SPOILERS==Shadow of Victory Comments, Queries and Opinions

Thank you David
I have enjoyed all of of them
I am in fact in the midst of a reread leading up to SOV

runsforcelery wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:That is the current game plan. Exactly how I'll find a title with "Honor" that works is a bit more problematic.
Using her first name somewhere in every other book seemed like such a good idea . . . when I thought there'd be only six or seven of them.

I wont be getting this til November b/c I am re-reading all of it. I'm a spoiler hunter though so I think Ill be living on these forums ever so often.

Even with my reading abilities its going to take at least the official release for me to re-fresh my memory again.

Plus I really love the fact that Baen had those cds with some of the HB copies. Since to save space in the house I went mostly e-book.

Let me think....I think I was 13 or 14 when I found OBS. At that time I think only 3 or 4 of the books had been written at that point. Plus since I had more free time at that age...I devoured them all.

Since I find myself mentally screaming when reading many moments in this series I only have one conclusion for this kind of pain: Book Nerd Issues.

For me, as a reader, if I can get emotionally invested in something, then its a good book. Do I miss Honor being in the hotseat? Yeah but then again, lots of the anthologies did get me interested in the bigger picture anyways.

At the moment most indie SF, Baen, and Safehold is getting my money. Have mercy on my wallet. Please.

I thought the book was very well written with plenty of the touches of humor and insight that get me attached to the characters.

I do not think this was a good stand alone story. It is definitely part of a larger story. What it reminds me of is reading stories that were serialized in magazines when I was growing up. This series and several other I follow all read that way. They would drive me crazy. I would always swear I wasn't going to start a story until the end was published and yet I'd be out at the mailbox, waiting for my mother's magazines to be delivered, looking for the next installment.

I have sworn several times that I wasn't reading any more Honorverse or Safehold until the series was done. Yet here I am, haunting the forums for info and snippets, gobbling up eARCs, and sighing for more.

The story of Honor Harrington and her world is a wonderful story. I trust Mr. Weber's telling of it, he has never disappointed yet. Even if it tries my patience, wanting to know RIGHT NOW what is going to happen and that all is going to be well.

I think you should call the final book, "Yours is the Honor."

PeterZ wrote:I haven't read anything in the e-ARC besides the story. I did not recall the ART dedication. I should have considering Indy is my farotite new Shadow character. It makes sense that he seems more alive to me than the other's you have introduced.

As an aside you, Mr. Webber, do not introduce characters who do not help progress the story. They may also fill other roles, but the more real they seem to we, the often obtuse readers, the greater those characters will move the story along.

Obviously , Indy is alive and remarkably well in the Honorverse.

George J. Smith wrote:1) I certainly hope you genuinely forgot to include please in your statement.

2) It is up to the authors of stories to include or otherwise any character(s) they wish.

runsforcelery wrote:I think he meant it as an observation --- and a very kind one --- not a command, George!

I think I should go back to school , I read the statement completely wrong, totally missed the ", you" before the "Mr. Weber". Might have been better if the "," was after aside instead

I think my selective hearing has started to affect my sight as well

Humble apologies

runsforcelery wrote:

ChronicRder wrote:I haven't read the entire thread, but I have read the entire earc. Read further at your peril if you haven't read it all yet.


Can we please get positive traction on the story going forward? As it is, this book just seemed like a needless book designed to make quick cash and take advantage of readers. I feel really let down by this book, however well written it is.

You are, as anyone else --- and as I've said previously on this forum --- entitled to your personal opinion. You should, however, be aware, that I am seriously and sincerely pissed off by the section I've bolded above. You stated it as "just seemed like," which is a phrase often used by people fond of weasle-wording their accusations. I do not say that was your intention; I say it "just seemed like" that to me.

I have never and will never --- ever --- write a book or tell a story to "make quick cash and take advantage of readers." If that's what you genuinely think I've done in this case, then please punish me by never spending money on one of my books again.

Look, man, we can trade bribes back and forth over this book and my response to it. Bottom line is, I'm a voracious reader of your work, but this book ultimately disappointed me. Not because of your writing style, but because I thought this book was supposed to propel the story forward by more than a matter of hours/days. There were scenes in there I really enjoyed, as I also mentioned in my unedited post. However, I was really hoping to get some of the issues brought up elsewhere like the captured fleet problem, the SL-GA war, Beowulf, and whether or not the GA can stumble across Darius. As it was, it felt like this was another anthology and more window dressing.

You can bold whatever you like, sir, and are free to be as pissed off as you desire over something I wrote. Doesn't hurt my feelings a bit. However, allow me to bold something else that doesn't (see above), to borrow your colorful expression, use weasel words in my original critique or review of this book. That was the reason I phrased my post the way I did. Perhaps I violated the KISS and BLUF principles by not starting with that sentence first. O well, I never claimed to be the best writer here.

runsforcelery wrote:That is the current game plan. Exactly how I'll find a title with "Honor" that works is a bit more problematic.
Using her first name somewhere in every other book seemed like such a good idea . . . when I thought there'd be only six or seven of them.

Shadow of Honor?

Call it what you will, only PLEASE include a knock-down, drag-out fistfight between Honor and Anisimovna. I really want to see that beyotch get her ass kicked. And then Honor can turn her over to Torch for trial.

Wow, lots of things to think about here. I've got some class homework to do before my wife and I head off for the labor day weekend (Trying to finally get my bachelors degree in my late 50's, brain not so quick as once it was) so a few quick thoughts just based on what I've read here.
I haven't read the E-arc myself. Generally I'm a wait for the book kind of person so that the more egregious typos are all fixed if nothing else. Based on the comments of those who have, it looks like it's more background and story expansion then plot advancement. Fine I'm cool with that. It's a "Shadows" book, not an "Honor" book, so I expect more focus on the surrounding universe than the main line. And everyone says its well written.
That being said, I hope it's the last book that keeps retreading this ground. Robert Jordan's "Wheel o' Time" series could also be said to have been "Well written" as well, and I stopped buying those at around book 6 when the damned plot just dragged to the ground. At that point I lost all interest and actually couldn't care less what happened to the characters. And I want to be clear, I don't think either Mr. Jordan or Mr. Weber was trying to milk for additional fees as it seems some have implied. I think, at least in Mr. Jordan's case, that the story just got away from him/ That he got so lost in creating this fully fleshed out world, that the fleshing, so to speak, got ahead of actually telling a story. Don't know if that has happened here, because I haven't read it.
Perhaps it's more like the lateral growth that Eric Flint's 1632 series has experienced, where the story is spreading sideways as more and more creative side stories interact. I'll certainly buy the book and look forward to discovering which when the Kindle version hits Amazon. In the mean time there is always the next 1632 series book and the Safehold series book and several other series to look forward too as well. So no more doom and gloom folks, This was a sideways book. live with it.
Hopefully when Messer Weber writes the next "Honor" book we'll finally find out what dire fate has befallen Beowulf, the fruits of the Haven/Manticore cooperation at Bolthole, the trick that allows for pursuit of the evil Detweiler clan, etc. In my brain I'm calling it "An Honorable Chapter closes" or possibly "An Honorable Dusk" as David has implied he needs to get Honor offstage and hand off to her successors. (And David is certainly welcome to use either title or springboard from them if he wishes.)

In any case have a happy Labor day all and a great fall! Now I need to go work on my classwork and plant some Mums to replace the Dahlias that have all died back in my garden. At least the Vinca still look stunning. And then there is the front steps to fix and...

Larry

Jill A wrote:I thought the book was very well written with plenty of the touches of humor and insight that get me attached to the characters.

I do not think this was a good stand alone story. It is definitely part of a larger story. What it reminds me of is reading stories that were serialized in magazines when I was growing up. This series and several other I follow all read that way. They would drive me crazy. I would always swear I wasn't going to start a story until the end was published and yet I'd be out at the mailbox, waiting for my mother's magazines to be delivered, looking for the next installment.

I have sworn several times that I wasn't reading any more Honorverse or Safehold until the series was done. Yet here I am, haunting the forums for info and snippets, gobbling up eARCs, and sighing for more.

The story of Honor Harrington and her world is a wonderful story. I trust Mr. Weber's telling of it, he has never disappointed yet. Even if it tries my patience, wanting to know RIGHT NOW what is going to happen and that all is going to be well.

I think you should call the final book, "Yours is the Honor."

^ that.

I can only see one workable option: as soon as the draft is done, post it here [complete, no slippery edits!] and hold a title contest. Disqualify cthia d'office, and get, say, Duckk and Drak to weed out the fluff [i'm all in favour of puns, but _bad_ puns should be reserved for Xanth titles], and you should have a nice set of strong choices to pick from. The winner gets to be the next superhuman Big Bad whacked by Bahzell & Co. Or Alicia DeVries next would-be Evil Overlord, if you prefer.

runsforcelery wrote:
That is the current game plan. Exactly how I'll find a title with "Honor" that works is a bit more problematic.
Using her first name somewhere in every other book seemed like such a good idea . . . when I thought there'd be only six or seven of them.

runsforcelery wrote:
That is the current game plan. Exactly how I'll find a title with "Honor" that works is a bit more problematic.
Using her first name somewhere in every other book seemed like such a good idea . . . when I thought there'd be only six or seven of them.

Call it what you will. There is no hard and fast rule that a mainline boot has to have Honor in the title. Let's see:
On Basilisk Station
A Short Victorious War
Flag In Exile
In Enemy Hands
Ashes of Victory
At All Costs
A Rising Thunder

That's seven out of 13 - without any Honor at all.