Book Review: Honor Harrington: Echoes of Honor SPOILERS!

In 1998, David Weber returned once more to the Honorverse, this time to get Honor Harrington off Hell while the war takes an interesting turn of events. Synopsis: Back from Hell. For eight bloody years, the Star Kingdom of Manticore and its allies have taken the war to the vastly more powerful People's Republic of Haven, and Commodore Honor Harrington has been in the forefront of that war. But now Honor has fallen, captured by the Peep Navy, turned over to the forces of State Security . . . and executed on the interstellar network's nightly news. The Manticoran Alliance is stunned and infuriated by Honor's death and grimly resolved to avenge it. Yet their military is over-extended and the People's Republic is poised to take the offensive once more, this time with a new strategy, new weapons, a new command team, and a whole new determination to win. The war is about to enter a phase of unprecedented ferocity . . . and the Alliance is on the short end of the stick. But even as powerful Peep fleets hurtle towards their objectives, neither they nor the Alliance are aware of events occurring on a distant, isolated, inescapable prison planet called Hell. For what no one knows, not even State Security, is that Honor Harrington is not dead. She and a handful of her people are trapped on Hell, and determined to disprove the Peep boast that no one can ever escape it. Honor Harrington is going home, and taking her people with her . . . even if she has to conquer Hell to do it.

Prologue: The novel opens with the Harrington family, on Grayson, watching an HD of Honor being hanged for crimes committed in On Basilisk Station.

Book One (Part One): Turns out the entire Star Kingdom of Manticore is reeling from the loss of Honor Harrington. The people of Grayson aren't taking this lightly and Hamish Alexander expects them to no longer take prisoners. He also believes that he's the one who led Honor to get herself killed. In the People's Republic of Haven, Ester McQueen continues her plot to bring Oscar Saint-Just and Robert S. Pierre down. Everyone on the Manticoran front is gearing up to resume hostilities. Protector Benjamin Mayhew IX, Henry Prestwick, and Howard Clinkscales (reluctantly) ask Allison and Alfred Harrington to produce a child to claim the Harrington Steading Key. Allison points out to Jeremiah Sullivan that the Graysonite genome was altered 1000 years ago and that given some time, she will be able to reverse it, allowing for more male children births. She invites Benjamin and one of his three wives, Katherine, to the Harrington Steading and talks about her discovery, and breaks protocol that hasn't been done in 250 years.

Book Two (Part Two): On Hell, Honor Harrington and the survivors find ways to hack into the StateSec base, Camp Charon, and glean information. Turns out that other prisoners are there, around a half-million. They also discover, thanks to Scotty Tremaine, that Camp Inferno isn't on the map for "security reasons." Honor and company meet with two prisoners named Harriet Benson and Henri Dessouix who take them to Camp Inferno where they meet Commodore Jesus Ramirez--who's supposed to be dead after the Peeps took Trevor's Star. Together, they decide to take Camp Charon.

Book Three (Part Three): McQueen and others talk about Operation Icarus. The war is brewing up to another round of fighting. The Graysonites name their newest ship the GSN Honor Harrington.

Book Four (Part Four): Honor and Ramirez begin the assault by taking one supply ship and them storming Camp Charon. They take Charon and try their superiors under the People's Uniform Code of Conduct, which scares a few Peeps. Rear Admiral Harold Styles opposes this and constantly berates Honor. Turns out former Citizen Admiral Amos Parnell is still alive and agrees to sit in on the hearing so long as he can go to the Solarian League and tell all that Pierre, Ransom, and Saint-Just performed the coup.

Book Five (Part Five): Saint-Just and Pierre talk about squashing McQueen. The war rages on. Several worlds are hit: Basilisk, Zanzibar, Yeltsin's Star, and others. Rear Admiral Elvis Santino, paranoid of losing command, relieves Commander Andrea Jaruwalski from the Battle of Seaford 9, citing cowardice, when it's really Santino that's too stupid to follow the original plan. He gets himself killed, leaving Andrea in hot water. At Basilisk, Admirals Hamish Alexander and Judah Yanakov stave off the battle; Yanakov tells everyone in the Manticoran fleet "Honor Harrington and no mercy." Despite winning, Hamish is pissed about Yanakov's order.

Book Six (Part Six): One of many trials comes to a close. Honor is woken up because of an incoming Peep ship. Honor's company takes the ship. Commander Victor Ainspan updates Honor with the news of Honor's execution and the war. Honor tells her company how she intends to get her people off Hell and Styles erupts in anger. Honor charges Styles with insubordination and has armsman Andrew LaFollet place him under arrest. Honor and company claim two more ships for their plan. Because Citizen General Prestwick Thornegrave took too long to answer, Honor demands that all his ships surrender over an all ships comms channel. One of his ships is destroyed and Thornegrave and his task force surrender. Most of the ships, loaded with prisoners that wanted to leave, head for Trevor's Star. Citizen General Seth Chernok arrives with another task force. Honor ambushes him and destroys the task force. Honor and the remaining ships, using the name "Elysian Space Navy," leave for Trevor's Star.

Epilogue: At Trevor's Star, Hamish Alexander, depressed, ponders over the events of the last couple of months when Lieutenant Nathan Robards tells him that several unidentified hyper-footprints were detected and that they belong to Peep ships. Upon listening to the automated message--which Hamish thought was impossible since he'd seen the execution two years ago--of Honor Harrington requesting aid and that she and her task force, plus several unarrived ships were finally home.

All in all, a well-paced, easy read with great prose and wonderful character arcs that detail just how the Manticorans are doing without Honor and what the Peeps do when they believe themselves invincible. David Weber outdid himself in this 569 (hardcover) page novel. It's also the only novel of the series where both the Prologue and Epilogue are written in italics. This is a must-read for fans of sci-fi military and fans of the series in general.

Book Review: Halo: Cryptum SPOILERS!

In 2010, sci-fi legend Greg Bear was asked to pen a trilogy of Halo novels that became the Forerunner saga, set 100,000 years in the past, before the Flood were eradicated, before the Master Chief and Cortana, before the world as we know it. Synopsis: One Hundred Thousand Years Ago, the galaxy was populated by a great variety of beings. But one species--eons beyond all others in both technology and knowledge--achieved dominance. They ruled in peace but met opposition with quick and brutal effectiveness. They were the Forerunners--the keepers of the Mantle, the next stage of life in the Universe's Living Time. And then they vanished. This is their story.

The novel opens on Erde-Tyrene (Earth), on a human steamboat as a Forerunner called Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting a chamanune called Chakas and a hamanune called Day-Chaser Makes Paths Long-stretch Morning Riser, who's following the orders of his armor's ancilla. After exploring an island near a large crater, Born stumbles across a Forerunner Cryptum: a vault where Forerunners are interred in a state of never-ending sleep and contemplation. Born encounters the AI monitoring the Cryptum and assumes that its occupant is to be revived. He hesitantly complies and reawakens the Forerunner inside. This Forerunner turns out to be the Didact. The Didact thinks that the Librarian woke because he's needed in the Forerunner-Flood war and he wants to know if "it" fired. They leave on some newly arrived ships and travel to a series of worlds that served as battlegrounds in the Forerunner's war against the humans, all of which show no signs of sentient or complex life, much to The Didact's dismay. He asks Born to accept a brevit mutation to gain some of the Warrior-Servant caste's traits and to allow access to his memories and those of his class, anticipating the urgency that his knowledge must not end with him. Born accepts, and gains access to the Didact's memories and learns that he holds deep regrets about his war with the humans. Turns out that the humans are fighting not only against the Forerunners, but the Flood as well.

Ironically, the humans and San'Shyuum were once allies and they used the Flood to domesticate animals that later (surprise surprise) mutated into the first Flood form and turned against them. The humans, fleeing their ravaged worlds, encroached upon Forerunner territory, who went to war as well. Although they lost to the Forerunners, the humans were able to defeat The Flood by injecting themselves with a formula that made their genetic material toxic to The Flood. The humans refused to tell the Forerunners how to beat The Flood when they returned. The Didact then takes Born and the humans to the San'Shyuum's homeworld where they have been in isolation since the end of the Human-Forerunner War. The cities are in turmoil as the Librarian's latest visit to procure "specimens" was seen as a sign for the San'Shyuum to rebel against the Forerunners. Some distance from the San'Shyuum's homeworld a portal appears and through it a large ring-shaped construct appears. The four are apprehended by the Master Builder, who is in the system to witness a test-firing of a new creation against the unruly San'Shyuum. Born is handed over to his swap-family and escorted home. During his trip home the Didact's memory tells him that the creation of the ring-shaped construct, called Halo, was the reason he was placed in the Cryptum. He opposed their creation in favor of save-haven "Shield Worlds." Shortly after coming home, Born hears his father arguing with a member of the Forerunner council and decides to confront his father about the true nature of the Halos. He confirms that 300 years ago, The Flood re-emerged in their part of the galaxy and the Forerunners were at a loss to combat them. He and the Master Builder decided to move forward with the construction of Halos.

To his horror, Born learns that Halo was test-fired on the human worlds he visited (at low power) and the Master Builder recently test-fired another Halo on the San'Shyuum's homeworld. The Forerunner Council learn of the Master Builder's actions and summon Born to a criminal trial against him. High above the Forerunner homeworld, 11 Halo rings sit, with the 12th missing for many years. The trial is interrupted by 032 Mendicant Bias, a rampant AI, who causes havoc with the Forerunner's computer and defense systems. Born and a group of others are rescued during the chaos in a small ship. Above them some of the Halo rings separate from the others and prepare to fire. The Forerunner fleet quickly assembles and begins attacking the renegade Halos, quickly destroying three of them, but a gigantic slipspace portal opens and seven other rings begin escaping through them. Born's ship manages to escape through the portal before the rings detonate, wiping out all Forerunner life in that part of the galaxy. Born is knocked unconscious during the slipspace jump and recalls Didact's memories: Mendicant Bias was an AI tasked with safeguarding the Halo constructs and overseeing their firing systems. After a test-firing over a human world, Mendicant Bias and the Halo disappeared with a long-feared creature held deep in a Precursor facility the humans had built over. Soon after, their ship arrives at The Ark. There he meets the Librarian, who sees him as her husband now. According to her, the Master Builder had the Didact executed shortly after triggering the Halo above the San'Shyuum homeworld. They hypothesize that the creature that escaped from the Precursor prison somehow corrupted Mendicant Bias, who attempted to gain control of all the Halos but only succeeded with five. The rest, as well as The Ark, were co-opted by the Librarian as vessels on which numerous life-forms across the galaxy could live. The novel ends with Born recalling the Didact's contact with the captured lifeform: it revealed itself to be the last of the Precursors and was planning revenge on the Forerunners who wiped them out in ages past.

A somewhat good novel, despite the slow and often repetitious scenes of the first-person point of view style that Greg Bear adopts for this book. I, personally, can't stand first person POV novels and I really had to force myself to finish this book in three days because the Honor Harrington review I did took way to long to read and write. Still, it's a good addition to the Halo universe and helps to build up the Forerunners before they "ascended." Fans of the Halo novel, graphic novel, and game series will love this one.

Book Review: The Wess'har saga: City of Pearl SPOILERS!

In March 2004, EOS published Karen Traviss's first novel, The City of Pearl. It's a story of a cop on an alien world, playing politics to keep probing scientists, the human colony, marines, and three aliens at peace, but time is running out. Synopsis: Three separate alien societies have claims on Cavanagh's Star. But the new arrivals—the gethes from Earth—now threaten the tenuous balance of a coveted world. Environmental Hazard Enforcement officer Shan Frankland agreed to lead a mission to Cavanagh's Star, knowing that 150 years would elapse before she could finally return home. But her landing, with a small group of scientists and Marines, has not gone unnoticed by Aras, the planet's designated guardian. An eternally evolving world himself, this sad, powerful being has already obliterated millions of alien interlopers and their great cities to protect the fragile native population. Now Shan and her party—plus the small colony of fundamentalist humans who preceded them—could face a similar annihilation . . . or a fate far worse. Because Aras possesses a secret of the blood that would be disastrous if it fell into human hands—if the gethes survive the impending war their coming has inadvertently hastened.

Environmental Hazard Enforcement officer Shan Franklin, on what's supposed to be her last job, is asked by Foreign Minister Eugenie Perault to lead a joint government and commercial reconnaissance team--comprised of marines and scientists--to Cavanagh's Star to find out something from Constantine colony. She doesn't remember because of Suppressed Briefing. Her mission was crammed into her head and only specific thoughts will unlock the hidden data. Upon arrival in Cavanagh's Star, the spaceship breaks down du to a (as we later learn) wess'har energy barrier. Everything except life support is shut down. Josh Garrod, the leader of the Christian colony of Constantine, allows only Shan to land. They talk and let the scientists and marines land, so long as the scientists don't harm or kill the plants/natives, meaning some non-obtrusive scans and photos and journals. The camp is set up and Shan breaks the news to the scientists. They aren't happy, especially when they learn about the aquatic race, the bezeri, and the wess'har and an invading race, the isenj, are out there. A couple of the scientists see why when out on an excursion. 

The camp accidentally shoots Aras Sar Iussan--a wess'har with c'naatat (a virus that keeps reorganizing its host and keeps them alive--out of the sky. Shan and Josh go to rescue him and Shan helps Aras get out of the downed ship. The camps defenses are taken down. The next day, Shan meets with Josh and Aras. They talk, during which Shan offers Aras food, an intimate gesture in wess'har society and culture. Aras shows Shan the bezeri council, in pods that are underwater. After a couple of days getting to know each other, Aras tells Shan that the bezeri want to meet with her and to have her people build her an underwater suit. Surendra Parekh--one of the scientists--brings a juvenile bezeri back to camp and, after Shan and the reporter Eddie tel her to put it back, experiments on it. The juvenile bezeri dies painfully. Shan restriscts Parekh to quarters. She tells Aras, who tells Shan to give him Parekh because she has to die for her crime. Shan gives Aras her pistol and Parekh. Aras kills Parekh; this causes a rift in the scientists. A second ship, Actaeon, arrives from Earth. They're allied with the isenj. Aras tells Shan. She tells him she needs the farmers food gene bank. She finds out about the c'naatat and what it can do. 

Shan's horrified and tells Aras to stay away from the scientists. Actaeon arrives and Shan confines the scientists and marines to base. Dr. Rayat and Dr. Galvin flee the base, going to the isenj. Shan, Aras, Bennett, and Qureshi leave base and track Rayat and Galvin. Meanwhile, Lindsey confirms that Shan had Parekh executed for killing a kid to Actaeon's skipper. Shan, Aras and the marines find the isenj base. The isenj go to kill Aras and a fight breaks out. Galvin dies from her wounds and SHan dies after a projectile blows half her head off. The isenj die and Aras puts some of the c'naatat into Shan (depsite her hatred of it). Bennett takes a wounded Qureshi and Rayat back to base. Aras takes Shan to Constantine. Shan wakes up and soon realizes that she has c'naatat in her and rages at Aras for breaking his promise to kill her should it infect her. Shan meets with the wess'har matriarchs and they tell her to remove her charges, but Shan may stay as one of the wess'har. Lindsey rages at Shan for refusing to use the c'naatat to save her still-born son. Actaeon's CO demands Shan be brought to justice, but the wess'har relocate her to their moon. The marines, apart from Lindsey, just want to leave; Lindsey wants Shan dead. The marines, scientists, and Actaeon leave with the food gene bank. Shan and Aras look after Constantine colony.

All in all, a decent, well thought out science fiction novel that captures just how alien alien species are. Karen Traviss really proves just how good an author she is and how much attention to detail she dishes out with the world-building. Great character arc and richly detailed story for any sci-fi fan.