SPOILERS==Shadow of Victory Comments, Queries and Opinions

runsforcelery wrote:

jgnfld wrote:...

Yes. Big Gotterdammerung. But in truth, as was pointed out elsewhere, the real need for Siegfried and Brunhilde, at least, to die at that moment seems forced at best. With their resources they most certainly should have been able to bury themselves deep somewhere for a while and escape to Darius later.

What kind of interstellar master evil overlord doesn't have a cutout or ten ready and waiting?

I think you're missing the point from Albrecht's perspective.

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.

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.

Oh I didn't miss it! I know that's what you were saying.

But I just think a master plotter would have had cutouts ready. Due to other factors previously discussed I didn't feel the depth I know I was supposed to feel (and very often have felt in the Honorverse) there. I hope others did as I could definitely intellectually see it.

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.

On the other hand - that would be a 1st time. All the other names from pre-Diaspora times (like Sun Tzu, Lincoln or Clausewitz - to name just the 3 of them I can remember without any difficulties) remained unchanged through the series ...

Vince wrote: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!!

I don't think I'd say that. There's not really a shred of "plot thickening" in it. In a few cases, plot reporting, but even then it's mostly what was expected, not exactly anything *new*. It's probably accurate to say it's not "mainline story" in and of itself, but it contains many pieces of the mainline story that probably should have been recounted elsewhere.

Vince wrote: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.)

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.

For that to happen in one book, it would probably have to be the size of a single volume complete and unabridged English dictionary including all slang since the beginning of the English language.

The actual fall of the Solarian League is something that's likely going to take a *lot* of time, assuming it's covered in any sort of detail. Bits and pieces getting chopped off or falling away, maybe. The whole edifice? Not unless the Manties take out Earth itself, and that's something that so far they don't want to even consider.

For that matter, look at the Roman Empire here on Earth as an analogy. The original Empire spanned the whole of the Mediterranean, and even went into what is now Syria, Iraq, Iran, (Persia), parts of Germany, and part of the UK. It split into the Eastern and Western parts, and then fell individually (the western part to the Huns, and the Eastern eventually to the Moslems). The entire story of that fall would encompass over a hundred years; and descriptions of battles, sieges, cities falling, and what happened to the general population here and there would take a whole row of volumes, not just one.

When you've got a polity that encompasses thousands of star systems, (taking that from the vote count for and against Beowulf in the assembly) complete dissolution would no doubt take even longer.

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.

Mmmm... I'm sure he won't mind. After all, he doesn't get additional royalties on multiple readings by an individual purchaser...

runsforcelery wrote: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! )

And no doubt a few select others, of course. Like some on Beowulf.

Of course, I suspect even Hitler wasn't "oblivious" to the number of folks that were killed in Europe immediately before and during WWII, either. He just didn't care much, as long as none of them were him or any of his core "cronies".

I also don't recall any particular instance of him caring about *anyone* other than members of the Alignment. He certainly doesn't seem to care about what happens to Mesa itself. For that matter, in all the previous books it seems like the entire Alignment only treats Mesa as a means to an end, to be discarded (or at least not really defended) once that end has been reached, or even fairly well approached. There's no story-line evidence he'd care about any non-Alignment person who was a full Mesan citizen any more than he would a slave or seccy.

runsforcelery wrote: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.

I don't think the fact of his *existence* is ever going to be in doubt. His *location* might have been. A planet is a pretty large place, after all. Look at all the trouble the Mesan and Alignment security services had discovering Zwilniki and Caslet were actually *on* Mesa, and even then they didn't know exactly where. And that was prior to all the records scrambling from McBride's little cyber stunt. With all the confusion now going on, finding one, relatively unknown person out of a planetary population of billions is like finding a needle in a haystack without a metal detector at night in the dark while blind. And no cheating by lighting the stack with a match and then looking what was left behind in the ashes...

For that matter, him remaining on Mesa as long as he did was, in itself, a major lack of logic; once you have a basically fool-proof hiding place that no one else knows about, that's the best place to hide. He should have gone to Darius decades ago rather than staying on Mesa; from all the previous stories there's really nothing he did that absolutely *required* him to stay on Mesa itself. He's not part of the official ruling board, he's not a visible owner of any of the mega-corporations.

Timeskip.
RFC is setting up for the originally-planned timeskip!

IIRC, the original plan was to hint at the MAlign, but not to actually bring it fully out until about twenty in-universe years after the Battle of Manticore and Honor's demise protecting the system, but the plan got derailed due to Eric Flint and his super-agent-character Victor Cachat.
Now, though, the Good Guys (TM) know that the Mesan Alignment is somewhere, but first they have to deal with the "We need to shatter the Solarian League and set up dozens of successor states" thing and even when they've done that, they have no darn clue as to where to look.
Heck, the Renaissance Factor would probably use the Manty Allied-State-Building to "come into existence".

So, the next book is probably going to be the last Honorverse novel and will lay the seeds for the campaign against the Mesan Alignment, leading to the Raoulverse with Honor's telempathic son and his legion of Treecats.
He'll be a great tactician given that his mother will be able to taste his emotions to see if he understands the lessons.

roseandheather wrote:Given that I was one of the primary noisemakers re: getting more of who we appear to be seeing in this book, I feel like I should weigh in here.

(No, I haven't read it yet. I am but a poor student without spare pocket change for eARCs of books I can't bear not to buy, and I'm not buying it twice. I am, however, an inveterate spoiler-hussy who stalks the SoV Quotes thread like it's going out of style. So.)

That pointed out, I am absolutely delighted by what I've seen so far. Lester and Michelle meeting? Aivars and Lester meeting? Helen and Aivars hugging (and making me cry)? More Michelle Henke in general? Aivars and Sinead? Dame Amandine, to whom I'd thought I'd already said goodbye (and cursed RFC to the heavens for it, naturally)? And presumably Estelle and Augustus to boot? Granted, I'd love more Eloise and Tom than we seem to be getting, but she's had plenty of time in the limelight and I'm sure will get more. (Right, Your Celeryness? )

Seriously, give me all of it. The reason I keep coming back to this series is because the scope is so huge and the world so epic, there is always more to be seen from my (many, many, many) favorite characters, and even more from the ones I just like. Call me greedy, but if winding up at October 1922 PD yet again means more of all my favorites reacting to things I thought I'd missed out on getting to see them react to, I am all for it.

And yes, by the end of the thing I'm sure I will be cursing RFC's name to the high heavens (again) and only refraining from throwing my Kobo against the wall because it's an ereader and I can't afford to replace it if I break it via temper tantrum. As a writer myself, there is absolutely nothing more satisfying to me than to make my readers weep buckets and curse me to the ninth circle of Hell. I hope RFC takes it in the spirit in which it is meant when I inevitably do the same to him.

This is for RoseandHeather, but by all means you can all listen in:

It was subtle, but a huge hint was dropped about Abigail's possible love interest. Note,it was not any of the senior officers you have mentioned, but one rather large Armsmen from the Owen Steading Guard. Hope you caught that little tidbit.

Eagleeye wrote:

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.

On the other hand - that would be a 1st time. All the other names from pre-Diaspora times (like Sun Tzu, Lincoln or Clausewitz - to name just the 3 of them I can remember without any difficulties) remained unchanged through the series ...

They are major names associated with military history being quoted by folks associated with the military.

Realistically what percentage of the American population today is likely to remember that Alexander the Great's father's name was Philip if the subject came up in casual conversation? And we're talking about roughly the same length of time in history.

For that matter, how many can remember what Odyssyus's wife's name was, without looking it up?

Military history is a bit different than other historical lines. While there tend to be no end of officers, battles, and even military philosophers, there really isn't all that many who *stand out* Those who do usually do so because of some witty quotation attributed to them, unexpected victory over overwhelming odds, or even some astounding defeat when it was taken for granted the battle would go the other way. Plus, those things are studied in military academies. A military professional might study Waterloo, but do you think he's going to happen to study who was the first governor of Alaska once it became a state?

LTArmstrong wrote:

roseandheather wrote:Granted, I'd love more Eloise and Tom than we seem to be getting, but she's had plenty of time in the limelight and I'm sure will get more. (Right, Your Celeryness? )

While they are obviously good friends and trusted compatriots, I don't think there's really even a hint of more as yet. While there is a lot of story line since the death of her lover Zavier Giscard in the battle of Lovat, it's actually not been all that long in actual chronological time.

LTArmstrong wrote:

roseandheather wrote:Seriously, give me all of it. The reason I keep coming back to this series is because the scope is so huge and the world so epic, there is always more to be seen from my (many, many, many) favorite characters, and even more from the ones I just like. Call me greedy, but if winding up at October 1922 PD yet again means more of all my favorites reacting to things I thought I'd missed out on getting to see them react to, I am all for it.

And yes, by the end of the thing I'm sure I will be cursing RFC's name to the high heavens (again) and only refraining from throwing my Kobo against the wall because it's an ereader and I can't afford to replace it if I break it via temper tantrum. As a writer myself, there is absolutely nothing more satisfying to me than to make my readers weep buckets and curse me to the ninth circle of Hell. I hope RFC takes it in the spirit in which it is meant when I inevitably do the same to him.

This is for RoseandHeather, but by all means you can all listen in:

It was subtle, but a huge hint was dropped about Abigail's possible love interest. Note,it was not any of the senior officers you have mentioned, but one rather large Armsmen from the Owen Steading Guard. Hope you caught that little tidbit.

From what we've seen so far about Greyson, I'm not sure any such relationship is even *thinkable*.

From reading all of the comments, it appears to me that the book is very likely to be comprised of mostly prewritten material that didn't make the cutting room floor (like most of my posts LOL) of Shadow of Freedom. I suspect that Shadow of Freedom had to be edited significantly and there's no way RFC wanted to lose those words and thoughts.

AND... likewise, somewhere during the herculean task of writing the knee-baby to Shadow of Victory, it also became too monstrous of a beast's tail to hold onto, and got snipped, perhaps too eagerly, perhaps too zealously, perhaps too unavoidably and perhaps too hastily. (Screaming fans and deadlines being what we are.)

I've often wondered how an author can keep tabs on his many characters, worlds and settings and still maintain that edge which comes from his being a fan of his own work as well. Just as his or her fans, an author is NOT immune to the excitement created in his own world and the need to see it wrapped up and brought to its inexorable fruition, all else being equal — unless he doesn't. Especially with the responsibility of so many other characters and worlds and settings from other series invading his every waking and sleeping minute.

However, with so many other worlds from so many other of his works advancing on his thoughts and interests, sleeping and waking hours, how does an author fuel continued interest? Not interest to simply complete the series, but genuinely authentic interest in the characters themselves, where he bleeds along with his readers when one of his characters simply has to die — perhaps to support the weight of a not so particularly desirable yet inevitable responsibility to the plot, or because the plot itself has conspired agin said character and to not heed that truth becomes war porn.

How does an author remain on the edge of his own seat, also as a fan, with his mind playing out the scene to be written, that must be written, in his head — not being able to wait any longer to write it than his fans would want him too?

Until reading these snippets, I was secure in the knowledge that at the end of the day, Honor Harrington will survive to live out her remaining days with her loved ones, truly earning that... honor.

However, with a particular (snipped) portion of RFC's previous post, I'm now more worried than a lone hyena having wandered into a hungry den of lions...

runsforcelery wrote: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! )

Bold is mine.

This little emboldened source of my latest anxiety doesn't necessarily mean anything at all. I know. But RFC never really promised not to ever send Harrington to the breakers. And this will be the last book. And "David Weber" did originally want to kill off our beloved Salamander. Perhaps because she wouldn't socket into his planned direction of the remaining 'Verse.


I've got such a sinking suspicion and a foreboding of pain in the pit of my stomach. And it isn't from just eating too much of my wife's delicious spaghetti.

At any rate. Let me clear my throat 'ahem' ...

Don't do it David. Don't do it. Let her live. Please allow Honor Harrington to see her kids grow up. She deserves it. Those who love her, in and outta the 'Verse deserve it. And I deserve it. I love her. I love her you hear me? And if she dies in the final book, I'll become a broken shell of a "fictioner." Broken, you hear me? Simply broken!

To wrap up my own post, editing what may, I can live with this book failing in many of the things I'd like to have come to past, as long as the final book shows that this book was just a foreshadowing of an utter stupendous and monstrous read to come. How fitting would the end of the series be if it were a huuuuge masterpiece? 100 chapters, as 99-1/2 just won't do, of everything we ever wanted to see, know, hear, feel and experience - within reasonable reason, of course?

Besides, a big fat meaty final offering will look just great on my nice shiny bookshelf. I'll go and prepare a place for her. Okay RFC?

And... okay?


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