As for the one-in-the-eye, Breakwater wants to transfer ships from the Navy, outfit them with weapons, and have his people trained to operate them only there's no room in the academy for his people nor enough people in the Navy to transfer over to train Breakwater's. The drama is increased with all the descriptions of how weak the Navy already is. It's obvious that A Call to Arms is a set-up to promote the Navy - versus all the anti-Navy politicians. It just goes to show that politicians are alike everywhere and when, allowing their own interests free rein, promoting their issues with lies. I'm guessing Weber decided to expand upon Timothy Zahn's short story Beginnings: "A Call to Arms". It's been four years since A Call to Duty, 1. Second in the Manticore Ascendant military science fiction series (a prequel to the Honor Harrington series) and revolving around that stickler of a Royal Manticoran Navy Lieutenant Travis U. Please edit this book and eliminate all of the extraneous plot lines and staff meetings, give me some energy please!!! Yes, once we finally get to the action it's great stuff - but along the way the pacing is too slow, it doesn't move along like the first book and moves at the pace of the long-winded later entries into the Honorverse. Travis Long barely makes an appearance in the first 160 pages of the book where he accomplishes only two things - he babysits someone's dog and turns in an old friend for violating ship's regs. And the main character, who we're told is the quite capable Lt. What do I mean by that? Well, simply put - too many characters doing too many things, attending too many staff meetings and dinner parties while the main baddies are super duper brilliant and amazing and can launch long-term multi-year complex plans that come together like clockwork, virtually undetected. OK.I wanted to love this book since I really enjoyed the first book in this new series, but it suffers from Honor-versitis. Many of his books are available online, either in their entirety as part of the Baen Free Library or, in the case of more recent books, in the form of sample chapters (typically the first 25-33% of the work). In 2008, he donated his archive to the department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University. Her story, together with the "Honorverse" she inhabits, has been developed through 16 novels and six shared-universe anthologies, as of spring 2013 (other works are in production). Forester's character Horatio Hornblower and her last name from a fleet doctor in Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander. One of his most popular and enduring characters is Honor Harrington whose alliterated name is an homage to C.S. He frequently places female leading characters in what have been traditionally male roles. Many of his stories have military, particularly naval, themes, and fit into the military science fiction genre. They're about to find out why they need the navy…and how very, very fortunate they are that Travis Long is in it.ĭavid Mark Weber is an American science fiction and fantasy author. After all, what does a sleepy little single-system star nation on the outer edge of the explored galaxy need with a navy? Unhappily for them, the edge of the explored galaxy can be a far more dangerous place than they think it is. For that matter they're pretty sure they don't need the Royal Manticoran Navy, either. At the moment,there are powerful forces in the young Star Kingdom of Manticore's Parliament that don't think they need him. Travis learned that lesson the hard way as a young volunteer in basic training, and he knows that if he could just keep his head down, turn a blind eye to violations of the rules, and avoid stepping on senior officers' toes, he'd do just fine.īut the one rule Travis Long absolutely can't break is the one that says an officer in the Royal Navy does his duty, whatever the consequences. The bad news is that two of the best ways of making enemies ever invented are insisting on enforcing the rules.and thinking outside them when other people don't. That talent has stood him-and the Star Kingdom-in good stead in the past, and it's one reason he's now a "mustang"-an ex-enlisted man who's been given a commission as a king's officer. The good news is that Travis is one of those rare people who may like rules but has a talent for thinking outside them when everything starts coming apart. Unfortunately he lives in the real universe. Lieutenant Travis Long of the Royal Manticoran Navy is the sort of person who likes an orderly universe.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |