At All Costs

The books and stories are continuously disrupted by the author’s insistence on having almost all of the characters, but particularly the primary character, be crippled with gut wrenching guilt at all times. Its not even reasonable to have her walking around the way she’s written.

DURING battle, she whines and snivels about how horrible of a person she is, choosing to save her fleet and tens of thousands of her people instead of getting them all killed to protect 1 ship that couldn’t be saved. And WHILE she’s tearing herself up with that idiotic conversation, the indecision could end up getting her entire fleet killed anyway.

It just isn’t reasonable to think that an Admiral with 40+ years of front line experience could behave like that.

Sure, if the author insists on that crap every few pages, fine – but the character simply could not be dwelling on it during EVERY SINGLE BATTLE – have her tear her self apart and crawl under a bed after the battle, that still wouldn’t be believable, but at least its a little more so.

The other big issue – she’s an EMPATH and yet she’s always expecting people to be mad at her – when they aren’t – and despite having been an empath and seeing these examples of people understanding what she did, why she did it, and being pleased with it …. for multiple decades, SHE NEVER LEARNS…she always assumes she’s going to be hated. When the only people who hate her are people who don’t matter. She really behaves like a 10 or 12 year old – and she’s 60+

I really think you could cut 100+ pages out of any of these books and not miss any part of the story or character development that matters, and I often skip entire chunks to get past all that.

The overall story arc is decent – just need to stop beating us over the head with a sledge hammer with the guilt. I think we get it by the 11th book, maybe?

Weber’s titanic saga continues in Harrington’s latest escapade “At All Costs”.

While both sides pause to catch their breath it becomes readily apparent that the balance of forces is dangerously close, and the future of the Star Kingdom balances on a knife edge.

At All Costs continues the Harrington Saga in much the way its been unfolding, if you’ve made it this far you’ve already decided you’re a fan of Weber’s style and characterizations. His style is what it is, I personally love the technical explanations, but I know it can be jarring for some.

One warning must be made – some elements and characters from the Shadows of Saganami and Crown of Slaves series’ both show up and have a huge impact on the story, entire chapters are written in the voice of characters who I can only assume are from these series. If you’re not familiar with them (as I am not) you can find yourself doubling back quite often as they made reference to names, events, and organizations that before now you’ve not heard of (in THIS book series) with absolutely no effort to hold your hand if you’re not caught up on the other series (I’m told they’re quite good).

Even with the oblique references though, the story moves well, the characters are three dimensional, there is excellent development, and the action – though a little long in coming – is an excellent climax to a book loaded with build up.

Definitely recommended.

David Weber’s character development continues in the ongoing saga of Honor Harrington. Although it is saddening it is also important to be realistic and note that not all the heroes live in a confrontation such as this. The story of David in the Phoenix at the end of the book is very touching as well as enlightening because it’s not about the bird it’s about humanity and what we are capable of if we try.

At All Costs by David Weber

I’ve now reached that place in this series where I am reading this one for the first time. I can honestly say that this is another of those turning points. Where the previous book War of Honor was long with few significant space battles, this book still has a lot of world building exposition pertaining to the arms race and the political intrigue, but I think David Weber wisely put a fair amount of action and space conflicts.

This book also is the first book to make it very clear that the message David means to send is that war is hell and no matter how hard the characters try to avoid it something or someone conspires to throw them directly into it and each character is now doing their duty on either side of the fight while resisting the whole process.

But when all is said and done when the battle arrives it is no holds barred and pulling out all the stops for either side to do their best. Still, because of all the time spent on building the readers knowledge of the armament being used on both sides with the bulk of description heavy toward Manticore it sometimes seems a foregone conclusion who will win and the true score card is the one that keeps track of which of Honor’s friends will not come home from battle.

The Solar League plays heavy in things this time, though it appears they have had their hand in things from the beginning. So if it was hard enough to keep up with all the intrigue in Haven and Manticore now we add the Solar League and it’s a real mess keeping up.

Once again and always I advise starting at the beginning of this series and work your way up the numbers to acclimate to David’s style of writing and the Long Story that he creates. Although I will say this much if you want to start close to the end this one has the most coherent storyline to update the new reader to what’s been happening and the best examples of the space conflicts David does so well. It’s the best of most worlds and also contains all the juicy details about Honor Harrington and how she becomes Honor Alexander-Harrington.

The story begins where War of Honor left off. Haven has struck back into war from the belief that Manticore has been negotiating in bad faith, though the reader knows better from what we do know of what happened in that book. Now Haven’s government and military must deal with the truth as it begins to unfold. The realization that they have dug themselves in deep because events have managed to isolate them from any probable chance of reinstating negotiations.

They still try but there are forces out there conspiring to make sure that negotiations never happen so the war must go on while the balance shifts back and forth with bold moves from both sides causing the enemy all sorts of trouble. Finally things escalate to a point where the ambitions of both sides have grown in proportion to the increasing deadliness of the arms. When everything hits the fan there will be no way to avoid mass casualties.

David Weber weaves a convincing story where no one can be the winner and no one can back down. Though some times gruelingly long this one continues the story begun in War of Honor and it looks as though it will continue into the Mission of Honor. Racking up a total of over 2400 pages of Honor Harrington history.

I recommend this to all fans of Honor Harrington and those who like SFF with political intrigue and suspense and some awesome world building.

Fortunately the next novel is available so when you get to the end and want to know more; you can just swing right into Mission of Honor. Good Reading to you.

J.L. Dobias

Honor’s life takes another twist as she receives some unexpected news that brings both joy and complications (plus unwelcome attention from the media!). Meanwhile the war between Manticore and the PR of Haven rumbles on, and there is a lot of politics and intrigue behind the scenes. This novel is a very good read, with a lot going on, a lot of technical detail about military hardware (if you like that, which I do) and interesting characters that you care about. The Honorverse gets better and better! Can’t wait to get into the next novel.

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