Book Review: Honor Harrington: On Basilisk Station SPOILERS!

First published in April 1993, David Weber put to use his knoweldge of military and history to form one of the most compelling series every. And it all started with Honor Harrington: On Basilisk Station. Synopsis: Honor in trouble: Having made him look the fool, she's been exiled to Basilisk Station in disgrace and set up for ruin by a superior who hates her; 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 habitual 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.

The novel opens in a prologue with a meeting between Havenite president Haris talking to his cabinet about their shrinking economy amongst their cluster of planets. They decide that war is the way and with that will come more planets and, more importantly, money. On the Manticoran Space Station Hephaestus, Commander Honor Harrington and her treecat, Nimitz, board Honor's assigned HMS Fearless from it's former commanding officer, a Lieutenant Commander named Alistair McKeon, who's somewhat resentful for the fact that he didn't get command. They take Fearless out for the war games where the head of R&D, Admiral Sonja Hemphill, wants to test a new toy that ultimately prove useless after the initial surprise attack. When her side loses the game, and in anger, they ship Honor and her crew, plus Fearless to the most useless place in the Manticoran Empire, Basilisk Station. Once there, Honor's former rival and that man who raped her in the academy, Pavel Young, the son and heir to the current Earl North Hollow, commands that station and abadnons her when she arrives, claiming his ship is due for maintenance--which it does and his crew rebels against him when he returns to Hephaestus for plot related reasons.

Once there, Honor senses the anger and hatred for her that her crew has because they're been shipped--exiled--to Basilisk Station. She demands that her crew get over it and works them past their abilities to get Basilisk Station back to operational status as befits with the Queen's will. The Havenites, who have been bribing certain politicos in the Empire, want Basilisk for their war strategy. After refusing to accept bribes, backdown, or even see common sense, and months after having used her ships probes short-range probes to become more effective and long-range sensors and getting the Basilikan population of indigenous beings under some control, the Havenites launch their strategy via rebellious indigs who are drug dealers but are stopped when the Marine guard under Honor prevent them from fully staging the coup. Honor, meanwhile, fights dirty with the lone Havenite ship at the edge of the Basilisk system. Fearless becomes heavily damaged during the fight and the Havenite commander moves in for the kill but dies surprised when Honor uses Adml Hemphill's toy against them and destroys the Havenite ship. At the end, the Manticoran Navy arrives to stop the rest of the Havenites from encroaching on Basilisk and Honor and the crew of Fearless head back home.

All in all, a great start to one of the best science-fiction sagas out there and proves why David Weber is one of the best in military sci-fi. He knows his stuff and isn't afraid to show it. For those people who like Lois McMaster Bujold, you're really going to love David Weber's Honor Harrington series.

Book Reivew: Star Wars: The Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth SPOILERS!

Karen Miller's second Star Wars novel repeats too much of the same concepts that made The Clone Wars: Wild Space uninteresting: too much character development and sprinkles of action that it located at the beginning of the novel, and way too much time spent with the characters sitting at tables and eating and talking. It gets boring after a while. Synopsis: Planet by planet, darkness creeps across the galaxy. Among warriors and generals, among ordinary beings living in far-flung worlds, the fear will not go away: We are losing this war.... Anakin Skywalker feels it, too. The Separatist Alliance, with ruthlessness and treachery, is beating the Republic to every strategic target. But after a costly clash with General Grievous for the planet Kothlis, Anakin has a mission that will focus his anxious mind. Alongside Obi-Wan Kenobi, he is posing as a long-lost native of Lanteeb, an impoverished world on the Outer Rim. This seemingly unimportant planet has drawn the interest of the Seps—and Anakin and Obi-Wan soon discover the disturbing reason: A scientist enslaved by General Lok Durd is drawing on Lanteeb's one natural resource for a devastating bioweapon. Now Anakin and Obi-Wan have entered the eye of a storm. Their presence has been exposed, Lok Durd's plans unveiled, and a fight has begun for survival behind enemy lines—and a chance of winning a war that must be fought at any cost.

The novel starts off with Ahsoka sitting somewhere, waiting for the Battle of Kothlis to start, reflecting on how she's the Chosen One's apprentice and that she mustn't get him killed. Grievous jumps into Kothlis and begins the fight while Admiral Wullf Yularen, Anakin, and Obi-Wan try and hold him off while communications to Coruscant are fixed. Deciding not to wait for comms to come back, Obi-Wan, Anakin, and the clone pilots of Gold, Arrow and Hammer Squadron will engage: Anakin and Gold, Arrow and Hammer Squadrons destroying the droid fighters while Obi-Wan will insert themselves on the ground with LAAT/i's full of 501st Torrent Company.The battle is on and  already clones are dying both on ground and in space. Communications are restored just as Grievous retreats and Ahsoka feints from lack of blood. Ahsoka's put out of commission by order of the doctors. On Coruscant, Bail greets Obi-Wan, recently recovered from spinal injury during the Battle of Kothlis, and tells Obi-Wan about the Separatists taking control of Lanteeb, a backwater Outer Rim world. During a meeting with Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, Bail and Grand Master Yoda compromise on dispatching a few older clone soldiers and a few newer ones to Kothlis so that the new ones can get training from vets and the vets can have some skills practice.

In the Jedi Archives researching Lanteeb, Obi-Wan invites Anakin to his and Bail's dinner strategy planning. Anakin, on a holocom to Ahsoka, asks her to check out Lanteeb in the Kaminoan databases on a hunch. At the dinner, Padme returns from her retreat and joins them. Bail presents his findings as does Obi-Wan; turns out it was a passing gas freighter that discovered the occupation. Bail proposes, via a history lesson from Padme, that Anakin and Obi-Wan insert themselves into Lanteeb's xenophobic human population, but a call from Ahsoka delivers the fact that it's a bioweapon Dooku's got brewing on Lanteeb. Obi-Wan and Anakin, with Bail's blessing, reveal all to Yoda. Yoda gives his consent and off they go to Lanteeb. When Anakin and Obi-Wan arrive, and after passing through CIS security, they go undercover and find out what they can about the bioweapon. It's being managed by Lok Durd and being made by Bant'ena Fhernan, who's being held against her will in the compound to create the virus, and Durd threatens that if she doesn't do what he tells her, he'll kill every one of her friends and family. With this knowledge, Anakin and Obi-Wan report back to Yoda who rallies otehr Jedi teams to rescue Bant'ena's family and friends though one does get killed. Durd shows the holo of said death to Bant'ena who sells out Obi-Wan and Anakin. The two Jedi barely escape death by hot-wiring a speeder and book it to one of the Lanteeban villages for help.

All in all, it starts off with a good battle that lasts one chapter, like Miller doesn't even want to bother and sags for the entirety of the middle until the escape at the end, where the action picks up. It's fun if you like tons of character building and world building which gets stale after a while. Not bad, but still better than most of the episodes shown on the animated TV show.