2006-10-22 A "Next Generation" for the Honor Harrington universe

This book is set in the same Universe and timeframe as David Weber's "Honor Harrington" novels, sometimes nicknamed the "Honorverse." The events take place at approximately the same time as "At all costs".

If you have not read any of the other books in the series: this novel is a space opera set thousands of years in the future. It tells the story of a group of mostly new and inexperienced crew members on a brand new and powerful space cruiser, "Hexapuma." They face first intrigue and terrorism, and then increasingly desperate battles against some really evil bad guys.

The Hexapuma's home star nation, Manticore, has just been attacked by a star nation called Haven, and her crew were expecting to be sent to join in that war. At the last minute their orders are changed and they are sent to show the flag in a relatively poor and underdeveloped area of the galaxy called the "Talbott Cluster". This cluster has just voted in a plebiscite for annexation to Manticore: some of those on the losing side in that referendum are deeply unhappy about it and start to make trouble. This is further stirred up by some truly evil corporations with an agenda of their own, and the people those corporations have bought in various governments. The bad guys are making big profits from an illegal trade in slaves, and want to stop the annexation because Manticore is one of the nations which enforces the laws against slavery most strictly. The crew of Hexapuma are in for a more dangerous and exiting time than anyone expects.

If you are familiar with the rest of the series, this book features a new group of central characters, mostly in the next generation from the heroines and heroes of the previous books. Some of the main characters in "The Shadow of Saganami" are completely new, others have had parts in previous books or appeared in short stories. Two familiar characters from "Honor Among Enemies" are serving on Hexapuma and take part in the induction of the new cadets - Ginger Lewis, who has earned a commission and is now the ship's Engineer commander, and Aubrey Wanderman, who is now a Senior Chief Petty Officer. It is obvious that they are still at least friends, but Weber deliberately leaves it to the reader's imagination whether Ginger and Aubrey are now an item.

With the most recent group of books in the "Honorverse" Weber and his collaborators seem to be establishing three groups of characters and storylines, although they are all linked in a reasonably consistent manner into one history.

There is the main sequence featuring Honor Harrington herself, in which the most recent novels are "War of Honor" and "At All Costs." There is a series of espionage stories, in which "Crown of Slaves" is the first full length novel. And "The Shadow of Saganami" appears intended to kick off a "next generation" sequence featuring some younger officers in the Grayson and Manticoran navies such as Helen Zilwicki and Abigail Hearns.

In the main series of Honor Harrington books, both space warfare technology and galactic politics recreate a situation which bears a very strong, and obviously deliberate, resemblance to sea warfare at the time of Nelson, and particularly to the "Hornblower" novels of C.S. Forester. In "The Shadow of Saganami" these parallels are much less marked.

Honor Harrington herself gets a cameo at the start of this book, as she presides over a graduation ceremony for the cadets leaving the naval academy at Saganami island. She goes off to command Eighth fleet, a story which is told in "At all Costs": they go off in the opposite direction as new midshipmen on "Hexapuma."

If you are planning to read both this book and "At all costs", read "The Shadow of Saganami" before you tackle "At all costs." While the books run approximately concurrently, this one finishes first and the consequences are reported back to Honor Harrington before the final battle of "At all costs." So if you read "At all costs" first it will give away the ending of this one.

Though this novel has a lot of intrigue and politics in the mix, most of those who read David Weber's books for the battles will still enjoy it, as it has a lot of fighting, some in space, some on planets. It also includes some of his best writing.

In particular, because most of the battles involve single ships or small squadrons rather than huge fleets, Dave Weber's worst weakness - that he started off as a wargame designer and still sometimes thinks too much like a wargamer - does not come into play. Captains and admirals commanding real battle fleets crewed by thousands of human beings and representing vast resources cannot, and indeed should not regard them as expendable to the same extent that wargamers moving counters on a board or images on a computer screen can.

However, single ships and squadrons of cruisers and below really do sometimes fight the kind of sacrificial action against overwhelming odds which Weber often includes in his books - particularly in defence of convoys. The heroism of Edward Saganami which the cadets hear about at the start of this book has plenty of real world equivalents such as the sacrificial courage of the captains and crews of HMS Jervis Bay and HMS Rawlpindi in World War II.

The new characters are fun and interesting to read about. I liked all the Honorverse books, but "The Shadow of Saganami" is one of my favourites.