had read someplace...)as a single book that was broken up into two books. H.H. and company have grown and matured (far beyond what was intended in some cases...)and are no longer the simple, small group of folks sharing a single ship and shared experiences anymore. All the Basilisk Station crew are now Admirals, Senior Captains and such. Sadly, some are even dead.... The scope has also broadened significantly. The universe of Honor Harrington is ever growing and changing and becoming more and more complex. I think the author has done a remarkable job keeping things moving and interesting. Sometimes it isn't an easy read but if you want light, fluffy uncomplicated reading, then I would look to comic books. These books are definitely NOT like that!!

I think David Weber is attempting to set a new stage for new things to show us in the future; younger and more exciting characters like Abigail Hearns and Helen Zilwiki others from The Shadow of Saganami. Miss Hearns especially has the potential to be another Honor Harrington and has people her own age and experience around her to form the nucleus of a crew while we see less of the "old guard" who have moved into senior billets. that makes them policy makers and diplomats and possibly fleet commanders, thus they will be somewhat away from the fray for the most part. Don't forget that Honor Harrington has children also who will have a chance to do things too, which was Mr. Weber's original objective before deciding to keep Honor Harrington alive past the Battle of Manticore. Their lives, being the first children born and raised with resident treecats, should make for interesting possibilities! We have no idea the implications to the kids having their mindglows influenced and touched by treecats, EVEN PRIOR TO THEIR BIRTHS! The enemy has changed from Haven to Mesa and the Solarian League so we will have a whole new group of folks to learn about on both sides. The author has done an excellent job setting the new stage and now he can get down to business. This conflict is far more complicated than the Haven / Manticore conflict so you can expect more people and events and more complexity. Personally, I am excited to see what Mr. Weber has in store and I can assure him I will be checking on his other efforts as well in the same universe (Star Kingdom Series).

Let's be honest, if you are looking at reading this book it's because you have read all the others in the series. As many others have said, this is a filler book. A back-story for what is to come. The problem is it's so very boring. My title sums this book up, it's like watching CSPAN. There is little to no action. What's the point of Mark 23 E missiles or ships of the wall if they aren't used? The other books were so much better because of the fighting scenes and the action. This book had none of that. Endless meetings, people arguing politics, motions put before the senate. The only real battle in the whole book was glossed over and given about a paragraph. What???

I found myself skimming a lot of this book. In fact I would skip whole parts looking for the conversations that would keep the story flowing. Mr. Weber has a tendency to try to describe every little thing that is going on in one of his characters minds. Not sure if he is unwilling to cut stuff out, or if his editors can't say no.

So do you need to read this book so that you will have the foundation for what's to come, Yes.

Will you enjoy reading it, No.

I have really enjoyed the Honor Harriman series but recognize that sometimes David Weber goes too much to long discussions and too little actually happening. On the other hand, he is very good at the space battles. This book fills in some details from the previous book, which I guess is OK. Definitely there is too much discussion and too little action. Finally, I did not like the ending, which leaves everything hanging.

Like others have mentioned, this book is heavy on Weber's weaknesses (unedited talk) and light on his strengths (plot and action). After coming this far in the series I'm not sure if I can continue on.

I am not sure there is book by Weber I haven't read, this is not one of his best, but it is still decent. For me there was to much political intrigue and little action. The book seems to drag on about what the local corrupt power clowns are doing and reads like a preview of hopefully upcoming books with more action. Still it is David Weber and he is hard to beat. Do wait for the paperback or kindle are you can do what I did and go to Baen and get it.

A lot of effort is spent in what I call house keeping. Not to say that the house keeping items are not well written, they are, but there are a lot of them and really do not advance the story so much as tidy things up, which is to say boring. The first half od the book follows this theme jumping from system to system, explaining their reaction to various situstions, to include the closing of various terminus by Manticore, the recall of the merchant fleet, which has an adverse effect of the solarian economy. I have no objections to this sort of thing, because it does in its own way advance the story line, its just the War and Peace method of explaining every sub thought that each of two dozen characters and a half dozen star systems that have little to do with current events. I am not sure if this is a good thing but David has choosen to slow things down, way down. What should have been done in a hundred pages and would have been a few years ago, we are subjected to 450 pages and we really get no where. The battle and there really is only one is non exsistant, yes the solarians are outclassed, yes the solarians are not able to resist, but Mesa strikes at exactly the right moment to ensure the destuction of the solarian fleet via their nano weapon. This episode leaves the reader wonder how mesa is able to predict the actions of others to such a degree that makes this weapon so powerful, and why isnt it in more general use. Honor apends her time in consulation with the Queen and her advisors. More and more Honor is being dragged into these conversations of policy leaving one to wonder how she has time for her fleet duties.

Although I rate this overall a 4 make no mistake it is because of the superior writting of David Weber not the content or the context of that writting.

First things first, this book isn't about space combat. Obviously many impressive fleet actions occur in its pages. At least one major battle involving 800+ "Wallers" and about the same number of LACss occurs; for those new to the series, that's the biggest ships in existence plus a ton of really small ships.

The main focus of this book though is the lead into the next book. The Solarian League (U.N. in space) continues to agitate and press against the borders and attack ships of the Star Empire (Non-Affiliated U.K. in space.)

There is a LOT of build up in this book, a lot of explanation and a lot of intrigue, fence mending and description of what is to come. Weber dances a fine line between making the actual antagonist into an omnipotent malign entity capable of doing what it pleases, or making them a small ineffectual group barely able to control the forces they attempt to wield.

This book is GOOD, I can not stress that enough. That said, and even though a good bit of time is spent explaining the entire situation for new readers, this is not where you want to start. To truly enjoy Honor Harrington, go back and read it from the beginning (all the books are conveniently available on this site!)

Now, time for my one Spoiler:
SPOILER ALERT!
(REALLY, this is a SPOILER, kinda, don't read it if you haven't read the book!)

... Ready?
No one tries to kill Honor Harrington, at all. Or Nimitz! For something like fourteen books I've been on an emotional roller coaster as Weber has put our poor heroine through the wringer consistently. I was over-joyed to actually finally find a work that involves her getting into situations where there was danger, but it wasn't specifically directed towards her. This makes the book a wonderful interlude and allows it to spend time doing some of the world building that you just can't do when your heroine is moving around with one arm, or has a radical political enemy trying to assassinate her at every turn. It's a nice change of pace that I'm sure won't last, but the breather is appreciated.

This has to be the worst......... it is a book with so many characters and never ending conversations. The characters we have all gone on to love barely had any time at all. I do not think I will buy the next book but rather borrow it to see if things get better.

I agree that this is a "bridge" book -- major political tides are turning, but the major shift at the end of Mission of Honor has occured and this one doesn't *really* shift again, although you see the hints of it at the end.

What I really didn't like:
1) First 100 pages are expanded recaps of what happened in the last book. That's a pretty significant chunk of "catch up."

2) The antagonists are constantly, in colorful cliches, being described by how stupid they are. Ok -- about 75% of those descriptors could have been cut, and I still would have gotten it.

3) Even through we're hammered in the head by how stupid the people running the Solarian League are, it was still disappointing to me that their stress response was: "Well, we did it before, let's do it again" -- even though their "we did it before" made the situation worse. (Being vague so as not to spoil.)

4) There was one thread that was mentioned (in Mesa) that seemed like it was forgotten. Maybe it's just foreshadowing to the next book, but this one was short enough that there could have been something to support it.

What I did like:
1) Weber broke his formula. I know that it irritated some people, but it was nice to not be able to always predict "Ok, here's where the battle scene happens" and "Ok, here's where Manticore has a crushing defeat" etc.

2) Less focus on Honor. She's a pretty solidly explored character. It's ok to take a break and have her as a secondary character without having to manufacture an opposition scandal.

3) It's completely readable. It may not be great literature that will live on for ages to come, but I enjoyed the read, and I don't want hours back.

'"Begin at the beginning," the King said gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop."'

Not, unfortunately, a line from this novel, but from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". It is, nevertheless, advice that David Weber might do well to follow. In this novel, he fails to start at the beginning and doesn't reach the end, either. He does stop, though, pretty abruptly, as if the printer ran out of paper and nobody noticed.

I read the book before I read the reviews, but it was pretty clear, by about page 400, that nothing of any great interest was going to happen to conclude the novel. Not much of very great interest had occurred in the previous 399, either, to be brutally honest. I don't think I am in any great danger of spoiling the plot, because there barely is one here. I could probably summarise the essential plot of this novel in fewer words than there are in this paragraph.

There are plenty of characters, each one with a name usually concocted from two randomly paired linguistic traditions, such as Spanish and Indian, or Hungarian and French. As often as not, we don't need many of these characters to have names at all, or need to know what colour their hair is, or have any particular interest in their biographical details, because they only matter if the character is going to be important in the storyline, which most of them aren't. By thinning out this self-indulgent verbosity, Weber could have shortened the novel, or put in quite a lot more incident, by genuinely moving the plot forward.

Most of the verbiage takes place on Earth. Unaccountably, of all the places on Earth which Weber could have chosen as the capital city of the "Solarian Alliance", he plumped for Chicago. OK, well, yes, Chicago is a pretty plausible model for the scale of corruption he envisages, but that doesn't explain why anyone outside Illinois would be persuaded to submit to Chicago's rule (also, Chicago is due to be obliterated by an ice-sheet in the next few thousand years). Apparently, the tens of billions of people in the Alliance are all really ruled by a shadowy handful of overweening civil servants, but haven't noticed, or don't care, despite the fact that the same characters have been in their offices for decades and are serially incompetent. This seems deeply implausible (the staying in office, not the incompetence). In the real world, a ruler who changes his country's constitution to extend his rule indefinitely risks having a pretty truncated life; his clique support him only because they all want the top job. Weber never explains how the dastardly Chicagoans have overcome the envy of their swarms of equally corrupt and ambitious subordinates.

A problem in all of Weber's "Honor" books (I can't comment on the others) is dialogue. He uses it to get characters to explain things, at length, sometimes great length. The trouble is: people just don't talk like that. Well, maybe David Weber does, because the dialogue he gives his characters sounds just like the way he writes the rest of the time, which has the sorry side-effect that all of his characters speak in pretty much the same way. There was more actually going on in the earlier novels, but a much shorter list of dramatis personae, so the chunks of direct speech then were much less frequent and far less of a problem.

All in all, if you have read the series so far, you can probably guess the main points in this novel from knowing that the series continues. All the main players, that implies, are still there and this instalment has resolved nothing at all. I'll probably still get the next one, in the hopes that something actually happens in it. Unless you really have a desperate need to know what happened to that Swedish-Burmese Under Navigator's Assistant on HMS Coelacanth, who appeared on page 953 of an earlier book, I don't think you'll miss much, by skipping this one.

And there's only one "i" in "Moriarty".

It's a sad fact of life that this book can be summed up in a few bullet points:

- I only skipped 2 or 3 major passages. One was Honor talking to her cat (riveting!) and the other that comes to mind was the royal wedding (for those of you who missed the real one or just HAVE to relive the experience).

- Shows you how foolish I am since it turns out those were probably the two major plotlines in the book. Since, you know, nothing else happens.

- There WAS a lot of politicking. It was basically characters you don't care about doing stuff you don't care about that has not discernible impact on the plot even such as it was.

- The book had a real honest to god battle in it. Only problem was that after pages and pages and pages of build up one side had a butter knife and the other an AK47. Or equivalents, anyway. Remember that scene in Riders when Indie had to fight the martial arts guy but since he didn't have time he just shot him and moved on? Its kind the same but with 200 pages of build up. Not cool. So not cool.

- If repetition is the mother of learning after reading this book you'll have learned two facts without fail. The other side is bad and incompetent and our heroes are honourable and distinguished. If you repeat that 20 times David Weber can sue you for plagiarism since its the grand total of his characterization efforts. Characters in this book have the depth and complexity of a "for Dummies" version of Goofy.

- Before I forget... I forgot, sorry. Went back a bulletpoint or two to add something there and lost my train of thought. Poor thing gone fell off a cliff. Darn. Disappointing, I know. Here you were expecting me to provide another line or two of humorous and insightful writing and I, like, totally failed. Yeah. But hey, happens to everyone. Even pros. Like Dave here. He be writing a book and then goes and just loses his thought. Stuff happens, man. Stuff happens. So, obviously, he had to publish it like this, you know. He just had to, had to. No way he would have found the rest of the ending before publishing time, no way. I'm just glad he got to finish his last sentence since cutting the book off in the middle of a sentence would have been like totally abrupt and stuff. And embarrassing. And kinda disappointing.

Soooo about the book in conclusion. Its kind of a sucky book so most people wouldn't like it but its also kinda part of this whole long series thing so people reading the thing could possibly read it as part of the collection. But they don't really need to since nothing really happens and they can skip it also. Yeah.

PS Reference in the title is about the main character who seems to have transitioned from almost a superhero to what feels like a batty old lady talking to her cats. Which also alludes to the development of the series as a whole.

PPS Don't know where the doped up surfer dude in the last bulletpoints came from. Channelling my inner Lebowski I suppose. I'm quirky like that, don't mind me.

Weber is feeding his readers thin soup again. It's not as bad yet as with the "Safehold"-series where literally nothing happens on 800 pages, but he's getting there. The boring dribble just seems to flow effortlessly out of Weber's pen - or other orifices of his body. This book is another piece of lazy work: The first 130 (!) pages are a rehash of events we already know about from the last book. And there's no end either, after a while the book just stops. To be continued.

The Honor series should have ended many volumes ago, when it was still good and epic.

It is disappointing to see all of the negative and whining reviews on A Rising Thunder. There is nobody better than David Weber at creating an exciting, vast and believable universe with thousands of characters, hundreds of story lines and multiple key plots; and keeping them all consistent over time. And he is doing it twice simultaneously with the Honorverse and the Safehold series. This is a rarified level of creative genius that should be "honored" - not demeaned.

Perhaps the negative reviewers are adrenaline junkies that cant be satisfied without missle pods firing every 50 pages. One can either see the extensive narrative on character building and political machinations as boring, or enjoy them as part of Weber's amazing ability to flesh out such a detailed and complicated universe.

This book is part of one of the best scifi series ever published. I personally do not want this series to end. When the Solarian League / Mesa story arc is finished I am hoping for a vast alien invasion. Despite their complaining, my guess is that every one of the negative reviewers will continue to read the series to its conclusion.

To David Weber: Keep up the good work.

A Rising Thunder
I wanted an ebook but none were available at the time I made my purchase. I ended up buying an autographed hardback edition with DWs scrawl because that was the cheapest version available. I read the book in one setting before it was even due to arrive. I had no issues following the story or the chain of events DW was sharing and I must have enjoyed the heck out of it to read a 458 page book in one go. In hind sight I think DW may have felt constrained to chop out a few things to limit length. We are nearing the end of a long series of books that has shifted from being about HH to being about a major interstellar war. He's trying to pull all the threads together through the eyes of a host of characters from all sides so what you get is a snippet here and a snippet there. I had no problems following what was happening but then I know who all the major players and nearly all the minor players are and their back stories. If you are new to the HH universe this isn't where I suggest you start. Get a list of books of the series and start at the beginning, read forward, and enjoy. That way when an interesting character like Thanda gets a brief mention you know who she is and wish she had a book or two of her own.

Absolutely no military strategy which was the hallmark of the series. Political maneuverings, no advancement of the Mesan Alignment, and a wedding....very disappointing. I wish Weber would get back to the core of what made this series great. I want more Honor!

Thirteenth in the Honor Harrington military science fiction series revolving around Honor Harrington and the strategies required to keep the Kingdom of Manticore free.

You may want to wait and read A Rising Thunder after the next installment is published in 2013...2013??!!...'cause it is just making me nutso cuckoo to have to wait for Shadow of Freedom and find out what happens next...the pins and needles are just killin' me!!

My Take
It's a lovely tale of a corrupt government system being taken down ten pegs or so by a tiny neobarb system. Manticore is a utopia compared to most systems, but it has its own share of idjits and jerks. Luckily, it also has its share of decent people. And they're in charge!

Oh, man, I love it. Those arrogant Sollies keep being shocked that this tiny neobarb navy actually dares to threaten the all-powerful SLN!? Talk about shock--the awe showed up back in Mission of Honor (Honor Harrington, #12). It blows my mind that the SL government officials are so much more concerned about their personal fiefdoms that they'd rather take this chance at war and lying to their public than just admit they screwed up. So much cheaper in personnel, ships, money... Heck, they can barely admit it to each other.

Justice is conspicuous by its absence when it comes to politics and entrenched, self-serving regimes

The SL applies the terms of treaties and agreements when its convenient to them; downplays them when it's not. They're manipulating the data to make the Manties look like the bad guys. What's truly amazing is that the SL public, despite knowing how incredibly corrupt their government is, actually buys this.

The SL has used its Frontier Security Force to bash the protectorate star systems for tribute all of which goes directly to the SL bureaucracies and is the whole reason why the Office of Frontier Security (OFS) has been encouraged to expand its territory any way it likes.

Longacre (Beowulf) sums up the SL officials very well: "...he doesn't seem to grasp the possibility that there's any universe outside the system he understands." And it's too much fun to watch the Beowulfans dance around the SLN thwarting their plans to use the Beowulf Terminus to attack Manticore. So many angles, so many disappointments for the SLN.

Don't be fooled, though. Weber gets the tension up there and keeps cranking it up! I swear I read and sped and my heart rate just kept going up. Weber has shown that he doesn't mind killing off the good characters or putting the good guys into really tight situations. No, it's never a gratuitous "kill", but, da-yum. A few books back there was a rumor he was going to off Honor...I just about died! And the evil Mesans are sending a load of their rockets to replace SLN ones. Eeek!

It's so amazing to hear White Haven admitting that Admiral Hemphill's research into improved weaponry was such a great idea and that he was so wrong. He admitted it before, books ago, but, still, it takes a big man to be able to bring it up again and again.

There is just so very much that is coming to a head in this series. I always figured that brokering a peace with the Republic of Haven would be the end. It makes sense that war with the Solarian League would bring that peace about and open up a whole new front to take down a new and bigger bully.

This pretty much sums it up: "I'm proposing to exercise the sovereign right of my star system to defend its citizens against the orders of an unelected clique of corrupt bureaucrats with no trace of constitutional authority..."

Omigod, that whole exchange between Holmon-Sanders and Tsang...ya gotta wonder how often the U.S. and other countries' government/military commands have pulled crap like that on smaller nations. I should hope it's never been with such a flagrant disregard for truth and law! Weber really gets me going when I read this stuff..! Arghhh...! Why does the bad guy always gets mad when you reverse his tactics on him?

The Story
For centuries the Solarian League and its navy (SLN) has had everything its own way and they have taken advantage. No one knows how many systems were absorbed into the League voluntarily, but it's a good bet that many were forcibly taken. All in the name of "helping out". Then their economies are plundered by the corrupt men set in charge over them. This attitude has taken them up against the navy of Manticore. A navy that has been researching and upgrading, inventing and improving their own weapons on an almost daily basis for decades in their war with the People's Republic of Haven. The SLN has been too complacent and corrupt to bother.

No one in the SLN can believe that these tiny ships could possibly take out the mighty ships of the SLN. An attitude that doesn't prevent Manticore from doing what it needs to protect itself and its allies.

That's the background. In A Rising Thunder, the Manticoran navy is taking over space termini to ensure their merchant ships get home. Every one of `em has been ordered back to the Kingdom of Manticore and the navy will make sure that happens. No matter who it pisses off...snicker... And it's not just the SLN that's angry, most of the shipping is carried in Manticoran merchant hulls. When the recall comes through, there are a lot of empty merchants heading out and away from Solarian space with a whole lot of angry shippers wondering how they'll get their merchandise from their various Point As to Bs. Most of those shippers suddenly realize that the Manticorans see themselves as equals to Solarians and that the Solarian League is not the be-all, end-all in the universe.

We also get the backstory on Anton Zilwicki and Victor Cachat escaping from Mesa and they've brought a present for Manticore and Haven. And we find out why Zilwicki and Cachat decide to head to Nouveau Paris first with their prize.
Sir Lyman delivers the unexpected news that Manticore is recalling their merchants. Seems that Manticore can't get any positive reaction from the SL on the two attacks, so they're upping the ante. And Manticore continues to up the stakes without any pacifist reaction from the Solarians. Well, that's if you don't count the anti-Manticore propaganda the SL government would prefer to use.

Meantime the SLN is sending Filareta with a huge fleet. Sorry, another huge fleet directly to Manticore to beat them into submission--amazing how the SLN keeps losing fleets to the Manties. Then Beowulf receives a visit from Admiral Simpson of the SLN and the speculation is rife as to whether the SL has finally figured out how deeply in bed Beowulf is with Manticore.

In the meantime, Crown Prince Roger Gregory Alexander Timothy Winton is about to get married to his soon-to-be Crown Princess, Rivka Rosenfeld. And the first time the treecat volunteers have served as security in this non-war.

And, it's time to implement Lacoön Two.

The Characters
Duchess Honor Harrington-Alexander and her treecat Nimitz are still going strong albeit with her one remaining armsman, Captain Spencer Hawke. James MacGuiness is still Honor's steward. Drs. Allison and Alfred Harrington are her parents. Her dad is still trying to come to terms with the demise of almost the entire Harrington family in the Yawata strike. The one good side to that attack is that Honor's parents now accept that bodyguards are essential. Sergeant Isaiah Matlock is the son of a forestry ranger and has been assigned to Alfred; Corporal Anastasia Yanakov is Allison's. Faith and James Harrington are Honor's twin siblings and while they still have Luck Blackett, replacing Jeremiah Tennard was difficult until Honor thought of Andrew's younger brother, Corporal Micah LaFollett. Someone Faith has known her whole life. Honor's own children, Raoul and Katherine, have drawn Lieutenant Vincent Clinkscales. Hamish Alexander-Harrington, Earl of White Haven, is married to Honor and both of them are married to Emily Alexander-Harrington, Countess of White Haven. Samantha is Hamish's treecat.

Dr. Adelina Arif has been working with the treecats of Sphinx teaching them sign language and now a delegation of treecats have requested that Adelina comm Honor with their proposal. A proposal of war from Sorrow Singer, Song Shadow, and six other memory singers. The treecats can recognize the abrupt change when the nano-assassin created by Manpower is about to go into effect and they want to do their part, even if it means going off-planet. The genocide of the Black Water clan has galvanized the treecats for war.

Anton Zilwicki and Victor Cachat are spies; the first for Manticore and the second for Haven. Both have reputations for getting the job done, no matter what. Zilwicki has forgotten more about electronics than any hundred others and is a trained naval officer; Cachat has a more restricted set of core competencies: lock picking, murder, extortion, counterespionage, regime destabilization, explosives, arson, and just your all-around general mayhem.

Sir Lyman Carmichael is the Manticoran ambassador to the Solarian League in Old Chicago. Empress Elizabeth and President Pritchard find common ground and become allies in oh, so many ways. Admiral Thomas Theisman of the People's Navy (and its Secretary of Defense, War, and Chief of Naval Operations) will have a front row seat in the upcoming battle. Elizabeth's Cabinet consists of William Alexander, Baron Grantville and Prime Minister of the Star Empire; Sir Anthony Langtry, as foreign secretary; Baroness Morncreek; and, Bruce Wijenberg.

Manticoran Navy
Besides Honor! Some of the old-timers include Captain Andrea Jaruwalski, Commodore Mercedes Bingham, and Captain Rafael Cardones.

The Solarian League
The men who really run the Solarian League are Permanent Senior Undersecretaries Innokentiy Kolokoltsov who is the most powerful man in the entire League; Agatá Wodoslawski is treasury; Malachai Abruzzi is information; and, Omosupe Quartermain is commerce. Admiral Rajampet Rajani is in charge of the navy that is supposed to be protecting its commerce. The one that's going down the tubes in both directions. President Yeou Kun Chol is a figurehead only and has never interfered in the running of the SL until his much smarter brother becomes concerned about the family shipping interests. Fleet Admiral Winston Kingsford looks to be getting a promotion. He also seems to be much more intelligent than Rajampet. Well, not that that's really saying anything. And he has the very competent Captain Gweon with a good plan. Only he's in bed with Erzébet Pelletier, a Mesan operative.

Audrey Hanrahan is a muckracking journalist the government fears and everyone believes because she actually publishes facts, verified facts.

A new group of Solarians with lots of questions are about to play a greater part in the story: Captain Daud al-Fanudahi who has been trying to draw his Navy's attention to the improved Manti weaponry, Captain Irene Teague who's come to believe him, Colonel Natsuko Okiku is with Criminal Investigation and just doesn't like how well all these explanations hang together, and Major Bryce Tarkovsky is with Marine Intelligence and has some thick dossiers on SLN officers in bed with Manpower of Mesa.

The SLN fleet heading to Manticore
Fleet Admiral Massimo Filareta (Weber keeps talking about his very kinky, disgusting sexual proclivities but we never get the details! We do, however, get a very clear idea of how far into Manpower's pockets he is). The sad thing is that Filareta is actually quite bright and is drawing all the right conclusions. But Manpower prepares for all sorts of contingencies. Admiral John Burrows is his chief of staff and an excellent manager of Filareta. On the plus side, Filareta knows he needs someone to manage him. Admiral William Daniels is his operations officer.

Beowulf
Members of the Beowulf Planetary Board of Directors include Gabriel Caddell-Markham is the Director of Defense--Timothy Sung is his personal aide; Chyang Benton-Ramirez is the Chairman and CEO; Fedosei Demianovich Mikulin is Director at Large; Jukka Longacre is Director of State; and, Joshua Pinder-Swun is Secretary and Vice Chariman and CEO of the system government. Jacques Benton-Ramirez y Chou is Honor's uncle, one of the Chyang's cousins, and the Third Director at Large. He's also the very unofficial liaison to the Audubon Ballroom.

Rear Admiral Marjorie Simpson is with the SLN and a cousin of Rajampet's. She's used in a lot of gray areas by the SLN and she's in Beowulf to coordinate an attack on Manticore with Beowulfer help through their Terminus. Fat chance. Fleet Admiral Imogene Tsang tries to battle her way through the Terminus anyway, threatening to fire on Solarian citizens and the Beowulf Navy. Only, she encounters Vice Admiral Holmon-Sanders of the Beowulf System Defense Force who reiterates her government's demand to know if the Solarian League has a formal declaration of war. With a little extra backup from Vice Alice Truman of the Mantie Navy.

Felicia Hadley is Beowulf's senior delegate to the Solarian League Assembly.

Grayson
Man, everyone is heading to Manticore! Protector of Grayson Benjamin Mayhew, his wives Katherine and Elaine, and three of their children are touching down at Landing in Manticore. Michael Mayhew, Benjamin's brother, is the Grayson representative to the Republic of Haven-Manticore treaty.

Andermani
Admiral Chien-lu Anderman, Herzog von Rabenstrange has also arrived in Landing with his "personal aide" Major Shiang Schenk of the Totenkopf Hussars representing Emperor Gustav.

Governor Oravil Barregos of the Maya Sector and Admiral Luis Roszak are making their own plans as a protectorate of the SL.

Manpower
Albrecht Detweiler is the man in charge. One of his sons is mentioned: Benjamin.

The Cover
It's a Baen cover with its sci-fi theme and the right colors. Honor Harrington is in uniform and white beret with Nimitz wrapped around her shoulders as she marches off the ramp from her spaceship. Guards are waiting on one end while crewmen are watching her walk off. It's nighttime and the spires of buildings are lit up on either side.

The title is what the Solarian League Mandarins are provoking. It's not just the Star Empire of Manticore it needs to fear, but all the star systems its OFS has been raking over. It's A Rising Thunder that is approaching that will rattle everything the SL has taken for granted.

This is another tough book to rate by Weber, the second time in a row I've given him 4 stars for the main stem novels of this series. Last time, it was an over-generous 4 stars, this time, I might be underrating it. Those who are looking for space opera swashbuckling and intense military action...well, there IS one battle, with the expected outcome. A very, very, VERY brief battle. The rest of this novel is political intrigue, as the fallout of the Mesan plan expected and unexpected, proceeds forward.

The Star Empire of Manticore proceeds forward to not only recall its massive merchant fleet home from service in the Solarian League, and close down its wormhole bridges to Solarian vessels, but after a massive blunder by the bureaucrats, proceeds to begin a blockade of Solarian wormholes. The Beowulf connections get played up even more, as this wormhole neighbor of Manticore becomes more important to what's going on. The disintegration of the Solarian League appears to be underway. And what of the real badguys, the Mesan Alignment? They finally realize that large swathes of their plan has been uncovered, so they proceed with an insurance policy of their own, as well as continuing their use of nanotech suicide/assassin programs they've infected into specially targeted individuals. Again, we still don't have a full reveal of the depth of their plans and preparations, but we know one thing: They've ticked off the treecats who've essentially declared war on Mesa by fully aligning themselves to detect nanotech infected individuals. But Mesa's plotting continues. but the these villains get only one chapter of full attention, though evidence and actions of their plots pop up through out the book.

This novel is not nearly as sloppily written as other novels. We do have a chapter devoted to an apparently pointless royal wedding. This book also feels truncated; one gets the feeling that there are novels that will be spun off of it before the next main stem novel hits, and that this book would've benefitted from carried the action further along. The climax is rather anti-climatic, with the book sort of puttering off at the end, with much more to come.

However there is much that is good here: We get more Honor, the political intrigue is well-done, and we finally get a better handle on the sense of loss that has hit Honor and her family. One problem "Mission of Honor" had was that the huge number of the Harrington clan that was killed in the Mesan strike were people we'd never met except for a cousin we'd only met for a few pages many books ago.

But if you're looking for military space action, there's not much here. There are some nice scenes of arrogant Solly Admirals getting humiiliated, but not much about them actually getting blown up. Another reviewer thought it'd be 2-3 more books to get to the climax of this series. I highly doubt it. It took 7 novels, 3 main stem and 4 other Honorverse novels to move the book to the end of "Mission of Honor," And I'd expect to see at least the same number to get to a climax here.

With a conservative rating, I give this 4 stars, as the ending feels abbreviated and the military action is lacking, despite this being a better effort all around than Weber's last main stem outing.

If you don't like this series you probably won't like this book. Otherwise it is a must read. The books in this series number over a dozen, it is apparent from some reviews that the reviewers don't know this.

just finished and boy am i disappointed. a LOT of talk. I'm assuming that most everyone here has read the series so i'm not giving anything away when i say that we knew that the solarians were going to get spanked. but that was covered in, what, 5-10 pages? the rest was talk. and nothing from the Mesa pov. I think someone said earlier, stupid people being stupid, good guys being good guys. nothing MOVED. the story hasn't advanced very far at all. disappointed. where's the editor.

I'm glad I didn't let the poor reviews stop me from reading this episode in the continuing story of Honor et al. Although a little confusing with a myriad of characters with multi-syllabic names, once one deciphers who is who, this is a engaging read. The political maneuvering which got real old in the earlier books is interesting and well fleshed out. Altogether a good read...just don't start the series with this one, you'll never get the connections straight.

When you read the Honor Harrington series you will want to start at the beginning of the series, for David Weber has created a detailed and wonderful universe of science and fiction, and to have that universe keep going is well worth the read. Great book, can't wait until the next one!!!

A Rising Thunder
I wanted an ebook but none were available at the time I made my purchase. I ended up buying an autographed hardback edition with DWs scrawl because that was the cheapest version available. I read the book in one setting before it was even due to arrive. I had no issues following the story or the chain of events DW was sharing and I must have enjoyed the heck out of it to read a 458 page book in one go. In hind sight I think DW may have felt constrained to chop out a few things to limit length. We are nearing the end of a long series of books that has shifted from being about HH to being about a major interstellar war. He's trying to pull all the threads together through the eyes of a host of characters from all sides so what you get is a snippet here and a snippet there. I had no problems following what was happening but then I know who all the major players and nearly all the minor players are and their back stories. If you are new to the HH universe this isn't where I suggest you start. Get a list of books of the series and start at the beginning, read forward, and enjoy. That way when an interesting character like Thanda gets a brief mention you know who she is and wish she had a book or two of her own.

Absolutely no military strategy which was the hallmark of the series. Political maneuverings, no advancement of the Mesan Alignment, and a wedding....very disappointing. I wish Weber would get back to the core of what made this series great. I want more Honor!

Thirteenth in the Honor Harrington military science fiction series revolving around Honor Harrington and the strategies required to keep the Kingdom of Manticore free.

You may want to wait and read A Rising Thunder after the next installment is published in 2013...2013??!!...'cause it is just making me nutso cuckoo to have to wait for Shadow of Freedom and find out what happens next...the pins and needles are just killin' me!!

My Take
It's a lovely tale of a corrupt government system being taken down ten pegs or so by a tiny neobarb system. Manticore is a utopia compared to most systems, but it has its own share of idjits and jerks. Luckily, it also has its share of decent people. And they're in charge!

Oh, man, I love it. Those arrogant Sollies keep being shocked that this tiny neobarb navy actually dares to threaten the all-powerful SLN!? Talk about shock--the awe showed up back in Mission of Honor (Honor Harrington, #12). It blows my mind that the SL government officials are so much more concerned about their personal fiefdoms that they'd rather take this chance at war and lying to their public than just admit they screwed up. So much cheaper in personnel, ships, money... Heck, they can barely admit it to each other.

Justice is conspicuous by its absence when it comes to politics and entrenched, self-serving regimes

The SL applies the terms of treaties and agreements when its convenient to them; downplays them when it's not. They're manipulating the data to make the Manties look like the bad guys. What's truly amazing is that the SL public, despite knowing how incredibly corrupt their government is, actually buys this.

The SL has used its Frontier Security Force to bash the protectorate star systems for tribute all of which goes directly to the SL bureaucracies and is the whole reason why the Office of Frontier Security (OFS) has been encouraged to expand its territory any way it likes.

Longacre (Beowulf) sums up the SL officials very well: "...he doesn't seem to grasp the possibility that there's any universe outside the system he understands." And it's too much fun to watch the Beowulfans dance around the SLN thwarting their plans to use the Beowulf Terminus to attack Manticore. So many angles, so many disappointments for the SLN.

Don't be fooled, though. Weber gets the tension up there and keeps cranking it up! I swear I read and sped and my heart rate just kept going up. Weber has shown that he doesn't mind killing off the good characters or putting the good guys into really tight situations. No, it's never a gratuitous "kill", but, da-yum. A few books back there was a rumor he was going to off Honor...I just about died! And the evil Mesans are sending a load of their rockets to replace SLN ones. Eeek!

It's so amazing to hear White Haven admitting that Admiral Hemphill's research into improved weaponry was such a great idea and that he was so wrong. He admitted it before, books ago, but, still, it takes a big man to be able to bring it up again and again.

There is just so very much that is coming to a head in this series. I always figured that brokering a peace with the Republic of Haven would be the end. It makes sense that war with the Solarian League would bring that peace about and open up a whole new front to take down a new and bigger bully.

This pretty much sums it up: "I'm proposing to exercise the sovereign right of my star system to defend its citizens against the orders of an unelected clique of corrupt bureaucrats with no trace of constitutional authority..."

Omigod, that whole exchange between Holmon-Sanders and Tsang...ya gotta wonder how often the U.S. and other countries' government/military commands have pulled crap like that on smaller nations. I should hope it's never been with such a flagrant disregard for truth and law! Weber really gets me going when I read this stuff..! Arghhh...! Why does the bad guy always gets mad when you reverse his tactics on him?

The Story
For centuries the Solarian League and its navy (SLN) has had everything its own way and they have taken advantage. No one knows how many systems were absorbed into the League voluntarily, but it's a good bet that many were forcibly taken. All in the name of "helping out". Then their economies are plundered by the corrupt men set in charge over them. This attitude has taken them up against the navy of Manticore. A navy that has been researching and upgrading, inventing and improving their own weapons on an almost daily basis for decades in their war with the People's Republic of Haven. The SLN has been too complacent and corrupt to bother.

No one in the SLN can believe that these tiny ships could possibly take out the mighty ships of the SLN. An attitude that doesn't prevent Manticore from doing what it needs to protect itself and its allies.

That's the background. In A Rising Thunder, the Manticoran navy is taking over space termini to ensure their merchant ships get home. Every one of `em has been ordered back to the Kingdom of Manticore and the navy will make sure that happens. No matter who it pisses off...snicker... And it's not just the SLN that's angry, most of the shipping is carried in Manticoran merchant hulls. When the recall comes through, there are a lot of empty merchants heading out and away from Solarian space with a whole lot of angry shippers wondering how they'll get their merchandise from their various Point As to Bs. Most of those shippers suddenly realize that the Manticorans see themselves as equals to Solarians and that the Solarian League is not the be-all, end-all in the universe.

We also get the backstory on Anton Zilwicki and Victor Cachat escaping from Mesa and they've brought a present for Manticore and Haven. And we find out why Zilwicki and Cachat decide to head to Nouveau Paris first with their prize.
Sir Lyman delivers the unexpected news that Manticore is recalling their merchants. Seems that Manticore can't get any positive reaction from the SL on the two attacks, so they're upping the ante. And Manticore continues to up the stakes without any pacifist reaction from the Solarians. Well, that's if you don't count the anti-Manticore propaganda the SL government would prefer to use.

Meantime the SLN is sending Filareta with a huge fleet. Sorry, another huge fleet directly to Manticore to beat them into submission--amazing how the SLN keeps losing fleets to the Manties. Then Beowulf receives a visit from Admiral Simpson of the SLN and the speculation is rife as to whether the SL has finally figured out how deeply in bed Beowulf is with Manticore.

In the meantime, Crown Prince Roger Gregory Alexander Timothy Winton is about to get married to his soon-to-be Crown Princess, Rivka Rosenfeld. And the first time the treecat volunteers have served as security in this non-war.

And, it's time to implement Lacoön Two.

The Characters
Duchess Honor Harrington-Alexander and her treecat Nimitz are still going strong albeit with her one remaining armsman, Captain Spencer Hawke. James MacGuiness is still Honor's steward. Drs. Allison and Alfred Harrington are her parents. Her dad is still trying to come to terms with the demise of almost the entire Harrington family in the Yawata strike. The one good side to that attack is that Honor's parents now accept that bodyguards are essential. Sergeant Isaiah Matlock is the son of a forestry ranger and has been assigned to Alfred; Corporal Anastasia Yanakov is Allison's. Faith and James Harrington are Honor's twin siblings and while they still have Luck Blackett, replacing Jeremiah Tennard was difficult until Honor thought of Andrew's younger brother, Corporal Micah LaFollett. Someone Faith has known her whole life. Honor's own children, Raoul and Katherine, have drawn Lieutenant Vincent Clinkscales. Hamish Alexander-Harrington, Earl of White Haven, is married to Honor and both of them are married to Emily Alexander-Harrington, Countess of White Haven. Samantha is Hamish's treecat.

Dr. Adelina Arif has been working with the treecats of Sphinx teaching them sign language and now a delegation of treecats have requested that Adelina comm Honor with their proposal. A proposal of war from Sorrow Singer, Song Shadow, and six other memory singers. The treecats can recognize the abrupt change when the nano-assassin created by Manpower is about to go into effect and they want to do their part, even if it means going off-planet. The genocide of the Black Water clan has galvanized the treecats for war.

Anton Zilwicki and Victor Cachat are spies; the first for Manticore and the second for Haven. Both have reputations for getting the job done, no matter what. Zilwicki has forgotten more about electronics than any hundred others and is a trained naval officer; Cachat has a more restricted set of core competencies: lock picking, murder, extortion, counterespionage, regime destabilization, explosives, arson, and just your all-around general mayhem.

Sir Lyman Carmichael is the Manticoran ambassador to the Solarian League in Old Chicago. Empress Elizabeth and President Pritchard find common ground and become allies in oh, so many ways. Admiral Thomas Theisman of the People's Navy (and its Secretary of Defense, War, and Chief of Naval Operations) will have a front row seat in the upcoming battle. Elizabeth's Cabinet consists of William Alexander, Baron Grantville and Prime Minister of the Star Empire; Sir Anthony Langtry, as foreign secretary; Baroness Morncreek; and, Bruce Wijenberg.

Manticoran Navy
Besides Honor! Some of the old-timers include Captain Andrea Jaruwalski, Commodore Mercedes Bingham, and Captain Rafael Cardones.

The Solarian League
The men who really run the Solarian League are Permanent Senior Undersecretaries Innokentiy Kolokoltsov who is the most powerful man in the entire League; Agatá Wodoslawski is treasury; Malachai Abruzzi is information; and, Omosupe Quartermain is commerce. Admiral Rajampet Rajani is in charge of the navy that is supposed to be protecting its commerce. The one that's going down the tubes in both directions. President Yeou Kun Chol is a figurehead only and has never interfered in the running of the SL until his much smarter brother becomes concerned about the family shipping interests. Fleet Admiral Winston Kingsford looks to be getting a promotion. He also seems to be much more intelligent than Rajampet. Well, not that that's really saying anything. And he has the very competent Captain Gweon with a good plan. Only he's in bed with Erzébet Pelletier, a Mesan operative.

Audrey Hanrahan is a muckracking journalist the government fears and everyone believes because she actually publishes facts, verified facts.

A new group of Solarians with lots of questions are about to play a greater part in the story: Captain Daud al-Fanudahi who has been trying to draw his Navy's attention to the improved Manti weaponry, Captain Irene Teague who's come to believe him, Colonel Natsuko Okiku is with Criminal Investigation and just doesn't like how well all these explanations hang together, and Major Bryce Tarkovsky is with Marine Intelligence and has some thick dossiers on SLN officers in bed with Manpower of Mesa.

The SLN fleet heading to Manticore
Fleet Admiral Massimo Filareta (Weber keeps talking about his very kinky, disgusting sexual proclivities but we never get the details! We do, however, get a very clear idea of how far into Manpower's pockets he is). The sad thing is that Filareta is actually quite bright and is drawing all the right conclusions. But Manpower prepares for all sorts of contingencies. Admiral John Burrows is his chief of staff and an excellent manager of Filareta. On the plus side, Filareta knows he needs someone to manage him. Admiral William Daniels is his operations officer.

Beowulf
Members of the Beowulf Planetary Board of Directors include Gabriel Caddell-Markham is the Director of Defense--Timothy Sung is his personal aide; Chyang Benton-Ramirez is the Chairman and CEO; Fedosei Demianovich Mikulin is Director at Large; Jukka Longacre is Director of State; and, Joshua Pinder-Swun is Secretary and Vice Chariman and CEO of the system government. Jacques Benton-Ramirez y Chou is Honor's uncle, one of the Chyang's cousins, and the Third Director at Large. He's also the very unofficial liaison to the Audubon Ballroom.

Rear Admiral Marjorie Simpson is with the SLN and a cousin of Rajampet's. She's used in a lot of gray areas by the SLN and she's in Beowulf to coordinate an attack on Manticore with Beowulfer help through their Terminus. Fat chance. Fleet Admiral Imogene Tsang tries to battle her way through the Terminus anyway, threatening to fire on Solarian citizens and the Beowulf Navy. Only, she encounters Vice Admiral Holmon-Sanders of the Beowulf System Defense Force who reiterates her government's demand to know if the Solarian League has a formal declaration of war. With a little extra backup from Vice Alice Truman of the Mantie Navy.

Felicia Hadley is Beowulf's senior delegate to the Solarian League Assembly.

Grayson
Man, everyone is heading to Manticore! Protector of Grayson Benjamin Mayhew, his wives Katherine and Elaine, and three of their children are touching down at Landing in Manticore. Michael Mayhew, Benjamin's brother, is the Grayson representative to the Republic of Haven-Manticore treaty.

Andermani
Admiral Chien-lu Anderman, Herzog von Rabenstrange has also arrived in Landing with his "personal aide" Major Shiang Schenk of the Totenkopf Hussars representing Emperor Gustav.

Governor Oravil Barregos of the Maya Sector and Admiral Luis Roszak are making their own plans as a protectorate of the SL.

Manpower
Albrecht Detweiler is the man in charge. One of his sons is mentioned: Benjamin.

The Cover
It's a Baen cover with its sci-fi theme and the right colors. Honor Harrington is in uniform and white beret with Nimitz wrapped around her shoulders as she marches off the ramp from her spaceship. Guards are waiting on one end while crewmen are watching her walk off. It's nighttime and the spires of buildings are lit up on either side.

The title is what the Solarian League Mandarins are provoking. It's not just the Star Empire of Manticore it needs to fear, but all the star systems its OFS has been raking over. It's A Rising Thunder that is approaching that will rattle everything the SL has taken for granted.

This is another tough book to rate by Weber, the second time in a row I've given him 4 stars for the main stem novels of this series. Last time, it was an over-generous 4 stars, this time, I might be underrating it. Those who are looking for space opera swashbuckling and intense military action...well, there IS one battle, with the expected outcome. A very, very, VERY brief battle. The rest of this novel is political intrigue, as the fallout of the Mesan plan expected and unexpected, proceeds forward.

The Star Empire of Manticore proceeds forward to not only recall its massive merchant fleet home from service in the Solarian League, and close down its wormhole bridges to Solarian vessels, but after a massive blunder by the bureaucrats, proceeds to begin a blockade of Solarian wormholes. The Beowulf connections get played up even more, as this wormhole neighbor of Manticore becomes more important to what's going on. The disintegration of the Solarian League appears to be underway. And what of the real badguys, the Mesan Alignment? They finally realize that large swathes of their plan has been uncovered, so they proceed with an insurance policy of their own, as well as continuing their use of nanotech suicide/assassin programs they've infected into specially targeted individuals. Again, we still don't have a full reveal of the depth of their plans and preparations, but we know one thing: They've ticked off the treecats who've essentially declared war on Mesa by fully aligning themselves to detect nanotech infected individuals. But Mesa's plotting continues. but the these villains get only one chapter of full attention, though evidence and actions of their plots pop up through out the book.

This novel is not nearly as sloppily written as other novels. We do have a chapter devoted to an apparently pointless royal wedding. This book also feels truncated; one gets the feeling that there are novels that will be spun off of it before the next main stem novel hits, and that this book would've benefitted from carried the action further along. The climax is rather anti-climatic, with the book sort of puttering off at the end, with much more to come.

However there is much that is good here: We get more Honor, the political intrigue is well-done, and we finally get a better handle on the sense of loss that has hit Honor and her family. One problem "Mission of Honor" had was that the huge number of the Harrington clan that was killed in the Mesan strike were people we'd never met except for a cousin we'd only met for a few pages many books ago.

But if you're looking for military space action, there's not much here. There are some nice scenes of arrogant Solly Admirals getting humiiliated, but not much about them actually getting blown up. Another reviewer thought it'd be 2-3 more books to get to the climax of this series. I highly doubt it. It took 7 novels, 3 main stem and 4 other Honorverse novels to move the book to the end of "Mission of Honor," And I'd expect to see at least the same number to get to a climax here.

With a conservative rating, I give this 4 stars, as the ending feels abbreviated and the military action is lacking, despite this being a better effort all around than Weber's last main stem outing.

If you don't like this series you probably won't like this book. Otherwise it is a must read. The books in this series number over a dozen, it is apparent from some reviews that the reviewers don't know this.

just finished and boy am i disappointed. a LOT of talk. I'm assuming that most everyone here has read the series so i'm not giving anything away when i say that we knew that the solarians were going to get spanked. but that was covered in, what, 5-10 pages? the rest was talk. and nothing from the Mesa pov. I think someone said earlier, stupid people being stupid, good guys being good guys. nothing MOVED. the story hasn't advanced very far at all. disappointed. where's the editor.

I'm glad I didn't let the poor reviews stop me from reading this episode in the continuing story of Honor et al. Although a little confusing with a myriad of characters with multi-syllabic names, once one deciphers who is who, this is a engaging read. The political maneuvering which got real old in the earlier books is interesting and well fleshed out. Altogether a good read...just don't start the series with this one, you'll never get the connections straight.

When you read the Honor Harrington series you will want to start at the beginning of the series, for David Weber has created a detailed and wonderful universe of science and fiction, and to have that universe keep going is well worth the read. Great book, can't wait until the next one!!!

As Mr. Weber dropped this monumental feculence into the literary punchbowl, if you will pardon the mixing of metaphors.

Weber has always been a guilty pleasure of mine. But the pleasure died a sad, angry, prolonged death as I grimly slogged through 500 pages of meeting transcipts and was rewarded with exactly zero explosions.

Honor Harrington is Fat Elvis. Put her out of our misery.

If this was the first book in the series, I wouldn't read another. Almost all political yakety-yak, HH has a pretty minor role in the book overall. I also found it hard to follow all the shifting back and forth between the various politicos and factions. Hopefully the second half gets a bit closer to the roots of the series.

Just finished A Rising Thunder, I've read every book and off shoot of Honorverse. Rising Thunder is bring all the branches together and setting the stage, sometimes stage setting books are not people favorite but I loves it as I love all the Honorverse books!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

While David Webernwrites a great space battle he also knows when forest the the universe and prepare the stage for the next act. This is an entertaining book but its mostly politics, a few appearances by Honor and the tree are to keep up everyone's interest and a prequel to the meat coming up. Enjoy the read, but I think the excitement will be coming in the next couple of books.

Once started, I couldn't put it down. Well written, exciting, and thoroughly entertaining. The latest installment in the continuing saga of Honor Harrington and the Star Kingdom/Empire is as good as the first in this series that I read many years ago.

As a *huge* fan of all the Honor Harrington novels, I understand the frustration at reading a new release that is "all politics and no action." However, in a arcing story line as Byzantine as this, every single book cannot be action-packed. I loved this book, and it's clear that the Feb 2013 release will be worth waiting for, as the stage has been set for more of Weber's complex characters to experience action *and* intrigue.

Those earlier reviewers who were whining about the 'lack of action' were obviously pining for much, much earlier Weber works. This one matches his latest (including the excellent Safeworld) in concentrating on the causes of, preperation for and skirmishes in a great conflict. There is just one major battle - an utterly (and logically) one-sided one - and much political, social and personal background.

True - this is most certainly not the book to read when entering the HH universe for the first time - but for those who have followed it and its spin-offs, a perfectly satisfactory next step.

I'm a long time SF reader and have greatly enjoyed the Honor series. Weber had done a great job of producing very real, three dimensional characters while maintaining an exciting and integral combat narrative. Unfortunately, the last couple of books, especially this one, are about to drive me away. I'll echo the earlier comments about talking heads taking over. The series has devolved into a mushy, politico-space opera. I hope Weber gets the message that the main reason his readers came to this series was that it was MILITARY science fiction - DUH!

I was really looking forward to this book and David Weber's semi-book really irritated me. What was he thinking? Was it just the opportunity to crank out another Honor book and make more money? I regret buying this book and will definitely think twice about purchasing the next one.

After reading A Rising Thunder, it is obvious that David Weber's focus is elsewhere i.e. The Safehold Series.

I don't know if he has run out of ideas (in an earlier book he stated that Honor Harrington was supposed to die at the battle of Manticore a la Nelson) or if he is just tired of the series, but this is easily the worst work Mr. Weber has published.

Once again, chapters are bouncing around without purpose (Really, what did Ch 8 add to the book? It isn't like we ever came back to that cast of characters ever again in the book.) or back to the past (The reader already knows that Zilwicki & Chachat made contact with their superiors, so what was the purpose of the last half of Ch 9?) The Crown Prince of Manticore is married - and?.....

All in all, the book reads like a collection of everything that ended up on the cutting room floor from the last 3 books mashed together to meet a publishing deadline.

Very disappointing.

...or has even a perfunctory grasp on physics. Hearing the narrator say "delta five" instead of "delta V" (as in change in velocity) when in the middle of a space battle is hard to excuse. Weber and publisher are just milking this series for whatever they can while the quality goes out the window. Disappointed again by Weber.

Trying to decide if I should return the book to the bookstore as I feel I have been robbed of thirty bucks. David should have cut to 100 pages skipped bridge book and went straight to the meat of the final book. Maybe he should get a decent editor.

This book is by far the most boring book in the Honor universe to day. It reminds me off the news when they have one person that is siting behind a desk and talk through the entire newsflash. I was extremly disappointed because I had been seing forward to some good action. If you are a person who like to read about people who is giggle at their own thoughts, this is definitle a book for you :)

I confess that I enjoy David Weber's books; usually. I have read all of the "Honor Harrington" series. Having said that, this is probably the least enjoyable one in the series for me. In the IBook format the book was 1625 pages long and of them, possibly 200 were interesting or action oriented. The rest consisted of office conversations, meetings, and other gobbledygook. No doubt some of the matter was devoted to setting up the next book, but wading through the material was painfully boring.

I wish he had kept to the format of the earlier books in the series with more action and less politics/blather.
Come on Mr. Weber, missiles away!

When David Weber first started branching out and telling stories in the Honorverse, but not mainly about Honor.....I wasn't really on board. But this book finally ties all the myriad threads into a coherent, not to mention incredibly realistic and complex backstory and universe. It is far richer now than it would have been if he had just stuck to Honor's POV. The maturation and growing richness and complexity that can be seen now looking back at the beginning is better than I have seen in any series I know of.

Though the war against the People's Republic of Haven is over, the Star Empire of Manticore knows peace is fragile. The Mesan Alignment proves this with a vicious assault in the Manticoran sector. In reaction to the hostilities, Manticore informs the Solarian League that they no longer will do business with them. The Royal Manticoran Navy escorts their merchant ships home and disallows any outside traffic in their sector; they place warships near vulnerable wormholes. Stunned the Solarian League takes the Manticore actions as a declaration of war and reacts accordingly.

Manticore Eighth Fleet Admiral Honor Harrington leads the navy against two threats. The Mesan Alignment has an advanced technology that gives them an edge while puppet masters behind the scenes manipulate the different sides in a scheme to turn humans into slaves. At the same time, the Solarian League has deployed its largest armada in its glorious history with plans to seize the strategic wormholes and more in the Manticore sector.

The latest Honor Harrington military science fiction (see Mission of Honor) is an entertaining tale though the action is muted compared to the past entries as A Rising Thunder feels like a set up book with the various factions preparing for war. Still this enables readers to see the political intrigue that goes on behind the scenes though that also means some repetition. Not as exciting as normal, Harrington fans will enjoy the Manticore actions as they prepare for a two front war.

Harriet Klausner

I had read so many snippets and snipets about Rising Thunder that I held off on both pre-ordering and downloading an eARC and waited for the Baen eBook. So, it was with a sigh of relief that I finished the book, as mentioned above, not the best, not the worst, and I realized that at least DW hadn't lost his mind or his standards.

Not a review but a sign of hope for the future.

This latest book on Honor Harrington is very exciting and well done. The story line is both mentally intriguing and emotionally compelling. Honor continues to satisfy on many levels while presenting a character to admire.

I can envision that the inspiration for the Solarian League rulers came direct from the Obama team. Otherwise, I agree that this was a nice lead-in to the next book, which presumably will have a meatier content.

I will start with the statement "I have never read a David Weber book nor know who Honor Harrington is."

I'm 68 pages into this book and have met a few dozen characters, had a fake battle and tedious descriptions and still have no clue who the main character of this book is supposed to be.

Putting it down and going into another story. Sorry David Weber, this is my letter to let you know I'll pass on your books in the future.

Since I stopped buying his books about 4-5 books ago, I dropped in to check these reviews in case Mr. Weber suddenly decided to reverse his recent writing tendency towards mediocrity.

Sadly, it looks like he hasn't.

The one star review is NOT based on actually reading it, since I won't give him any more money unless he gets his act back together.

The Rising Thunder (2011) is the thirteen SF novel in the Honor Harrington series, following Mission of Honor. The initial work in this sequence is On Basilisk Station.

In the previous volume, Mike learned that seventy-one Solar League superdreadnoughts were coming to Spindle. Meanwhile, Honor took Eighth Fleet to Nouveau Paris. She told Eloise that she would be coming to begin negotiations about ending the war.

The Mesan government issued a statement that implicated the Manticore government in the destruction within Green Pines. Elizabeth learned that Anton and Victor were probably on Mesa. But those who know Anton did not believe the accusations in the Mesan statement.

The Mesan Alignment Navy was scouting Manticore and Grayson. They were using a new interstellar drive that is much less detectable than impeller wedges. Even MAN had problems sensing these ships.

In this novel, Honor Alexander-Harrington is a Manticoran Admiral, currently commanding Eighth Fleet. She is married to Hamis and Emily.

Hamis Alexander-Harrington is Count White Haven and First Lord of the Admiralty for the Star Empire of Manticore. He is married to Emily and Honor.

Elizabeth Winton is Empress of the Star Empire of Manticore. Since the Republic of Haven assassinated her parents and tried to kill her, she has strong prejudices against Haven.

Michelle Henke is Countess Gold Peak and fifth in line for the throne of Manticore. Mike also commands the Manticoran Tenth Fleet.

Eloise Pritchart is the President of the Republic of Haven. After Tom shot Oscar Saint-Just, Eloise reinstated the Constitution of Haven.

Tom Theisman is the Secretary of War and the Chief of Naval Operations for Haven. His treecat name is Dreams of Peace.

Denis LePic is the Attorney General of the new Haven regime,

Linda Trenis is a Vice Admiral in the Bureau of Planning of Haven Navy.

Victor Lewis is a Rear Admiral commanding the Office of Operational Research in the Haven Navy.

Anton Zilwicki is a former Captain in the Manticoran Navy. He is the father of Helen and Berry. He is also the common law husband of Catherine Montaigne.

Victor Cachat is a special officer -- spy -- for the Republic of Haven. He has been working with Anton since the origins of Torch.

Herlander Simoes is a mathematical physicist on the Mesan Alignment drive research team. He has played a key role is developing a new type of interstellar drive.

In this story, Manticore sends a new ambassador to the Solar League. He informs the Permanent Senior Undersecretary to the Foreign Minister that Manticore has issued a general recall of its merchant shipping in the League. He also mentions that Manticore is closing all far termini of the Manticore Junction to Solar League traffic.

The Royal Manticoran Navy starts escorting their merchant ships back to the home system. They ignore all Solar League orders and most merchant pleas. They also take over the Astro Control stations at the far termini and station warship pickets near the wormholes. Manticore is preparing for war.

Meanwhile, Anton and Victor had a four month voyage from Mesa in the damaged ship. Then they waited with the Ballroom terrorists and the Beowulfan commandos while their reports are being carried to Erewhon. But a dispatch boat shows up at the amusement park.

Victor convinces Anton to change their plan and go straight to Nouveau Paris to meet with Eloise and Honor. Then Honor can go to Manticore to brief Elizabeth. They leave a copy of Herlander's interview on the station for the next BSC courier.

When they reach Nouveau Paris, Victor refuses to identify Herlander to the escorts and security guards. Ninety minutes later, he finally presents Herlander to Eloise, Theisman, LePic, Trenis, and Lewis. The meeting is a revelation and shock to the Havenites. Then Eloise and Theisman come to Manticore to meet with Elizabeth and Honor.

Elsewhere, the Mayan leaders are discussing the political situation and preparing for a revolt against the League. Beowulf is visited by a Solar League admiral to inform them that the League will be using their wormhole to invade the Manticore system. Then the Beowulfans are made aware of the peace negotiations between Manticore and Haven.

This tale has the Solar League refusing to believe that Manticore is much more powerful than they believe. Another fleet is preparing for the largest combat deployment in the League's history. But the RMN is well aware of their plans.

The League is about to have another very large and ugly incident. The next installment is this series has not yet been announced on the store.

Highly recommended for Weber fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of naval combat, political intrigue, and the folly of bureaucrats. Read and enjoy!

-Arthur W. Jordin