SPOILERS==Shadow of Victory Comments, Queries and Opinions

Cthia,

One thing one has to remember is that the military profession is not exactly a *safe* one. This is "military opera". People die. Good people, bad people, grunts, even generals. Expectedly or unexpectedly.

We've already seen characters killed off in the series to date that I'm sure some of us would have preferred to have lived longer and gone on to do more.

Let's just put it this way: Prolong doesn't protect one against nuclear weapons.

OrlandoNative wrote:Cthia,

One thing one has to remember is that the military profession is not exactly a *safe* one. This is "military opera". People die. Good people, bad people, grunts, even generals. Expectedly or unexpectedly.

We've already seen characters killed off in the series to date that I'm sure some of us would have preferred to have lived longer and gone on to do more.

Let's just put it this way: Prolong doesn't protect one against nuclear weapons.

Yea. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And yes.

Except, that doesn't apply to the "Old Lady."

"They'll never get to her."

That's why her crew rides with her. They are secure in the knowledge that they'll never get to her. Oh no, not the "Old Lady." Because that particular textev came out of the mouths of her crew, who were always right in that regard. They somehow knew. And we have always supported textev and textev has always supported us. And... and... and I've always been and have remained loyal, as a member of the crew as well, since purchasing my first book, On Basilisk Station. I'm a member of that very first, very close, tightly knitted inner onion of Honor's. And if she dies, that onion will make me cry my soul out.

Besides, how can the "Old Lady" come to be known as the "Old Lady" if she isn't actually allowed to grow... well, old?

Anyway, that's my story and I beg, I plead, I beseech and I hope that RFC sticks to it.

cthia wrote:
Besides, how can the "Old Lady" come to be known as the "Old Lady" if she isn't actually allowed to grow... well, old?

Oldness is relative. To someone like us, she's old. Remember in Flag in Exile where it says she's been in the military for forty years? To a civilization with third generation prolong, that's a different story.

OrlandoNative wrote:

cthia wrote:
Besides, how can the "Old Lady" come to be known as the "Old Lady" if she isn't actually allowed to grow... well, old?

Oldness is relative. To someone like us, she's old. Remember in Flag in Exile where it says she's been in the military for forty years? To a civilization with third generation prolong, that's a different story.

I know. It's also a term of endearment. I'm just grasping for straws while gasping for breath. Desperation will fuel any argument.

As my niece is fond of saying...

I don't ask for much but I beg for a lot.

OrlandoNative wrote:

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.

The assumptions that (a) the Solarian League will completely disolve and (b) that the resolution will take as long as that of the Roman Empire did are not necessarily correct.

The MA never anticipated the complete collapse of the Sl and never really wanted it. Their plan is somewhat different, and I thought enough hints about it had been dropped for that to be apparent. It would seem I still have at least one surprise in reserve.

The resolution of the war with the GA may or may not take a long time. Nation states do collapse in thunderbolts, after all. It may later be evident that they've actually been collapsing for a long time, but the final break often comes both unexpectedly and suddenly. I think anyone who's been reading these books should be well aware that the SL has been in a long period of decline, whether it realized it or not, and that it's not the fall but the sudden stop that's the killer. I am not saying the galaxy will wake up one morning and the SL will be gone over night. I'm just saying that people have a persistent ability to figure the books "have" to go to one place when they're actually heading in a completely different one.

OrlandoNative wrote:

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.

In fact, at this moment no one outside the very innermost layers of the onion even has a clue that he and his clones/sons exist, and the MA's master plan is directed towards making sure it stays that way. That much, at least, should be crystal clear from the last several books.

He stayed on Mesa because Mesa remained the point from which the entire Alignment was managed for several reasons, some of which will become clear in the next book. Since this is a spoiler thread, I might as well go ahead and tell anyone who's missed it that there are actually two Alignments, and one of them has always been itended to be "discovered" by the rest of the galaxy. That's the part of it that the McBrydes (other than Zach and Jack) and Lisa Charteris' husband belong(ed) to. They are absolutely dedicated to the original Detweiler plan, they loathe Manpower (by and large), and they don't have a clue that Darius or the inner onion exists or of what it's master plan is.

There were a hell of a lot of balls int he air to make this work, and the onion's administrative HQ was always on Mesa, even though its military/infrastructure HQ had been moved to Darius. That's the real reason Albrecht was on Mesa to begin with.

On the empathy perspective, I personally think you've wronged him a bit. Maybe I was insufficiently obvious about it, but if you go back and look at the by-play between him and his wife, with his sons, with Anisimovna after she's brought fully inside, and virtually every other character who knows he exists, he has a sense of humor and he feels genuine affection. Now, your point is that there's been no indication that he feel that for anyone outside the onion, and I would argue that that's essentially true of any totally focused ideologue. The people inside their bubble --- whatever that bubble may be --- are real to them, and everyone else is either part of the problem or a potential resource to solve it, and the more radical their ideology becomes, the more pronounced that tunnel vision becomes. In that sense, your reading of his character is correct, and I'm certainly not trying to tell you that he's simply a badly misunderstood guy who's really a hell of a great human being if you only knew! Quite a few people inside the onion would tell you that, but the people inside Hitler's inner circle would have told you that about him for most of his time in power, too.

What I am telling you is that (1) this guy genuinely sees himself as the captain of the ship with a captain's responsibilities and (2) he is not immune to or unaware of the fact that his order to speed up Houdini is bound to kill a whole bunch of people who are "people" to him. He's staying behind for exactly the same reasons (allowing for the difference in their objectives) Honor wasn't about to send a courier home from Cerberus and get herself ordered out while any of the people who had trusted her were left behind. It's his job, and he's by God going to do it. And I never meant to imply that he sense of guilt over dead seccies or dead slaves was a primary reason for him to remain behind. His need to get out as many as he could --- remember that there's still an evacuation ship in Mesa orbit when Mike arrives --- and to be the "last man off the ship" plays a much larger part in his thinking, but there is a heightened sense of responsibility because of the number of people inside the onion who couldn't be gotten out and were thus slated for obliteration along with all the other evidence of the onion's existence.

At any rate, I think to see him as a much "flatter" character than I have throughout, although I'm not sure if that's because I didn't do my job correctly or because his cause is so repugnant to you (as it should be) that it's overshadowed the clues I thought I was planting about his character.

Having said that, I did intend for his final decision to come as a surprise to the reader, so I didn't fall all over myself painting any "He's really a sweetheart!" stickers on his chest in the earlier books!

runsforcelery wrote:

clancy688 wrote:I fully agree with the main critique of this book:

I fail to see where this is a "Honor Harrington" mainline book. Because it totally isn't, and I'm really really disappointed that it isn't. Imho it was being advertised as one, yet the main plot was literally untouched. Just like another reader here I kinda regret getting the eARC, because what's in there is totally not the information I was looking for.

I really am wondering what MWW and Bean were thinking when they created this. I mean, they are reading the forums. They absolutely knew what we were expecting (a mainline novel), just as they absolutely knew what we were not expecting (another glorious side-show with almost no chronological progression).

Tl;dr:
I really feel a bit cheated here... :/

Okay, guys.

I'm sorry that so many of you clearly feel that the book failed to advance the plot. I obviously disagree with that point, but I'm only the author. And, BTW, that last sentence is not a snit at people expressing their opinions. There are time an author feels a story has to go one place, cover one set of events and set things in line, when his readers don't agree, and that's legitimate.

I always try to give fair value for the time my readers invest. Clearly, for some people, that doesn't always happen. There are reasons this books is where it is and does what it does, including the fact that I've been asked --- repeatedly and often --- for exactly the additional time with the characters which some of you are complaining about. That's probably a case of different strokes and readers who want different things. but it was one of many factors which went into the way in which I structured the book.

Any writer --- or any other sort of craftsman --- is obviously disappointed when his readers/fans/supporters are anything short of ecstatic over his latest work. Most of us get used to that, since we don't get to hit every ball out of the park. I personally like this book --- a lot --- or I wouldn't have turned it loose and turned it in, but if you feel disappointed in it, that's certainly your right. I do take a certain umbrage at verbs like "cheated," but that's probably because I'm human and because to me, at least, that implies that someone "phoned it in," which, I assure you, was not the case here. Whether the book works for you as a reader or not, there was a lot pf thought behind the scene selections I made and I always try to give you guys the best I've got.

There's no point doing this if I don't.

Extremely disappointing book. Cheated or phoned it in is a bit over the top for me, but I would say self indulgent, like a guitar solo at a live concert that goes on far too long, becomes repetitive instead of creative and you wish it was over well before it ends.

The plot does not advance at all and I think trying to wrap the series up in one more book would be a serious mistake in the opposite direction.

The parts of the book I enjoyed were the character development of Ginger, Sinead and Aivars and Lester. I also enjoyed the story of Indy and Mackenzie. The continuing romance between Paulo and Helen could have been given a bit more space.

A better title for the book would have been "The Adventures of Damien Harahap" and that is the real source of my earlier comments about self indulgent and repetitive. Introducing more revolutionary movements, all with the same cookie cutter plot lines also seemed like unnecessary padding.

Important stories from previous books were just left hanging unresolved, especially Beowulf. What happened with the planned SLN attack? Did other star nations leave the SL? What was the result of the SLN commerce raiding strategy? How did Manticores seizure of the wormholes effect the SL? A little was said about the Maya sector but that advanced the plot very little from previous books and there was no conflict with the SL or the results of that conflict. A little was also said about the internal SL investigation of a possible Mesan Alignment infiltration but, like the Maya sector, that story was not really advanced much.

I really hope the next "Honor" book is much better and published soon, like RFC, I am not young and my health is not good. I usually buy the e-ARC, then the kindle and hard copy editions, but for this one the e-ARC is more than enough.

runsforcelery wrote:
The assumptions that (a) the Solarian League will completely disolve and (b) that the resolution will take as long as that of the Roman Empire did are not necessarily correct.

The MA never anticipated the complete collapse of the Sl and never really wanted it. Their plan is somewhat different, and I thought enough hints about it had been dropped for that to be apparent. It would seem I still have at least one surprise in reserve.

The resolution of the war with the GA may or may not take a long time. Nation states do collapse in thunderbolts, after all. It may later be evident that they've actually been collapsing for a long time, but the final break often comes both unexpectedly and suddenly. I think anyone who's been reading these books should be well aware that the SL has been in a long period of decline, whether it realized it or not, and that it's not the fall but the sudden stop that's the killer. I am not saying the galaxy will wake up one morning and the SL will be gone over night. I'm just saying that people have a persistent ability to figure the books "have" to go to one place when they're actually heading in a completely different one.

Well, it's true that only you know *exactly* how this will end, Maybe, anyway, since you've changed course before. I've thought out many possible scenarios. Only a small percentage have a short timeline, though. And they're more "contrived" than some sort of logical progression to reach the "finale"

And I've never expected the SL to completely dissolve. Shed large parts, especially of the Verge and Shell, perhaps, but I think many of the Core worlds would probably remain in some sort of political association.

But as far as how long that takes, well, the potential analogy could be close to the truth in some respects. In Roman times, it generally took about the same amount of time (baring unusually favorable winds and other conditions) to go from the farthest east point to the farthest west point as it takes for a ship to go from the two farthest points in the SL in hyper (at least if it doesn't have the streak drive, anyway ) Oh, or the wormholes the Manties are limiting traffic through.

Even if part of the League crumbles, a good chunk of the rest might not know for months. Or possibly longer, depending on what path the news takes to travel.

And, no, I've seen the hints, and factored them into those potential scenarios. But, as you yourself have noted, what someone *expects* to happen isn't necessarily what does. The Alignment could be surprised, as well. After all, they were by the discovery of the Lynx terminus, weren't they?

It's true that some things can happen quite suddenly. But I don't think enough stage setting has been done to date here unless something entirely off the wall happens, like some ultra-intelligent xenophobic aliens are stumbled over (like the Gbaba in the Safehold universe) or maybe the Alignment's viral based nanotech actually *does* suddenly mutate and wipe out large segments of the population. Or someone develops a nova bomb like the Commonwealth in the tv series Andromeda.

Even the Galactic Empire in the Foundation series had been declining for literally thousands of years (of a 12,000 year history), and would have lasted much longer had the mutant called the Mule not happened on the scene.

The SL may be "rotten" in a lot of ways, but it's potential resources compared to any other player on the field are still enormous. I suppose it could suddenly stop if enough of the governing structure was suddenly taken out of the picture, but so far there's no indication of that happening. And, actually, apparently little to no chance of it happening *from within*.

It would be far more likely reasonable to postulate another sneak attack occurring on Manticore that totally took out the system (including destroying the planets). Or a small black hole moving at near relativistic speed on a collision course with either Manticore or one of the suns.

Sharp Claw wrote:The parts of the book I enjoyed were the character development of Ginger, Sinead and Aivars and Lester. I also enjoyed the story of Indy and Mackenzie. The continuing romance between Paulo and Helen could have been given a bit more space.

Actually, while it was interesting, I don't really see much *point*, at least at this time, of "developing" Sinead. Unless she ends up being the interim governor of Mesa or something in the next book.

Indy and Mackenzie, maybe, but probably in the previous book.

Sharp Claw wrote:A better title for the book would have been "The Adventures of Damien Harahap" and that is the real source of my earlier comments about self indulgent and repetitive. Introducing more revolutionary movements, all with the same cookie cutter plot lines also seemed like unnecessary padding.

Yeah, I thought that too. Or maybe "Damien Harahap: Galactic Alignment Agent.

Sharp Claw wrote:Important stories from previous books were just left hanging unresolved, especially Beowulf. What happened with the planned SLN attack? Did other star nations leave the SL? What was the result of the SLN commerce raiding strategy? How did Manticores seizure of the wormholes effect the SL? A little was said about the Maya sector but that advanced the plot very little from previous books and there was no conflict with the SL or the results of that conflict. A little was also said about the internal SL investigation of a possible Mesan Alignment infiltration but, like the Maya sector, that story was not really advanced much.

Well, some of that was covered a *little*. There is the one part with the Mandarins where they are discussing that 4 Shell systems have sent notice they want to secede. There's also a mention, I think, here, and one elsewhere a bit about how the "blockade" was hurting, but, again, not much.

And there's a mention about a task force sent to Beowulf not working out well. Whether that's a reference to Tsang's fleet or the putative expedition they planned in ART isn't clear. There's no mention of the other 4 core worlds around Beowulf that were considering secession.

There was also a brief mention, by an admiral in one of Frontier Fleet's fleets, about commerce raiding, but it sounded like it hadn't actually started yet. Of course, there were so many different times represented in the book it's hard to say *exactly* when that conversation took place.

All the battles with SL forces were small engagements in out of the way star systems. No large fleet actions by the SL or by Manticore *against* the SL, other than the occupation of the rest of the planets in the Madras sector, and, even there, that's just a mention. There's not really any details given.

I would have liked - and thought - that there would have been more about Beowulf and happenings in the Maya sector too. Obviously no matter what Barregos and Rozak aren't ready to kick things off yet, but a bit more about their exact plans and how ready the Maya sector is in general would have been refreshing.

And, as you say, would have actually moved the plot on a bit.