SPOILERS==Shadow of Victory Comments, Queries and Opinions

Well, the comments have upended a few of my thoughts about what's going to happen. Well done, RFC. My thinking needs to be taken out, shaken up and then stirred vigorously at times.

cthia wrote:You having said that OrlandoNative, I suspect that this book will become even more important in the overall scheme of things after the series is complete. And will be a necessary part of one's collection. Now that the fleshing out is done and the final book can be handled heartily. And since RFC himself has verified only one more book, it promises to be a two-hour special er 99 Chapter special!

Fleshing is good. I like flesh. Gives me an opportunity to visit more with the characters.

Don't get me wrong. I wanted to see the revelation of Darius. I wanted to see the SL acknowledgement that they've been had. I wanted to see death and dismemberment. I wanted to see Shannon and Sonja hard at work at Bolthole. I wanted to see the who and what behind the Beowulf atrocity. Don't know if any of that has come to pass - still awaiting the hardback...

Having said all that, anyone willing to tell us eARCless challenged forumites what we all want to know...

Is there at least one battle scene?

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Mention of new tech off the assembly line?

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Did Lord Skimper prove all of you wrong and he got one of his designs?

Cthia,

If you haven't gotten this title yet and read it, I don't really want to entirely spoil it for you.

Yes, there is a battle scene. Not much of one, but there *is*. At least in space. There is plenty of on-planet action, but I don't see where it really contributes a lot to the "main story line" of the SERIES, or, for that matter, of the book itself.

I already noted that no matter how good or bad this book may appear to be to the various readers, it's still, yes, going to be acquired just so they can say they have - and have read - the entire series. I don't really think it ties up much in the way of loose ends - at least not ones people probably *thought* of as loose, or advances the story line much. But it doesn't matter in the long run, I doubt whether one liked or disliked this particular book is going to significantly affect the sales of the *next* one.

As for "new" tech, there's Ginger's ship. I won't say the tech it uses is actually new, but it *is* a different approach to a particular set of problems than what we've seen in the past.

I think the biggest problem most of us - the ones that see a problem at all, that is - have with it is that about 85-90% of this book really *should* have appeared in previous volumes rather than now. There's just not the sense of continuity that one gets from the previous books in the series, even ones that include things that are happening concurrently in distant places.

My gut feeling is that, unlike the previous books in the series, a reader totally new to the series probably isn't going to have the feeling of need to go out and get all the others like they most likely would if they started with *ANY* of the other books. While it was sooo long in time, and sooo many books (not just RFC's) ago that I started reading this series, I don't think I started with book 1. But where I did start motivated me to get all the previous books. To be honest, that's actually happened to me a LOT, since I often stumble upon some "not first in the series" title, read it, and then out of my way to find the rest. If I'd started in this series here, with this book, I know I wouldn't feel that way, especially if I hadn't read any *other* of RFC's books.

I'm sure that's also happened to me before; reading some book out of order that didn't impress me, and thus not reading anything else written by that author. Or at least from that series. I'm also sure that I've probably missed some great books that way. But there are soooo many books out there, no one has time to read every one of them, so we make choices. If this had been my first Weber book, I probably wouldn't have read any other, at least none comprising part of a series.

JohnRoth wrote:
My suspicion is that taking Albrecht out of the picture was necessary to allow the MAlign to head in new directions. He was too wedded to the plan as it existed. I'll bet that his "sons" are going to rethink a few things.

His "sons" I believe are clones of him. As I recall that was noted in a previous book. It was also inferred that his line did that just to make sure "deviation" didn't occur, or at least was minimalized.

Disclaimer: I have not read the eARC, but plan to purchase the finished book.

From what I have read of reader's comments, I would draw the following conclusions:

1) The book title and the story both indicate this book is not a mainline story.
2) The book did not advance the plot, it thickened it!!

and prediction:

Now when an author thickens the plot, it's like a cook thickening a stew almost ready to serve, I expect a really good meal from all the mouth-watering aromas. Combine this with runsforcelery's intent to wrap up the storyline started in On Basilisk Station in the next book, plus his comments on how the whole Mesan Alignment storyline got brought forward by Eric Flint's short story From the Highlands in the Changer of Worlds anthology, the next book will be:

A) A door-stopper book of a mainline story covering the fall of the Solarian League. This book will set up the Renaissance Factor as the front for the Mesan Alignment, but not include the Grand Alliance finding and dealing with Darius. (I expect that storyline to be another series, with Honor's children plus some of the other characters other than Honor--assuming that runsforcelery still wants to tell that story and can somehow fit another series in his writing schedule.) For a short synopsis of my prediction of what this book will cover, see the sentence in boldface type:

The Universe of Honor Harrington - David Weber, More Than Honor wrote:Honor Harrington was born on October 1, 1859 Post Diaspora, at Craggy Hollow (the Harrington family homestead), County Duvalier, in the Duchy of Shadow Vale, Sphinx. In general, one might say that she was born at the twilight of what had been a long, relatively stable and peaceful period of galactic history. Her native Star Kingdom of Manticore was widely respected as one of the wealthiest star nations in existence (probably the wealthiest,s on a per capita basis), and its carrying trade dominated the interstellar freight lines outside the Solarian League itself. The galaxy had not seen a major war in over a century, although there were always places (like the Silesian Confederacy) where ongoing low-level conflicts were the norm rather than the exception. Aside from rumblings out of the economically devastated People's Republic of Haven, which had recently forcibly annexed a half dozen neighboring systems, there seemed little reason to expect that to change.
But by 1901 pd, (the time of On Basilisk Station) it had changed, and changed drastically. The PRH's steady economic collapse had driven its expansionism to heights unseen since pre-space days on Old Terra, and the Star Kingdom of Manticore lay squarely in the Peeps' path. The last century's "golden age" was coming to an end with the approach of an interstellar war which would, before it ended, see virtually the entire human-occupied galaxy choosing up sides, with military operations on a scale no one had ever previously contemplated.

Italics are the author's, boldface is my emphasis.

Except that instead of covering the approach of an interstellar war, the book will cover the actual interstellar war, plus some of the aftermath fallout* resulting from the war and the agendas** of the various major players***.

* Aftermath fallout is used here as what were the major changes (political, social, economic, etc.) resulting from the war, plus the evolution of the agendas of the various major players.

** Agenda is used here as not only what a player wants to accomplish, but also the actions that player performs in attempting to execute what they want to accomplish.

*** Major player is used here as polities, transtellars, and other groups seeking advantage from the prewar status quo, the postwar status quo, or attempting to change the status quo from either the prewar or the new postwar status quo.

That's probably way to much use of the phrase 'status quo', but I don't know of a better way of putting it.

RFC created a universe that is deep and wide. A lot of people act like they volunteered for the infantry and then discovered that they had to do a lot of walking.

My problem is that I have trouble seeing how he can close the circle in one more book. There are an awful lot of threads in this tapestry yet to be woven in....

Dauntless wrote:
seeing Tourville was good and i can definitely see sparks between him and Mike Henke.

I had the same thought

what happened at Messa was also intresting and the epilog really makes me wonder if a certain someone is actually going to dig for the truth.

I really expected the book would start there.
Over all - sorry David, but this is the first book of this series i won't read a second time.

Eagleeye wrote:First - the general feeling:
It is a good book all by itself. But (as many others still have pointed out) I, too, was a little bit ... on the frowning side concerning the end point of the story. Somehow I'd wished, that we had seen a little more development down the road; that the story would cover at least, say, the first 4-6 months after Mike Henke visited Mesa.

2nd: The book: I know, it is an e-ARC, which means, it is a text with many typos in it. For instance, the Maya Governor is more than one time named Orville (instead of Oravil) Barregos.
But one thing really did upset me.

SOV, e-ARC, Chapter 17 wrote:something called Eroica by some ancient composer named Bayhoven

(Bolded text marked by me)
I hope that is simply a typo that get corrected until the final edit hits the bookshops. The guy who wrote Eroica is named Beethoven, after all ...

Not after the better part of two millennia. If it is to be changed, "...a nineteenth century composer named Lennon" comes to mind.

OrlandoNative wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:He is an absolute, 100% certified Believer, and so is his wife. He's just authorized the deaths of thousands, and more thousands are going to be killed, to be certain the onion's membership disappears tracelessly. His survival isn't necessary to the working out of the plan that's been put into motion, and — believe it or not — he actually feels a sense of responsibility and (dare I say it?) guilt over the cost of the accelerated Houdini. He now has a fleet in-system that isn't going to let a microbe leave the planet — or the system – until it has been thoroughly inspected, and the very act of thermonuclear destruction he's about to carry out — which has to be carried out under Houdini is going to start investigators trying to figure out what got covered up and what might be trying to hide.

We've never really seen an ounce of conscience in him in any other part of the story line. I'll grant he's a "true believer". But in most cases "true believers" don't exactly *want* to morph into martyrs if they can escape it. Most just don't have the *resources* to escape it. I doubt he fell into that category.

To take an example from another series of yours, to you think the "Grand Inquisitor" would willingly become a martyr just to advance his side's Jihad? I sort of doubt it.

runsforcelery wrote:Under the circumstances, his actions are — in his opinion — necessary, and trying to "hide in the general population" would risk undoing the very thing he killed all those people to accomplish.

And that's why he did it.

There would have been no reason for him to "hide in the general population". I agree that would have been risky and, for that matter, extremely stupid. Manticore may not have any idea of who any leader of the Alignment might be, but I suspect Beowulf would suspect a connection with a specific family, wouldn't it?

No, I'd say he'd hide in some well stocked hidden location (underground base?) which had no discernible ties to any of his family's holdings.

After all, does *any* "true believer" in control of the whole movement usually feel they're not needed to remain in that position?

In answer to your last question first, the answer is yes. In this case, the True Believer in question has raised an entire generation of successors --- all of whom are him genetically --- who he's been careful to involve in the decision making and direction process at the highest level for years.

In answer to your point about showing a trace of conscience, his conscience is directed towards members of the Alignment (particularly inside the onion) and other citizens --- full citizens --- of Mesa. On the other hand, I don't think I've ever shown you a scene in which he's oblivious to the cost to any others who he considers to be "people" as opposed to game pieces. He truly values human life . . . as long as it belongs to people who belong to "his" core loyalty group. And he doesn't exactly exult on killing just about anyone. (He would willingly make an exception for that in HH's case, of course! )

In his judgment, once Mike and Lester are in-system and control the space around the planet, his chance of going to ground and ultimately making it to Darius are considerably less than good and the possibility of his existence being discovered would be disastrous for the master plan. That being the case, as a True Believer who's designated successor(s) is(are) already in place, on the job, and doing well, the logical course is to insure that there's absolutely no of his being discovered. And, in the process, to provide Audrey with the grist for her epilogue news story.

Eagleeye wrote:First - the general feeling:
It is a good book all by itself. But (as many others still have pointed out) I, too, was a little bit ... on the frowning side concerning the end point of the story. Somehow I'd wished, that we had seen a little more development down the road; that the story would cover at least, say, the first 4-6 months after Mike Henke visited Mesa.

2nd: The book: I know, it is an e-ARC, which means, it is a text with many typos in it. For instance, the Maya Governor is more than one time named Orville (instead of Oravil) Barregos.
But one thing really did upset me.

SOV, e-ARC, Chapter 17 wrote:something called Eroica by some ancient composer named Bayhoven

(Bolded text marked by me)
I hope that is simply a typo that get corrected until the final edit hits the bookshops. The guy who wrote Eroica is named Beethoven, after all ...

phillies wrote:Not after the better part of two millennia. If it is to be changed, "...a nineteenth century composer named Lennon" comes to mind.

Or maybe if it ends up misspelled in the future, "...a nineteenth century composer named Lemon".

Hans wrote:I really expected the book would start there.
Over all - sorry David, but this is the first book of this series i won't read a second time.

I have to agree. Neither will I be purchasing the hard cover of this one. It read like an 800 page info dump of trimmed sections from previous stories, no real story to it except for (maybe) the polish planet.

It it's case, I must admit somewhere around halfway through I hoped the star exploded and vaporized the planet... I sooooo didn't care what happened to any of them.