While there's a lot of chatter about Uncompromising Honor spread across the board, we seem to lack a thread intentionally meant to center the discussion for UH. As it is, without one, it'll just keep scattering across the HH boards.
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I just finished reading Uncompromising Honor. A good story, and a long overdue wrap-up of a few plotlines. There were much fewer various fights and last stands then I expected, but what there was, was solid. I liked the ending, really did. More like endings, plural. Honor spending 4 days above Chicago sounds like it should be worth another story by itself. I thought that the last few books have cut out all the paperwork and administration that a fleet commander had to do. (As Honor, and Weber, got older, there's been a noticeable increase in the amount of "spend time with your family, love your family" worked into his books.) Figuratively beating some sense into the Sol League made up for so much, though. Of course, if I was writing, I would have had to clarify/remind the issue of the shape of the ships- spherical like Dahak, or cylindrical like the earlier Manticorn ships? It would have been a plot point when landing ships in Chicago and using them as a rolling pin.
Anyway, I thought that the book lacked a lot of the personal struggles that Honor had in earlier books. Yes, they shouldn't be repeated, but there was a lot of H shows up, and the universe falls in line: no rules, no regulations, no money, no paperwork is there to stop her. There were none of the obstructionism or arguments that would dot anyone else's span of time from the book's start to end. Not even a paragraph with McGuiness arguing about reservations, or you can't use that docking port you aren't booked for it, in the background.
Not that that stopped the book from being good, or the time spent of what was a c-plot in earlier books from growing, all-or-nothing to risky bet to do you believe me now? into an A plot. The ghost hunters proved their worth, that they were right, and that they were very good at the narrow band of what they were good at. The Sol Moving Day went too far, but if you're going to build a space station, or any storage facility, then any art gallery, library, money bank, or server farm, aught to have had a way to land it's Very Important bits on a planet somewhere. I hope that there's a few thousand cargo pods scattered around Sol system that weren't blown up. While there was no exploration into it, in Sol as there was at Hypatia, a station is meant to be stationary, but when push comes to shove you gotta be able to save the goods.
And as for the fleet scuttle, people should have been jumping at the chance to get some for themselves. There's no reason that they can't suggest _where_ it scuttles, right? Drop a few into the sun, stack a few dozen on the surface of Venus and call it a habitat base, how deep can a super-expensive Solly warship get into the deeps of Jupiter and still send back info? Ideas that would have been too ruinously expensive up until then.
The ending was very satisfying, and not possible earlier in the series, as H clearly is banking on the new tech to be showy about. Honor going on vacation has all the hallmarks of James Bond trying to go on vacation.
Hypatia- Hypers or hippies?
7h- 7 heaven- Yay, violent crime! Familiar territory for readers from the 20th century. We should see more of the nano-drug market. After all, every human being has had nano dna work done, and Harrington's parents are nano medical specialists, and the Greyson planet is even more conservative than an _informed_ doctor. So what needs to be programmed to get the drug to stop working on a human?
And there's still a lot of man on the street we need to see of the Earth lapsebarbs.
It would have been nice to see what the news report of the Filatera bridge audio file would have been.
Manties: "Hey, guys! We found some evidence that Filatera surrendered then attacked. Then we attacked. But he surrendered, so we can all stop burning him in effigy now."
Hypatia- it looks like Harrington's not the only hero in the navy. It doesn't look like any of the survivors survived the Beowolf thing though.
-I understand that treecats are the series mascot, but it's just not right that they aren't, haven't heard of anyone trying to, making any treecat/earth cat hybrids. Just a few, just to see what would happen. Honor might balk at the idea, but the project's been opened up to a lot of people for quite some time now. And they don't all have to agree...
-Weber has given treecats modern pulse guns to go along with their normal
mindeater abilities, and so far the treecats are feral enough that they like the access to human living as much or more as they like
the unrestricted access to the rulership of at least three star kingdoms.
But how long will it be until they decide that some house cleaning needs to be done and a few assassinations need to happen? Nimitz has Harrington's brain set up just as cozy as wants. But now that the
Manticorns have taken over Earth, and all it's entrenched affulenza, Ghormangasts, Patriot Act, Jersy Shore Rich, Ski Lodge Rich, etc there's gonna be human citizens who are judged too stupid to be allowed to live.
When nanotech cures mental illness in a species, you either get sameness or a different shape that insanity will be expressed in. Treecats vs hoarders, godawful stuff like earstretchers, full body tattoos, the one story house with 20+ cats, etc and other stuff that is too stupid to be allowed under 'body modifications'.
Also hoping for a return of the aliens: the long forgotten, long unseen, from the original Basilisk Station book non-human sentient life. It's also possible that the treecat infection is making the humans change the maps, "forget" about a few planets..
HH's been the flagship series for Weber, and hope a return to it comes along some day. Until then, thanks. It's been a good read, a good ride, and a good adventure.
