On Basilisk Station

Honor Harrington, Book 1

By: David Weber

Narrated by: Allyson Johnson

Having made a superior look a fool, Honor Harrington has been exiled to Basilisk Station in disgrace and set up for ruin.

Her demoralized crew blames her for their ship's humiliating posting to an out-of-the-way picket station.

The aborigines of the system's only habitable planet are smoking homicide-inducing hallucinogens.

Parliament isn't sure it wants to keep the place; the major local industry is smuggling; the merchant cartels want her head; the star-conquering, so-called "Republic" of Haven is up to something; and Honor Harrington has a single, over-age light cruiser with an armament that doesn't work to police the entire star system.

But the people out to get her have made one mistake. They've made her mad.

A Note from Author David Weber
There's been some confusion—not to say, um, energetic debate, readers and fans being readers and fans—about the correct pronunciation of "Manticoran." The truth, alas, is that a stitch was dropped. An error occurred. A mistake was made… and it wasn't Audible's fault. It was mine. Before Audible recorded the very first Honor Harrington book, narrator Allyson Johnson and I not only corresponded by e-mail but actually spoke to one another by phone. She wanted to make absolutely certain she had the correct pronunciations for names, places, star nations, etc., and I tried to make certain all of her questions were answered. And so they were. Unfortunately, at some point in the process, I replied to one of her e-mails by telling her that "Man-ti-core-ahn" was pronounced "Man-tik-er-ahn." Exactly how this happened is more than I can say at this point, except to blushingly disclose that the original e-mail remains intact, confirming to all the world that it was, indeed, my fault. I can ascribe it only to a temporary mental hiccup on my part and crave your forgiveness. If, however, you must blame someone for the mix-up, that someone should be me and not Audible, who have done everything they could to get it right.

©2002 David Weber (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Good enough that I will be picking up the sequels

OK, so I think that in the fantasy/SF audio book community we've been spoiled a bit. We're surrounded by several really good narrators: Stefan Rudnicki, Scott Brick, Reading/Kramer, and many more. Now all of a sudden along comes On Basilisk Station, read by a "merely" competent narrator, and we react in horror.

Honestly, I listened to this book in relatively few sittings (I had a couple of lengthy flights to sit through) and I found the story to be acceptably presented. Not excellent, not terrible, but acceptable. Acceptable enough that I will be grabbing the sequels as quickly as my credits renew.

(I have indeed read the novels previously, a few years ago.)

P.S. This is Mike - Heather is my wife, and her name is on the account here at Audible. :P

Slow Start, Great Finish

I was worried about the narration from the reviews, but found it more than adequate.

The start of the story was a little slow, and I was wondering if it was going to be the average redemption story. But the naval/marine simultaneous engagement and great character development was totally worth it. I also liked the nod to Prince Roger.

Because I am a total nerd, I am going to write a Star Frontiers adventure based around this book.

Honorverse!

I read this long time ago in Japanese and I remembered enjoying it. My memory was correct. I had a lot of fun rereading the book through audiobook. The narration was perfect and I actually could imagine the scenes while listening to it.

This is one of those military SF where one soldier moves on a builds a career. At the time when I read the series for the first time, I haven't read the Horatio Hornblower series. But this time I have and I now could see the resemblance there even though Honor is a woman.

Recommended for anybody who enjoyed HH series!

First book of a wonderfull series

This is the first in a series of Honor harrington books and it is a fantastic beginning. I would highly recommend listening to this series (now 12 books soon to be 13). If you like space opera this is absolutely good material. David Weber is great.

It's a shame audible does not make it eassier to listen to them in the correct oreder, because the order is really important.

But people can go to the honorverse wiki to find out what the correct order is.

Iffy narration worth it because of great story

A friend recommended the series, but after reading the reviews I was so nervous to get this as an audiobook. I'm glad I did, and I'm on my third book in the series. Sure, the narrator is kind of oddly stilted and in the beginning DOES sound like the Macbook voice reading. But I think either she hits her stride partway through or I adapted; either way it doesn't take much away from the story. Honor Harrington is a great heroine and the story is pushed along by the interactions of people with just the occasional dollop of space-math jargon. If you read both printed and audio books, maybe go print edition for this one, but if like me you only listen to audiobooks (commuting!) then don't pass this series by.

Enjoyable in spite of...

...the terrible reader. I'm sure the reading experience would have been better, but i still enjoyed the performance, probably only because of the quality of the story.

Beginning Hard to Get Into, Ending Great

I found this book a little hard to get into because things seem to go by slow at the start. I suppose the beginning of every series takes some time to note names and backgrounds. I would have liked to see a little bit more of Honor Harrington's life before she became a captain than to have a bunch of events from her past such, as schooling, being recounted to the reader. Eliminating some the extra descriptions that seemed to take up word space and having a little more action might have kept my attention better. Besides these minor issues I enjoyed the book and loved the build up to the ending. If you like space battles and following a character with a genius for strategy and command then you should like this series. I found David Weber's Harrington book because of the joint project between Weber and Ringo to create the Prince Rogers series. I also loved the Miles Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold and feel that these other authors bring up some parallels in their writing style and genre. It is interesting to see events taking place from a female lead and I give props to Mr. Weber for doing a great job with his character creation.

Larger Than Life!

Would you consider the audio edition of On Basilisk Station to be better than the print version?

No; the narrator was not my favorite.

What did you like best about this story?

The long-standing tension detween Harrington and Pavel Young drives some of the subplots quite nicely.

Which character – as performed by Allyson Johnson – was your favorite?

The narration was only adequate, so I would be hard pressed to name a favorite.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Klaus Hauptman's comeuppance was quite satisfying.

Any additional comments?

The narrator's odd pronunciation of the word Manticoran (it annoyed me no end).

Thoughts on my somethingth re-read

I could not tell you how many times I've read this book but I think this is my second time listening to it. If you like Sci-Fi, great characters, and interesting stories, this is the start of a great series. I usually don't like a lot of technical info in my science fiction - I usually skip it - but I've never skipped nor gotten bored with Weber's. High praise for me.

The reader is...okay. While I like many of the voices she gives the characters, some are real misses. And though I know it's not her fault, the way she says Mantacorian throws me every time.

What kind of name is Honor Harrington?

I don't like the main character's name, Honor Harrington. Good book even though the main character seems more of a robot than a human. It does try to give her emotions but they are very lame attempts. The plot is good and the story moves along pretty well, but sometimes seems to drag. I think I'll try another Honor Harrington book.