David Weber's "At All Costs"

[bluedaisy]

I'd forgotten how much I liked Honor Harrington. Even the soap opera plots (many of which, for those of you who don't like them, resolve in this book)
The cover honestly spoils an awful lot with respect to the soap opera plot, since it's a scene from the final chapter of the book. Boo to Baen. There aren't even any exploding spaceships. However, I'll cut for
So, yes. Honor and Hamish Alexander's love plot gets resolved, thanks to the intervention of the lovely Emily. This is a good thing, as I don't think Weber could have caused any more angst in that plot if he tried.
The really good part of this book, however, is not the Alexander-Harringtons, or their lovely children, but the really interesting intrigues going on with Manpower Inc. Apparently they're orchestrating rather a lot of the renewed hostilities between Haven and Manticore. At this point, I'm not sure either of those two have any really good way to find hard evidence of it, either, which means that, in the war between Manticore and Haven, Manpower, Inc (and maybe the Solarian League, if they cared, which they don't appear to) is winning.
This is beautiful.
The descriptions of the battles are, as usual, stunning. I don't have the eye for detail or the tactical sense to know whether Weber made any mistakes, but I still really enjoy his realistic-sounding-to-a-layperson battles.
In particular, the final battle in this book is really really incredible---a nice portrayal of how it's really quite possible for both sides to lose.
I'm going to be really interested to see how President Pritchard and Admiral Theisman react to the huge success but eventual defeat of their gigantic offensive at Manticore. I'll be more interested to see what/who comes out of the woodwork to capitalize on the serious depletion of both the Manticoran and Havenite navies.
Overall, I really enjoyed the book. I wish there were another in the series I could read, but I'm not as voracious for this series as I am for A Song of Ice and Fire
anyway.

Books in 2006: 2

Comments

[earthdragon.livejournal.com]

Well remember (if you read the appendicies), this is all still the prelude to the big war...
(not that I've read this one yet)

more harrington

[admiralthrawn.livejournal.com]

Have you read the two spin-offs? Shadow of Saganami follows a group of her students from last book when she was teaching at the academy as they go on their first cruise; Crown of Slaves (with Eric Flint) follows a convoluted spy plot that reads as much like a guild game as most of his books do like a wargame. They both also provide some info about how info on the manpower plottings could trickle back...