Customer Reviews

Crown Of Slaves

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

An avowed Honerverse fan, I picked this up as a bit of holiday reading. What the hey? Splash a little cash on myself for Xmas.

Sollies, Mantys, Peeps and Erewhonese all mix it up with some interesting new characters and some background characters coming to the forefront. You'd have to be as familiar with the Honververse as the author to follow this silly mess. Another draft of two seems in order.

Once again, where is the editor, or the proofreader for that matter? Weber, Flint and the rest of the incestuous gang at Baen sure do churn out some good reading - but I think they're spreading themselves too thin on this franchise. Weber and company ought to put the 'verse to bed for a while.

Wow, this was bad. Poor plotting, lazy characterization, and totally unbelievable ending. Weber is a good writer, and I've read most of his other stuff, but this is just... bad. Worse than bad. Train-wreck bad.

The characters behave in ways that don't make sense, situations resolve themselves in implausible ways, plot points lurch into view only to vanish without really doing anything, and the final resolution is possibly the least believable thing I've read in the last decade - including political speeches.

This book began with endless pages of useless dialogue and just got worse. Mr. Weber needs to re-read some of his earlier books that broke up his endless useless details with a little action. This one just goes on and on and on. I felt like confessing to having kidnaped the Lindberg baby about half way through it. What torture. Want my money back. I would say it was a disapointment except I was also disapointed by War of Honor that carried on in the same manner for 800 pages and so I should have know better. Won't get fooled again.

Eric Flint and Dave Weber write two of the best novellas i've read in a while, setting the stage for "Crown Of Slaves" and later books. Not over all the most solid anthology, but two of the best tales are in here.

A very good read.Plenty of hard hitting action buit around well developed characters. a little scary, the way all the characters seem to sacrifice anybody to get their goal. The Anti slavers, even the House of Winton come accross as futuristic John Browns willing to even sacrifice the innocent for their beliefs. If your looking for space battles their not here, but if you like close combat and cold blooded killers, this books the one.

Another very good book by Mr. Weber. As usual, the first third of the book is used for character build and social commentary. The last two thirds provides steadily building action and drama. The ending (yes it's more like the beginning of the volumes to come) is smooth and leaves you wanting more. A thouroughly good read.

Haven and Manticore are officially at war but effectively at peace but the two space titans continue to square off against one another. When a political leader is assassinated, neither Haven nor Manticore feels able to send an official government representative but both wish to send a message--and each space nation decides to send its top spy. In the case of Manticore, this is semi-retired Captain Anton Zilwicki, along with adopted daughter Berry and the Queen's niece Ruth. In the case of Haven, the young and intriguing Victor Cachat, along with his boss's wife. On Erewhon, disaffected ally of Manticore, the two find that their interests largely coincide. Both hate the slave trade that is carried out under the neglectful eye of the Solarian League. When evil religious zealots from Massada decide to make a statement, Cachat is forced to put on his cold-blooded act and find a way to drive it to Haven's advantage, but also to the advantage of the millions of enslaved people around the galaxy.

Set in David Weber's Honor Universe, Weber and Eric Flint combine to follow up on some of the more intriguing short stories from the SERVICE OF THE SWORD.

Once CROWN OF SLAVES got going, it had great action, fascinating world-building, and added a new twist to the recently predictable world of Honor Harrington herself (Honor discovers a new technology or creates a new alliance in the nick of time to save Manticore from itself and the Havenites). Weber and Flint offer an intriguing take on slave rebellions, with thoughtful commentary on the problems that freed slaves have in creating stable democracies even if they stage a successful revolution.

Unfortunately, CROWN OF SLAVES did take a while to get going with an incredibly talky first two hundred pages. While a lot of material was presented in this introduction, the novel would have been strengthened by judicious pruning.

I'd be interested in other readers' feedback on the ultimate solution to the problem in slave-based societies. I found it difficult to believe that recently freed slaves would make the choice that Weber and Flint had them make. If they were going to choose something other than democracy and other than an ex-slave as a nominal leader, wouldn't they have chosen someone more mature, more experienced, and who had shown a deeper and more longstanding commitment to their cause (I could even buy ex-Countess Cathy Montaigne).

Wonderful character Victor Cachat more than makes up for the definite flaws in this powerful novel. Cachat's strong moral stands clash with his own ability to become a cold-blooded killer making him stand out as a fully dimensional human being. One you'd definitely want to have on your side if your country were under attack. Certainly Cachat has converted me. I'm pulling for Haven from now on in their endless battle with Manticore.

With problems threatening to engulf them, the Erewhon expect help from their interstellar ally the Star Kingdom of Manticore, but none has been forthcoming. Knowing that the pact is near collapse, a desperate but inept Queen Elizabeth of Manticore uses a state funeral to mend the schism and disappointment. She sends her niece Ruth Winton under the protection of Captain Zilwicki to represent her with the Erewhons.

When terrorists attack Ruth and her retinue, Havenite agent Victor Cachat takes advantage of the opportunity plus Elizabeth's helplessness to begin forming a new alliance with the Erewhons. Not long afterward, Cachat brings together his people, dissident Manticorans, irate Erewhons and the Solarian League Navy in an assault to free a slave planet, which may leave Her Royal Highness of the Star Kingdom looking in from the outside.

Using events and characters from David Weber's Honor Harrington series, Mr. Weber and Eric Flint have written an action-packed space opera that is really more a symposium of concepts wrapped in the cloak of an exciting interstellar tale. The story line is fast-paced yet readers will have much to ponder as the two authors furbish a host of ideas that dig deep into history, politics and interstellar relationships. Fans of the series, the authors, or those who appreciate an action-packed other galaxy brimming with a thought-provoking edge will enjoy the tour of the Honorverse.

Harriet Klausner

Okay, admitting my bias - I really enjoy the Honor Harrington series and eagerly purchased each new volume as it comes out. I recognize that the most recent installments are a little slower and that overall the books tend to follow similar patterns, but even when you've been on the roller coaster before, it sure is fun each time you ride it.

So back to this book, as it indicates on the dust jacket and cover this is a new series in the Honor Universe and make no mistake with the exception of a 7 to 8 page cameo with Honor she is not in this book at all. My first inclination was to pass this book over and you may think the same thing, but that would be a real mistake.

Many of the characters that have been introduced in the 4 volumes of short stories are featured in this current story. Anton Zwilicki and his adopted daughter Barry are main characters as is Princess Ruth. Victor who has been featured in two short stories also plays a central role. If you read the 4 books of short stories, you already know that these are interesting and fun characters in their own right with unique strengths and weaknesses.

I liked this book first because of the aforementioned characters. They were great. You cared about them and rooted them on as the story progressed. You could also see them develop and change during the course of the story (okay, so some of the development was pretty predictable and telegraphed).

Second, the story presents a little different view of Manticore and Haven. Many of the characters from Manticore are still stand up people, but Manticore is not painted as the perfect Kingdom as it has in past books (with the exception of the final Honor book). Likewise Haven is not portrayed as the source of all evil. Its more realistic when the People's Republic and Star Kingdom are presented less black and white.

Finally, we get to see the Solarian league and we get the strong hint that they will be figuring strongly in the subsequent books in this series.

I'm not a big believer in giving a synopsis of the novel in a review, but I will say that the story takes place on Erewhon and involves much more cloak and dagger action as opposed to the large scale ship battles featured in many of Honor's books.

Lots of other story lines and loose ends are left open for future novels so I'm sure we'll be seeing plenty more of these characters.

In summation, there's very little Honor, but the writing is just as good, the characters are just as enjoyable, and its just as much a pleasure to read.

...the biggest spaceship battle with as much as a significant reference is Oversteegen's run-in with The Four Yahoos (as mentioned in The Service of the Sword), although there are a few excellent Marines-aboard-ship battles and one brief but amusing standoff involving a goodly number of smaller warships.

However, there is a great deal of interplay between nascent characters, a few new and interesting characters like the extremely deadly Solarian Lieutenant Thandi Plane are introduced, and a few interesting characters like Michael Oversteegen, Victor Cachat, the Audubon Ballroom and some "Scrags" get considerable depth added to their characters.

We have the traditional Weber young-girls-doing-brave-things scenes, although none as young as Stephanie Harrington: Princess Ruth (also ex TSotS in "Promised Land") and Berry Zilwiki as late-teens/early-twenties get major parts and do well with them.

Anton comes and goes, but I enjoy almost every scene of his in this book, his Highlander personality comes across well. There is an undercurrent of big changes afoot for the Solarian League, including an interesting new character in Solarian Captain Luiz Roszak which bodes well for the megabattle aspect in following books.

All in all, a great read.

Favourite quotes:

CAPTAIN MICHAEL OVERSTEEGEN (commander, CA Gauntlet)

"I will leave out of all this the petty consideration that we're talkin' about the life of a teenage girl. I realize that's a matter beneath your contempt. I will just take the opportunity t' tell you, since I don't believe I've ever done it before at one of our family gatherin's - not precisely, I mean - just how brainless you are, [Countess] Deborah [Fraser, Manticoran Ambassador to Erewhon]. Truly brainless. Not simply stupid. Bar-ain-less. As in: brains of a carrot."

GINNY USHER (wife of Kevin Usher, head of Haven's internal security)

"Don't believe 've been introduced," Ginny blurted out. Words were at a premium now, running out like water on a beach before the tidal wave hits. "You people really make me sick."

The tsunami arrived, then, washing across five of the six before it was done. Some portion of Victor's brain decided he was witnessing a miracle. Two miracles, in fact - first, that any of the six diplomats had emerged unscathed, given the volume of the torrent and its volcanic energy; second, that a woman as small as Ginny could produce such a volume in the first place.

[...]

"See here!" he [Victor] heard one of the diplomats cry out angrily.

"Sure," hissed Ginny. "Did I miss one?" She began struggling in Victor's grip, apparently determined to return and rectify the oversight.