New Honor Novel?

Will some of you please go to the new Multiverse snippet #2 and be thankful that we still have RFC to write for us, then quit your whining that he doesn't write the stories you want fast enough.
Cheers
John

OrlandoNative wrote:

SWM wrote:So, the time between the publication of Cauldron of Ghosts and the next Honor Harrington book will be two years. Big deal!

It may not be a big deal to you, but not everyone has the same outlook. The question is what percentage of the series readership has a different point of view than you. Some obviously do.

SWM wrote:Have you considered that David wants to write other books? Or that he sometimes has to have a break from the Honorverse? Have you considered that fans of those other series want to see new books, too? There are nearly as many fans of Safehold now as of the Honor Harrington books.

Despite what many fans here may think, the Honorverse is not the goose that lays golden eggs. Writing just one series will not pay the bills. And writing just one series is a good way to burn out.

I'm not saying he doesn't. And, indeed, everyone occasionally needs a vacation.

But any producer of product (and a story is definitely a product) has to keep their *customers* happy. Otherwise they will find someone else's "product" to read. Which directly affects that ability "to pay the bills". In any case, there have been (and are) successful writers with single series, a couple of series, or even *no* series (all their books being stand alone); so I don't think your argument is particularly compelling. The only authors I've noticed that manage to make a go of having more than 2 or 3 series concurrently ongoing with reasonable wait times between books are ones who tend to write shorter (200 pages or so) novels; which they seem to be able to crank out relatively quickly.

OrlandoNative wrote:

Kytheros wrote:Eh ... a noticeable amount of the size inflation in the latest Honorverse (modern era) novels is the repeat material from the overlapping in-universe timeframes.
That in-universe overlap doesn't do a thing about the real life intervals between releases.

Actually, I didn't mean time between *publishing* of books, but time in the time line between books. I don't see where that's significantly changing.

The rest of us have been talking about publication schedules. That's the purpose of the thread.

George J. Smith wrote:I for one hope that Mr Weber is giving some thought as to who will take over from him to continue the on-going story of the Haven Sector.

I think he intends to use the 2(?) more Honorverse novels to wrap up the SL and clear up the cesspool that is Mesa, the MA will go back to hiding under a convenient rock (asteroid )and not resurface until the RF has been fully consolidated, that is where Raul & Katherine will come into play, in other words the timeline will be back to what he envisioned when he started the project and before the first word of OBS was written, and of course that is where the new writer will be required.

Just my opinion you understand.

Given how many novels have been written already, even before even the existence of the Mesan Alignment was know, I just don't see how 2 more books could really do justice in "clearing things up". A war with the SL and it's successors (remember, Haven had 3 different governments during the time of hostilities - Legislaturists, Public Safety, and now the restored Republic) isn't likely to be able to be covered by just a couple of books. Or even, probably, a half dozen. Not unless there's going to be a LOT of "skipping over" that, at least in this series, David hasn't done. And then there's the Mesan Alignment. They're basically off Mesa at this point, so the Alliance is first going to have to find their hidden base, and then do something about it. Since the Alignment had folks everywhere, I doubt much of the Alliance tech is unknown to them, and, remember, they have tech of their own that the Alliance doesn't. So I don't see a quick and easy resolution there, either.

So 2 or 3 books to handle all this seems unreasonable, unless they're about 10,000 pages each. Which I sort of doubt is likely.

I can't really see an author with David's experience doing such a long and complex "build up" just to come to a screeching halt with a "quick ending". I'd certainly feel "cheated" if he did something like that, and, I suspect, a fairly large percentage of his readership would probably feel the same way. I wouldn't mind seeing the series keep going for many years to come; after all, even once the situation with the Alignment and the SL is settled, there's still the rest of the galaxy out there. Big as it is, the SL and the other star nations to date only seem to cover a very small portion of it; and so far the only sentient aliens we seem to have any info about are the ones on Basilik and the treecats? Plenty of opportunity for exploration and/or something unexpected to happen, like a bungled encounter with some advanced aliens

SWM wrote:The rest of us have been talking about publication schedules. That's the purpose of the thread.

I understand that, but the post I quoted seemed to be concerned with time gaps in the *story* time line, rather than in novel publication. Perhaps that wasn't what was meant, but that's how it came across to me.

From what I've seen so far, it would appear that gaps in the story time line are minimal. That makes some sense, since even though the hostilities have lasted about 2 decades, there have been at least 10 books, and each seems to cover somewhere around a year or two, plus or minus a few months.

OrlandoNative wrote:

SWM wrote:The rest of us have been talking about publication schedules. That's the purpose of the thread.

I understand that, but the post I quoted seemed to be concerned with time gaps in the *story* time line, rather than in novel publication. Perhaps that wasn't what was meant, but that's how it came across to me.

From what I've seen so far, it would appear that gaps in the story time line are minimal. That makes some sense, since even though the hostilities have lasted about 2 decades, there have been at least 10 books, and each seems to cover somewhere around a year or two, plus or minus a few months.

The one large in-universe timeskip was between Ashes of Victory and War of Honor. That was 5-ish years, I think, and was mostly the High Ridge government 'managing the peace'. I think the next largest timeskip was between On Basilisk Station and Honor of the Queen at the two years of the Star Knight-class HMS Fearless in Silesia.

The shortest in-universe interval between books (before they started overlapping) was likely Short Victorious War and Field of Dishonor.


It's been what, five years in real life since Oyster Bay/Yawata Strike happened, and in-universe, it's been less than a year in the books since.

Kytheros wrote:
The one large in-universe timeskip was between Ashes of Victory and War of Honor. That was 5-ish years, I think, and was mostly the High Ridge government 'managing the peace'. I think the next largest timeskip was between On Basilisk Station and Honor of the Queen at the two years of the Star Knight-class HMS Fearless in Silesia.

The shortest in-universe interval between books (before they started overlapping) was likely Short Victorious War and Field of Dishonor.


It's been what, five years in real life since Oyster Bay/Yawata Strike happened, and in-universe, it's been less than a year in the books since.

Yes, and the only major "peak" point to date that I can think of that was ever skipped was the liberation of Trevor's Star. We go from it still being in Peep hands to it having been liberated at some point in the (fairly) recent past.

OrlandoNative wrote:

SWM wrote:So, the time between the publication of Cauldron of Ghosts and the next Honor Harrington book will be two years. Big deal!

It may not be a big deal to you, but not everyone has the same outlook. The question is what percentage of the series readership has a different point of view than you. Some obviously do.

If two years between books in the series is too long, then David would have lost his audience fifteen years ago.

Yes, I can see that there are people feel differently. I have seen people complaining right after every book is published about how long it will be until the next one--even if the next one is scheduled for the following year! Some people will not be satisfied. I see it, but I really cannot understand that kind of griping. But I suppose we will have to put up with it again, like every year since this forum started.

OrlandoNative wrote:

SWM wrote:The rest of us have been talking about publication schedules. That's the purpose of the thread.

I understand that, but the post I quoted seemed to be concerned with time gaps in the *story* time line, rather than in novel publication. Perhaps that wasn't what was meant, but that's how it came across to me.

From what I've seen so far, it would appear that gaps in the story time line are minimal. That makes some sense, since even though the hostilities have lasted about 2 decades, there have been at least 10 books, and each seems to cover somewhere around a year or two, plus or minus a few months.

No, the message you replied to was about gaps in publication schedule.

OrlandoNative wrote:

George J. Smith wrote:I for one hope that Mr Weber is giving some thought as to who will take over from him to continue the on-going story of the Haven Sector.

I think he intends to use the 2(?) more Honorverse novels to wrap up the SL and clear up the cesspool that is Mesa, the MA will go back to hiding under a convenient rock (asteroid )and not resurface until the RF has been fully consolidated, that is where Raul & Katherine will come into play, in other words the timeline will be back to what he envisioned when he started the project and before the first word of OBS was written, and of course that is where the new writer will be required.

Just my opinion you understand.

Given how many novels have been written already, even before even the existence of the Mesan Alignment was know, I just don't see how 2 more books could really do justice in "clearing things up". A war with the SL and it's successors (remember, Haven had 3 different governments during the time of hostilities - Legislaturists, Public Safety, and now the restored Republic) isn't likely to be able to be covered by just a couple of books. Or even, probably, a half dozen. Not unless there's going to be a LOT of "skipping over" that, at least in this series, David hasn't done. And then there's the Mesan Alignment. They're basically off Mesa at this point, so the Alliance is first going to have to find their hidden base, and then do something about it. Since the Alignment had folks everywhere, I doubt much of the Alliance tech is unknown to them, and, remember, they have tech of their own that the Alliance doesn't. So I don't see a quick and easy resolution there, either.

So 2 or 3 books to handle all this seems unreasonable, unless they're about 10,000 pages each. Which I sort of doubt is likely.

I can't really see an author with David's experience doing such a long and complex "build up" just to come to a screeching halt with a "quick ending". I'd certainly feel "cheated" if he did something like that, and, I suspect, a fairly large percentage of his readership would probably feel the same way. I wouldn't mind seeing the series keep going for many years to come; after all, even once the situation with the Alignment and the SL is settled, there's still the rest of the galaxy out there. Big as it is, the SL and the other star nations to date only seem to cover a very small portion of it; and so far the only sentient aliens we seem to have any info about are the ones on Basilik and the treecats? Plenty of opportunity for exploration and/or something unexpected to happen, like a bungled encounter with some advanced aliens

That's what I meant when I said they would hide under a convenient rock, Raul & Katherine will be the ones to finally defeat them when they decide to resurface 20 to 30 T years down the road, what is a couple or three decades to an organisation that has been planning/executing a strategy for 400+ T years

As for the author to take over from Mr Weber, he/she would be writing about Raul & Katherine & their contemporaries, not the current crop of players. And I expect that would take quite a few books as it is going to involve Raul being telempathic and possibly telepathic.

George J. Smith wrote:That's what I meant when I said they would hide under a convenient rock, Raul & Katherine will be the ones to finally defeat them when they decide to resurface 20 to 30 T years down the road, what is a couple or three decades to an organisation that has been planning/executing a strategy for 400+ T years

As for the author to take over from Mr Weber, he/she would be writing about Raul & Katherine & their contemporaries, not the current crop of players. And I expect that would take quite a few books as it is going to involve Raul being telempathic and possibly telepathic.

Somehow I don't see the Mesan Alignment "hiding under a rock". They were unknown, true, but mostly because they were, in reality, "hiding in plain sight"; a lot of their personnel scattered amongst the Mesan transtellars like Manpower, that provided excellent cover.

Also, their upper echelon seems too wedded to "hands on".

And don't forget their agents - O'Hanrahan, Nesbitt, and others scattered amongst Haven and the Solarian League; and no doubt elsewhere as well. Not exactly hiding, most of them, just not known to be part of the alignment.

Even if Raul and Katherine end up being the ones to finally finish things off, there's no way things could be static enough to justify just "skipping forward" to a time where they are old enough to be active participants. Certainly not with the pace things are going *now*. There are going to be battles, raids, conspiracies... ...all kinds of things in the meantime.

This isn't that last-ditch, hidden colony of Bugs on the other side of a closed warp point that aren't ever going to come back that same way. The Alignment can't just hide if they're going to keep their plan to rule the known galaxy in motion.