Minor Thoughts from me to you

A Rising Thunder by David Weber

My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Personal Enthusiasm: I Shouldn’t Have Bothered

This is the 13th book in David Weber's Honor Harrington series. When the series started, back in 1992, it was pretty easy to follow. Sequel followed sequel and each book picked up where the last left off. More recently, in 2002, Weber approved the creation of two sub-series. The result is that the plotline and scope of the "Honorverse" expanded dramatically

The first sub-series was "The Wages of Sin", starting with Crown of Slaves, which follows book #10, War of Honor. The second sub-series was "Saganami Island", starting with The Shadow of Saganami, chronologically following both book #10 War of Honor and Crown of Slaves.

Later mainline novels, such as At All Costs and Mission of Honor, incorporated elements of both sub-series. The plotline of the sub-series's increasingly started to drive the plotline and direction of the main series. This book, A Rising Thunder, is Weber's attempt to fully tie the main series into the elements and events of the two sub-serieses.

The resulting book is a bit of a boring train wreck. It does include characters and plot elements from both sub-series. What it doesn't include is a lot of action. Given that all 3 serieses are built around action, this is a glaring omission. Mostly what we get is a lot of talking, as officials in 3 or 4 locations talk about how recent events will affect future events. I remember one main battle, out of 464 pages. Given how action packed the previous books have been, this was a major letdown.

In some respects, a slow book was almost inevitable. Given how much things have changed over the last several books, there needed to be an attempt to tie everything together and then to re-launch the series in its new direction. But I feel that the relaunching could have been achieved with a greater economy of words and a bit more action.

Perhaps the most damning indictment I have is that most fans would be best served by reading a plot summary of this book rather than reading the book itself.