More Than Honor

David Weber: In Enemy Hands (Baen Books, 1997; ISBN 0-671-87793-3). Echoes of Honor (Baen Books, 1998; ISBN 0-671-87892-1). Ashes of Victory (Baen Books, 2000; ISBN 0-671-57854-5).

After a bit of a respite, I returned to this series this year. My previous comments still hold, fun reads (with the exceptions noted), but nothing lasting.

I will say that In Enemy Hands nearly sunk me. Weber feels the need to inject massive amounts of backstory into the books. Usually I can take this, but at some points during that book (and to a lesser extent in the other two), we'd have an opening bit of dialog by one character, followed by a pause that would last for several paragraphs to pages of introspection (the backstory), followed by a bit of dialog from the second character (followed by another injection of backstory), etc. It really started getting to me, but I gritted my teeth and pushed on.

With Echoes of Honor, Weber restrained himself and it was a much better book for it. A good (if highly improbable!) story, lots of drama, some last-minute escapes and more. In Ashes of Victory, he starts to lose it again, but manages to save the series (and extend it) with a nice surprise.

I think I'll wait for next year before the next installment, though. So many books, so little time...

Free copies of all three of these books can be found here and here, but I would encourage you to purchase them from here.