Worlds of Honor

Worlds of Honor #2

By: David Weber, Linda Evans, Jane Lindskold, Roland J. Green

Narrated by: Kevin Collins, Lauren Fortgang, Khristine Hvam, Allyson Johnson

David Weber himself contributes three never-before-published excursions into Honor's world, among them the story of how she first discovered her own inner strength and courage; and a chapter in the history of the telepathic treecats, who form a bond with their chosen human that can only be severed by death. Roland Green, author of the Starcruiser Shenandoah series and the Peace Company series, delivers a hardhitting tale of conflict between Manticore and the People's Republic of Haven. Linda Evans, co-author of Time Scout, explores life with the treecats before Honor came. And Jane Lindskold, author of Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls, tells how Honor's Queen, Elizabeth III, had to learn the hard way what monarchy was all about.

©1999 David M. Weber, Linda Evans, Jane Lindskold, Roland J. Green (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Excellent!

These shorts are part of the Honorvese....and reflect the spirit and diversity found in it...enjoy!

Uneven but readable

As is to be expected from a multi-author anthology, the quality of the stories here is variable.

The Stray, by Linda Evans, is interesting, but the plot is a bit rote and the ending is abrupt. 3 stars

What Price Dreams, by David Weber, is a bit better, but lacks both character and plot depth. 3.5 stars.

Queen's Gambit, by Jane Lindsckold, is quite good, with a good examination of Elizabeth's early life and a well-crafted plot. Unfortunately, the need to abide by later (in series time) canon results in an unsatisfying ending. 4 stars.

The Hard Way Home, by David Weber, is the star of this volume, with an excellent plot (for its length), several new characters that are quite well written, and a few details of Honor's early career. This is an easy 5-stars and almost justifies the book on its own.

Deck Load Strike, by Roland Green, is a somewhat routine, but fairly well-written story of low-level warfare against a PRH-backed insurgency/invasion. Entertaining, but not especially strong. 3.5 stars.

The narration, also by multiple narrators, is similarly uneven, with a few jarring missteps, but overall pretty good.

The result is a book that is readable enough to recommend.

Honor Harrington Universe Book 9

Second book of HHU Anthologies

_____________________________The Stray________________________________
A flashback to the first years treecat and human contact, back to Stephanie Harrington time.
The story was written by Linda Evans, it's worth listening

__________________________What Price Dreams?__________________________
This was written by the master.
Again we see the story of adoption. The first Monarch who was ever adopted by treecat was Princess Adrienne.
The story tells about adoption and events which led to formation of Copper Wall Battalion,the Elite group which had responsibility of guarding Manticoran Monarchs.

__________________________Queens gambit________________________________
The assassination story of King of Manticore, the father of Current Queen

________________________The Hard Way Home_____________________________
Master's Work.
Natural Disaster On Griffin, this story tells about rescue mission.
Smooth reading.

__________________________Deck Load Strike______________________________
Don't read it, Don't waste your time and nerves




!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Attention!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Achtung!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Attencion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

____________________________NEXT BOOK iS___________________________

Changer of Worlds :Worlds of Honor Anthologies book 3

Highly recommended reading for Hornorverse fans

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"THE STRAY" by Linda Evans, performed by Kevin Collins
Fills in the story about Dr. Scott MacDallan, Fisher, a murder, and a bit more from the Stephanie Harrington story line. LOVED IT.

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"WHAT PRICE DREAMS" by David Weber, performed by Khristine Hvam
The princess Adrienne Winton is visiting Sphinx. She wonders if she might see a treecat. Assuming you're familiar with the main Honor Harrington story line, you already know where this is headed. Lot of fun to watch it unfold. LOVED IT.

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"QUEEN'S GAMBIT" by Jane Linskold, performed by Lauren Fortgang
This story is the main reason I'm writing this review. Another review, which currently ranked as most helpful, has ranked this particular story very poorly. I almost skipped it as a result. I'm very glad I listened to it anyway.

I loved meeting Elizabeth so young, along with her family and family-and-political friends. Seeing how she and others react and grow in response to the King's death was great. Like many of the anthology stories, these are events I already knew about. When Elizabeth told Honor of these events in the main story line, I was intrigued and always wondered how that all went down. Seeing those events unfold in such great detail was a lot of fun. LOVED IT.

(OTHER REVIEW RESPONSE, SPOILERS) Now, to address that other review directly. It said that the investigation should have been massive, with tons of people involved. But I actually got the impression that there was a larger investigation and evidence gathering etc at the scene. But as was revealed, the sabotage devices involved were destroyed in the accident, by design. There was no direct physical evidence. It was Elizabeth's and Justin's private knowledge about Elizabeth's gift of new grav skis that added great suspicion over which set of grav skis were ultimately used. But even after learning that the gift skis were indeed fine after all, there was still no evidence of sabotage with the skis that were involved in the accident. It's possible I'm reading too much in to how much investigating was actually done. But I feel that's a trivial thing. If it was deemed important, the author could have easily come up with a way to explain how much investigating there was (or wasn't) based on whatever political or royal whatzitz was convenient. That aspect just didn't seem that interesting or important. In that direction, however, Daniel Chou did say something like "we always investigate the death of a king or queen", which is what made me think a larger investigation did happen behind the scenes. It's just that further details on it weren't important to this short story.

(OTHER REVIEW RESPONSE, ONLY MINOR SPOILERS, AS LONG AS YOU'RE FAMILIAR WITH MAIN STORY LINE) As for the ending, I thought it was great. This is a companion story that takes place in the past of the main Honor Harrington story line. I already knew about the King's murder, that Haven, along with some Manticoran traitors, were responsible, and that they weren't publicly punished because it was much more important for Manticore to have time to continue their military build up. But much more impactful, this sheds wonderful light on Elizabeth's reaction when she learns of Honor's plans to challenge Pavel Young to a duel. The way she describes being denied justice for her father.... and how she absolutely refuses to deny Honor justice for Paul.... truely wonderful. I loved learning the details of how it all went down.

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"THE HARD WAY HOME" by David Weber, performed by Allyson Johnson
Lt. Commander Honor Harrington, executive officer of heavy cruiser HMS Broadsword. Susan Hibson, 12 year old military fangirl. Can't remember if the main story line ever mentioned when Honor and Susan met, but what a meeting! LOVED IT.

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"DECK LOAD STRIKE" by Roland J. Green, performed by Lauren Fortgang
Like with Queens Gambit, I almost skipped this one because of the reviews. But after loving Queen's Gambit, and as this one was pretty short, I decided to listen to this story as well.

There are precious few stories of marines in combat in the main story line. So here you can enjoy another. This story is very self contained. Just a little vignette of what's happening on one of the planets caught up in the war. I didn't love it like the others, but I LIKED IT just fine.

Someone mentioned something about the performance. The sound was a bit off, but nothing a slight adjustment to my bass and treble couldn't fix. Lauren Fortgang did a great job with Queen's Gambit, so I think the issue here may have been one of sound engineering.

(SEMI-SPOILERS) To address some other reviews: None of the characters here seemed familiar to me, so they may only matter for this one story. So in that sense, I suppose you could say the story "doesn't add anything". But I think that's unfair. The main story line has a few little self contained vignettes like this scattered about as well. Like this one, they don't directly affect the main characters, but they fill out the Honorverse, and that's good.

"Bleek"

Great stories, well read. Had some trouble with the treecat "bleek" s but not sure how that could be less odd.

A Treecat Anthology

This is a great Anthology with most stories either related to Treecats or, in some cases, directly about them. This nicely filled out some backstory and is a solid book for Honor Harrington fans.

more back stories

lts all ways good to listen to more back stories in Honor Harrington world.

LOVE IT!

Awesome stories brilliantly narrated. I can almost feel myself there with the characters and most of the stories brought me to tears at more than one point. Fantastic storytelling at its finest.

TREECATS!

Need a Treecat fix? Cause this is a Treecat fix. That is all that needs to be said! Loved it!

A fairly good anthology overall

This is a collection of five short stories all set in David Weber's Honorverse. If you aren't already familiar with the Honorverse, this probably isn't the place to start. The best place to start would probably be with the first full-length novel in the series, "On Basilisk Station." I will review the stories individually:

"THE STRAY" by Linda Evans
This tells the stories of two treecats and their people. The main thrust of the story involves a stray treecat that shows up at a human home asking for help. The main helpers in the story turn out to be Dr. Scott MacDallan and his treecat, Fisher. The story of how Scott and Fisher met is told in flashback. I like this story quite well: 4 stars.

"WHAT PRICE DREAMS" by David Weber
This tells the story of a young treecat who wants to adopt a human. The title of the story relates to an analysis of what he will stand to gain AND lose if he does so. Quite good: 4 stars.

"QUEEN'S GAMBIT" by Jane Linskold
I didn't like this story. The king of Manticore is assassinated. The story revolves around the investigation of his murder and the consequences to the conspirators. I thought both were ludicrously unlikely. Imagine (or remember) the investigation around the assassination of the American President. FBI, CIA, Secret Service, special investigators, the Attorney General, thousands of law enforcement people would be involved. In this story, you have not the leader of a single country but the leader of three planets, and the investigation is carried out by the new queen's boyfriend and a semi-retired palace guard. Give me a break. I don't want to provide spoilers or I could go on at length. Also, I hated the ending. Anyway, I read some reviews on Amazon and some people liked it, so you might want to try it. My score: 2 stars.

"THE HARD WAY HOME" by David Weber
This is my favorite story in the collection. It involves a young Honor when she is the executive officer of a ship, and it introduces us to Susan Hibson as a teenager. In most Honorverse stories, the dangers come from other people and politics. In this one, nature is the bad guy. Insight into true heroism. I give it 5 stars.

"DECK LOAD STRIKE" by Roland J. Green
I first read this anthology several years ago, and in coming back to it on Audible, I had absolutely no recollection of this particular story, although I remembered the main plot points of all the other stories. In reading through reviews on Amazon, no one seemed to like this story, so I've chosen not to listen to it at this time. No review.