Chapters by copy/paste?

Greetings all, long time fan here. I recently went about reading through all the Honor books in a row, on my amazon app/tablet. I noticed something very distinct in the last three books (12,13,14).

What I noticed was that there were chapters copied wholesale from the previous book and pasted into the 'new' story.

My Thoughts:

Pro: It would seem an immersive method to retell relevant story points without going into exposition mode and keep the tale rolling.

Pro: These three novels have events that, rather than being directly sequential, are more entangled; which might require just this sort of rehash.

Con: While it did not jump at me the first time I read the books, spaced out by release time, reading one after the other made it pop, and I wound up skim-skipping past.

Con: Print publishers charge by the ounce, it seems at times, and adding extra pounds of old content and branding it in a new book seems ... slightly... off.


In any case, I would like to hear from the community on this, it has me slightly baffled. I apologize if it has been gone over before and I just missed the topic heading, if that is the case please reply with the topic link.

Thanks Much,
-PinZig

pinzig wrote:Greetings all, long time fan here. I recently went about reading through all the Honor books in a row, on my amazon app/tablet. I noticed something very distinct in the last three books (12,13,14).

What I noticed was that there were chapters copied wholesale from the previous book and pasted into the 'new' story.

My Thoughts:

Pro: It would seem an immersive method to retell relevant story points without going into exposition mode and keep the tale rolling.

Pro: These three novels have events that, rather than being directly sequential, are more entangled; which might require just this sort of rehash.

Con: While it did not jump at me the first time I read the books, spaced out by release time, reading one after the other made it pop, and I wound up skim-skipping past.

Con: Print publishers charge by the ounce, it seems at times, and adding extra pounds of old content and branding it in a new book seems ... slightly... off.


In any case, I would like to hear from the community on this, it has me slightly baffled. I apologize if it has been gone over before and I just missed the topic heading, if that is the case please reply with the topic link.

Thanks Much,
-PinZig

The reason for it is actually pretty simple; the books from War of Honor on overlap pretty significantly in terms of timeline (for instance, WoH with Crown of Slaves). The copy-paste chapters are there to clue the reader in to just where we are in the story. It's not as difficult to keep track on a re-read, but if you're picking up a new release without having read the previous one in awhile, it can be quite helpful. I remember being a bit lost as to just when we were at the beginning of Cauldron of Ghosts, for instance, until a chapter that had previously been in A Rising Thunder clued me in (i.e. CoG starts immediately before Eloise Pritchart's Dramatic Midnight Dash (TM) to Manticore at the end of Mission of Honor/first third of A Rising Thunder, but actually runs past the end of Shadow of Freedom).

It's also done a few times with a character perspective flip; for instance, we first see Honor's reunion with Michelle Henke from Honor's perspective in At All Costs, while Storm From the Shadows gives us the same scene from Michelle's perspective.

Given how long RFC's books already are - long - I really don't think the repeated chapters comprise too much of any given new release, though this may be helped by the fact that I buy most of mine electronically these days. Kobo Glos are quite a bit lighter than most of RFC's paperbacks.

I agree that the repeated chapters can be quite jarring if you're re-reading the whole series - which I do not often do, because I do not like having my heart run through a meat grinder, seasoned with salt and a little Tabasco, and served up to RFC on a platter accompanied by a mug of my tears - but when a new book comes out, they are quite handy. And while the "pasted in verbatim" can get a little old, I've always enjoyed seeing familiar scenes from a different character's perspective. But then, of course, to each their own.

And welcome to the forums! Have a virtual drink of your choice on the house.

Quick question. By "books 12, 13, and 14," what books do you mean? Because the most recent, Cauldron of Ghosts, is book 26. Mr. Weber does not consider the Talbott branch or the Torch branch of the stories as separate from the Manticore Branch.

Just for future reference, when referring to books here, we usually use a three (or very rarely four) letter acronym for the title. FiE-Flag in Exile, CoW-Changer of Worlds, SftS-Storm from the Shadows, HoS-House of Steel.

Thanks for the response!

crewdude48 wrote:Quick question. By "books 12, 13, and 14," what books do you mean? Because the most recent, Cauldron of Ghosts, is book 26. Mr. Weber does not consider the Talbott branch or the Torch branch of the stories as separate from the Manticore Branch.

Just for future reference, when referring to books here, we usually use a three (or very rarely four) letter acronym for the title. FiE-Flag in Exile, CoW-Changer of Worlds, SftS-Storm from the Shadows, HoS-House of Steel.

I was using the numbering present in the kindle store for Honor Harrington novels.

pinzig wrote:I was using the numbering present in the kindle store for Honor Harrington novels.

So that is Mission of Honor, A Rising Thunder, and Shadow of Freedom? Yah, it happened a couple of times, but I don't think I noticed any copy paste in CoG, and considering that we are getting back to a single storyline, I don't think it will be much of an issue in the future. I do think it was a little jarring, and I kind of wish that RFC [edit to add: RFC, or Runsforcelery is what David Weber post as on this site] had gone back and rewritten them with a different POV, but I would rather have the books with the copy paste rather than not have the book.

Just out of curiosity, did you read the first two Talbott books before SoF? Also, have you read the Torch branch yet? If not, you may want to before the next Honorverse book comes out, because, as I mentioned above, RFC has said that he is going to reintegrate the parallel stories into a single line. I have a full list of all of the books to date (including anthologies and the first compendium) if you want it. For the record I really hate the way the series is recorded both on Amazon and on Wikipedia.

crewdude48 wrote:

pinzig wrote:I was using the numbering present in the kindle store for Honor Harrington novels.

So that is Mission of Honor, A Rising Thunder, and Shadow of Freedom? Yah, it happened a couple of times, but I don't think I noticed any copy paste in CoG, and considering that we are getting back to a single storyline, I don't think it will be much of an issue in the future. I do think it was a little jarring, and I kind of wish that RFC [edit to add: RFC, or Runsforcelery is what David Weber post as on this site] had gone back and rewritten them with a different POV, but I would rather have the books with the copy paste rather than not have the book.


Just out of curiosity, did you read the first two Talbott books before SoF? Also, have you read the Torch branch yet? If not, you may want to before the next Honorverse book comes out, because, as I mentioned above, RFC has said that he is going to reintegrate the parallel stories into a single line. I have a full list of all of the books to date (including anthologies and the first compendium) if you want it. For the record I really hate the way the series is recorded both on Amazon and on Wikipedia.

Some sort of list or flow chart on where to pick up the sidelines would be good. I've read the Weber/Lindskold treecat novels (I enjoyed her Wolf's Eyes series, and I think she does quite well by the 'cats!) and I may have read the other side books at some point but a reference on where to pick up in reading order on those branches would be most appreciated.

Thanks Much,
-PinZig

pinzig wrote:Some sort of list or flow chart on where to pick up the sidelines would be good. I've read the Weber/Lindskold treecat novels (I enjoyed her Wolf's Eyes series, and I think she does quite well by the 'cats!) and I may have read the other side books at some point but a reference on where to pick up in reading order on those branches would be most appreciated.

Thanks Much,
-PinZig

I would, as I have before, recommend reading it in published order:
1. On Basilisk Station (Apr 92)
2. Honor of the Queen (June 93)
3. The Short Victorious War (Apr 94)
4. Field of Dishonor (Dec 94)
5. Flag In Exile (Sep 95)
6. Honor Among Enemies (Feb 96)
7. In Enemy Hands (Jul 97)
8. More Than Honor (Jan 98)(Anthology)
9. Echoes of Honor (Oct 98)
10. World of Honor (Feb 99)(Anthology)
11. Ashes of Victory (Mar 00)
12. Changer of Worlds (Mar 01)(Anthology)
13. War of Honor (Oct 02)
14. The Service of the Sword (Apr 03)(Anthology)
15. Crown of Slaves (Sep03)
16. The Shadow of Saganami (Oct 04)
17. At All Costs (Nov 05)
18. Storm from the Shadows (Mar 09)
19. Torch of Freedom (Nov 09)
20. Mission of Honor (June 10)
21. In Fire Forged (Feb 11) (Anthology)
22. A Rising Thunder (Mar 12)
23. Shadow of Freedom (Mar 13)
24. House of Steel (May 13) (Compendium)
25. Beginnings (July 13) (Anthology)
26. Cauldron of Ghosts (Apr 14)

The Talbott branch consists of the short story "The Service of the Sword" from the anthology by the same name, The Sadow of Saganami, Storm from the Shadows, and Shadow of Freedom.

The Torch branch consists of "From the Highlands" from Changer of Worlds, "Fanatic" from Service of the Sword, Crown of Slaves, Torch of Freedom, and Cauldron of Ghosts.

If you need anything before Mission of Honor, you can get the e-books for free at this website with the permission and consent of both the publisher and the author. It also has a copy of the EARC of MoH there, but that is from before final editing. Anything after, I am afraid you will have to purchase yourself. If I could, I would like to recommend purchasing any e-books from Baen Publishing directly, rather than from Amazon. As I understand it, both the publisher and the author get more per book that way, plus you can get the book in several different formats and can continue to get them as long as Baen is around. It is great if you ever switch from a Kindle to anything else.

Hope you have fun with them.

pinzig wrote:Some sort of list or flow chart on where to pick up the sidelines would be good. I've read the Weber/Lindskold treecat novels (I enjoyed her Wolf's Eyes series, and I think she does quite well by the 'cats!) and I may have read the other side books at some point but a reference on where to pick up in reading order on those branches would be most appreciated.

Thanks Much,
-PinZig

TBH, the best way to read the books, for a first time reader of the series, is in publication order. Once you've done that, you can follow the suggested internal chronology list here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorverse ... chronology

crewdude48 wrote:Quick question. By "books 12, 13, and 14," what books do you mean? Because the most recent, Cauldron of Ghosts, is book 26. Mr. Weber does not consider the Talbott branch or the Torch branch of the stories as separate from the Manticore Branch.

Just for future reference, when referring to books here, we usually use a three (or very rarely four) letter acronym for the title. FiE-Flag in Exile, CoW-Changer of Worlds, SftS-Storm from the Shadows, HoS-House of Steel.

To expand on this, a list of the abbreviations and acronyms used here on the forum can be found here.

What and when is the next "Honorverse" book?