WAR OF HONOR [Hardcover]

There didn't seem to be much of a plot. The war with the Peeps is over, but no one seems to want a peace treaty. Political enemies want to bring Honor down. Honor and Hamish are fighting the fact that they are in love, since he is devoted to his wife, a quadraplegic. All elements that have been used before.

The main problem with the book is that nothing actually happens! in the first seven *hundred* pages, more than six hundred are of people sitting around lecturing each other on politics and diplomatic matters. In fact, the very few battle scenes are all off-camera, so to speak. Slavery is suddenly a big issue, but I don't really remember any mention in the earlier books about slavery.

The characters also suffered from a bad case of two dimensionality. The current government, who want to trounce Honor for the sake of trouncing her, are mean and nasty and incompetent. On the other side, the enemy is either incompetent villains or brilliantly noble, forced into actions they don't want. Oh for a brilliant bad guy, like the ones on Grayson in the earlier books.

Basically, War of Honor suffered from a bad case of telling, not showing, and as a result, it dragged. It was far too long for the lack of plot, and the whole purpose of the novel seems to be to get Honor into bed.

All in all, the only thing that made buying this book worth it to me was the fact that it came with a CD with electronic versions of all the earlier books, so I can go back and reread them, and thrill to sparkling dialog, exciting battles, and grand characters, since none of those appear in this latest instalment

Some random thoughts:

The Honor worship has gotten utterly out of hand. How many more pages must be lavished on the central character that has had no interesting or original thoughts in 3000 pages?

There exists not a single interesting character in the Manticoran Alliance. Not a single person that I would want to talk to or meet.

Only the Peeps have anything left to say. Tom Theisman, Eloise Pritchard, and Shannon Foraker at least have some depth, some pathos, and some guts. But these character are given only a fraction of the novel to develop.

There is very little actual action, very little plot development, and the characters stagnate.

All in all, it reads like some mediocre DM in a Dungeons and Dragons game distributing the booty of the quest.

The vast majority of the book is taken up with political maneuvering. Every character that does not fundamentally agree with Weber's politics is an idiot, a coward, and is fundamentally acting in bad faith. On the other hand, everyone who agrees with Weber's politics is obviously correct, noble, brilliant, and incorruptible. (...)

Since these buffoons are in power, we essentially read 800 pages of stupid people trying to spin incompetence that would make the GOP look good.

Basically, we get to watch simpletons plot in meetings for roughy...750 pages. Very exciting.

Mr. Weber, political intrigue is like chess, only really interesting when masters go at it. Otherwise, you just get frustrated and bored.

Which is precisely what happened here.