This
will be a fairly short entry for a fairly long book – that would have been twice as long had the publisher not balked!
Part
of the reason for my uncharacteristic brevity is that A
Rising Thunder
is 'way too complex to summarize easily. It is the thirteenth novel
in the Honor Harrington
series proper, which began as a riff on the 18th-early-19th-century
naval warfare during the post-French Revolutionary and Napoleonic
Wars transferred onto an interstellar stage. The comparisons with
C.S. Forester's great Horatio
Hornblower
series only begin with the “coincidence” of the respective
heroes' initials. In the early volumes the parallels were much more
explicit than they are now – sometimes to a ridiculous degree even
to those having only a passing familiarity with the history of the
age. For instance, the Star Kingdom of Manticore (Britain)'s
opponent is the People's Republic of Haven (Revolutionary France),
led by such men as Rob S. Pierre
and Oscar St. Just
– give me a break! – and I think there was even a Danton!
Those are probably just the most obvious; they are the ones that
come to mind, at any rate. Thankfully, we are long past that stage
in the series by now. Indeed, Weber's Honorverse
(Honor Harrington
Universe) is so much more now than it once was, growing into a huge
tapestry of interrelated novels that go far beyond simple
interstellar war – although there is still
plenty of that! – getting into high-concept
science-fiction/technological/spy/political/diplomatic thrillers
encompassing multiple
series, including a new line of “Young Adult” novels. In style, I think the old
comparison of Weber's writing to that of Tom Clancy's
military/political thrillers is most apt. Sometimes the sheer detail
that he includes can be overwhelming.
The
gist of the current situation that is playing out, again, in multiple
series (and Weber allows other writers to play in his quarry-sized
sandbox both as contributors to several volumes of short stories and
as co-authors on several novels), is that the events of the past few
decades, centuries even, are part of a long-standing plot by a “star
nation” based on “genetic slavery” manipulating the various
other polities to war with the ultimate aim of setting themselves up
as the last state standing. That there is such a puppet master
behind the scenes is only beginning to be suspected by the main
players. Specifically, in this volume, the home planets of the
recently-declared Star Empire
of Manticore are reeling from a Pearl Harbor-esque sneak attack from
the unseen enemy. Manticore finds itself in an unexpected alliance
with its former enemy, a now-reformed Republic of Haven, as the
Brobdingnagian Solarian League, the largest, most ancient star nation
of them all, centered on Earth, is maneuvered into a suicidal attack
against Manticore to precipitate a constitutional crisis in the
latter. For the first time in most of a thousand years, there is the real
prospect of the Solarian League shattering as a certain core member
system objects to this course and declares its intention to secede.
That
short description is so
short, partially in the interest of not giving away any spoilers,
partially – as I said above – that there's just no way to
adequately summarize it, that I fear it to be a case of reductio
ad absurdum. Ah well – go
read it for yourself – preferably, starting from the first volume,
On Basilisk Station. That and most of the series are available in free ebook form here.
It's
a bit disconcerting that I've been reading this book just as our own
United States – the clear model for the Solarian League – finds
itself increasingly threatened by a constitutional crisis to the
point that there are even increasing murmurings hinting at serious
movements in some quarters toward secession or even dissolution. And there is the sense that in real life, as in this series, darker days lie ahead before good will triumph.
Cheers,
and Thanks for Reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment