Ashes of Victory
(Honor Harrington #9)

David Weber

Riverdale: Baen Books, 2000. ISBN: 0-671-31977-9. Pp. 647

Review © 2006 Branislav L. Slantchev

This has got to be the most promising, frustrating, and maddening of all Honor Harrington novels Weber has penned to date. For the first time there are the glimmers of something else beside pretty decent politics (no matter how infuriating their actual content), superb space action, or outright hagiography even if it is fictional. Unfortunately, Weber sort of raises interesting issues and then runs from their implications as fast as he can. Never one to accept that something may just be plain impossible, there is no sense of the tragic essence of life when all one's choices boil down to really bad, even worse, and catastrophic.

Case in point is Nimitz and his loss of telepathic ability after being struck by a StateSec goon. There's a fascinating detour into the nature of communication and its relationship to language, which then becomes even more promising when a researcher asks just how a species who communicate by telepathy can grasp anything so rudimentary as language. How can they use words to express mental concepts if their communication is all done on a direct mental level? What is Nimitz to do if he is to avoid remaining essentially deaf and mute to other treecats and only half-so to Honor? And with all these questions that raise the possibility that Nimitz can become one truly unhappy character, Weber serves us the solution (sign language!) completely side-stepping his own analysis in favor of an insta-solution worthy of the worst Hollywood movie.

On the other hand, this installment opened my eyes to something else. I always thought that the most effective dramatic impact can be achieved when a heroic but outmatched commander took her forces straight into the enemy's teeth against impossible odds. I still remember reading with stilled breath about Honor in command of her single cruiser racing against the crazed Masadans intent on nuking Grayson. I visualize the tiny speck of her ship accelerating to meet that threat and, I am not ashamed to say, my eyes even get misty. The sympathy for the underdog has had a long tradition in our culture, from David facing Goliath, through Leonidas making history at Thermopilae, and even Britain standing alone against the Hitlerites. Which is why I have always wondered why I keep falling for such a transparent plot device.

But then there's always been that part of me that has intensely admired the vast superbly trained Roman legions grinding their outmatched opponents to dust, the precise and deadly dagger of the Wehrmacht smashing through the stunned Red Army, and even the stupendous forces of that same army pulverizing the Japanese at Khalkhin Gol. In other words, the overwhelming, decisive, and uncompromising display of superior power has awed me just as much as it must have those who found themselves in its path. And I credit Weber from recognizing that potential and serving me with the sense of jubilation when the Manties finally get their act together and then advance on the unsuspecting Peeps inexorably as an avalanche gathering strength. So much for the underdog.

In this aptly titled novel, however, most of the focus is on internal politics on Manticore, Grayson, and Haven. There are some truly despicable political maneuverings afoot and so much intrigue within intrigue that sometimes the mess threatens to rival that juvenile pretense that Lucas inflicted on audiences with the Star Wars prequels. Fortunately, Weber is an astute student of history and not just military one. I was particularly partial to how Steadholder Mueller got maneuvered into doing something whose purpose he had no inkling of just when those who manipulated him were themselves set up by Havenite StateSec. And for once Honor could not prevent all the nasty consequences! Reading about the political fallout from Cromarty's assassination on Manticore had me grinding my teeth in frustration, just like the Queen must have done when the supremely incompetent "loyal" Opposition descended like vultures to feed on the fruits of the government's success and take the entire credit for winning the war. Even if the treatment of the goings on when it comes to Haven was a bit abbreviated (I never did figure out why McQueen moved prematurely), the narrative is fascinating.

This is, of course, a bit surprising to me because I have always preferred Weber's space action. There has never been any real attempt to turn the novels into more than rollicking adventures (what with all those larger-than-life characters and such) but whereas I am quite partial to the odd moral quandary, I found myself nodding along with the political developments. It's just that I am way too sure that the new Manticoran government is going to screw up royally, if one pardons the bad pun.

One thing I have to note is that the "screaming" and "roaring" missiles finally got to me. Weber should be quite aware that without the medium of air sound cannot travel. Which means that missiles should be screaming in vacuum about as loudly as a man with his larynx removed. With all that infodumping (and make no mistake, there's shiploads of it, so to speak), one would have hoped that such an elementary mistake would have been avoided. At least it really reads well...

March 16, 2007