One
of the greatest things about David Weber's Honor
Harrington
franchise is his incredible generosity in allowing others to play in
the wonderfully (and increasingly intricate) sandbox he has created
over the past two decades. Whole books and sub-series have been
written – with his oversight, to be sure – by other great science
fiction authors. This is in addition to the very actively involved
consulting group BuNine which recently gave us The
Honorverse Companion
[link].
It all adds to the rich breadth and depth of the world in which
Honor Harrington's own story is being told. This sharing of the
Honorverse began as early as 1998 with the appearance of More
Than Honor,
which contained three novellae and short stories in addition to an
extensive infodump regarding the background, history, and theoretical
science of “The Universe of Honor Harrington.” That collection
was followed by several more released with varying frequency over the
next fifteen years, with stories written by a variety of authors both
known and unknown to me – Weber himself always contributes, joined
by such as David Drake, Timothy Zahn, Jane Linskjold, and S. M.
Stirling – culminating in this, the sixth. Sure, the stories have
been of varying quality and relevance, but they are always
entertaining and more often than not, even when written by other than
Weber, introduce characters and background that will show up and play
integral roles in his own “main” narrative. None are to be
missed by fans of the Honorverse.
In
this volume we get, as usual, a mixture of novellae and short stories
– I'm not sure where to drawn the line – two
of which are by Weber himself. And as Weber's contribution to the
very first volume gave birth a decade and a half later to the Star
Kingdom
series of Young Adult Novels, so does at least one of the other
stories herein serve as a springboard for an ancillary series to
come. As will be seen, I hope, in my short little discussions below,
the overall title of this volume, Beginnings,
is well-chosen.
