A Call to Duty: Book I of Manticore Ascendant

This book is empty calories for the brain, but it is very good empty calories. If you enjoy the Honorverse books, you will enjoy this one.

Chances are that anyone pondering this series will already be familiar both with the authors’ work and with the ‘Honorverse’ in which it is set.Weber and Zahn have formidable bibliographies. The former not only has the 14 books of the Honor Harrington Series under his belt, but also the Star Kingdom YA prequels, the Safehold Series, the Dahak Series, the War God Series, and The Furies to name just a few. Zahn, for his part, can lay claim to the Dragonback Series, the Thrawn Series and assorted other Star Wars novels, together with graphic novels and numerous short stories. Both authors are known quantities and it’s no surprise that for the most part they deliver on this one. They are aided in their collaboration by Tom Pope the founder of the BuNine, a ‘literary consulting group’ which occupies itself contributing to the now rich detail of Weber’s Honorverse.Manticore Ascendant is set in the early years of that ‘world’, some 400 years before the Havenite Wars and the events that brought Honor Harrington to popular notice. These are the Post Plague years, when the nascent Star Kingdom is taking faltering steps in a very uncertain universe. At risk from political gameplay within and aggressive ambition without, Manticore has before it, as Churchill said of Britain at the outset of World War Two, “an ordeal of the most grievous kind.”Enter Our Hero, Travis Long. Well drawn and rounded, Long is a man whose irritating passion for order and ‘the rules’ is offset by his bursts of lateral thinking and capacity to not only deal with chaos, but use it to advantage. There’s more than a touch of Horatio Hornblower about Long, which may not be a surprise given that it is Hornblower on whom Weber draws in part when animating the redoubtable Honor Harrington.Given to occasional bouts of introspection, Long’s rigidity, naivety and abiding sense of duty might annoy the reader as much as it does his protagonists. His willingness to sacrifice friendship to duty is as frustrating as it is commendable and makes him a hard man to like. But likeable he is and his ability to both think and act out of the box when required makes him an engaging character albeit an unlikely one.On the downside, while this is a reasonably solid and well assembled story, it suffered in its pacing. Weber and Zahn do like their detail and they are unsparing with it. The persistent and almost cartoonish political self interest underscoring attempts to undermine Manticore’s military capacity in the face of very real threats also strains credulity. That said, these machinations do set up antagonistic characters and plot lines for fans to revel in, so there’s that.And there we have it. A mostly solid piece of military sci-fi with the heavy servings of political intrigue that is a staple of the Harrington series. It’s well written if sometimes long on detail and short on action. Fans of the Harrington series won’t need persuading, although they should ready themselves for something not as good. Those who are new to the Honorverse should definitely give it a go. But, be warned: be prepared for a slog.

Given the two authors of this book, David Weber and Timothy Zahn, it should not come as a surprise to anyone that this book is very well written. It is quite some time since I read a book by David Weber. I had gotten a bit tired of his gradually changed style which ended up in a lot of talk, talk and more talk in his books. Whether it is a balancing influence from Timothy Zahn or not, this book is much more balanced in that aspect than some of Weber’s other recent works in the Honorverse.In this book Manticore is not the power it is in the Harrington books. Rather the inverse, it is a poor struggling nation running a fleet of second hand ships, most of them mothballed. In this pre-Harrington universe we get to follow Travis Long as he enlists in the navy and rises through boot camp and his first assignments. Travis is intelligent, brave but also a stickler for rules. Something which of course causes some friction during the journey. Naturally there are some bad guys thrown into the mix although in this book we are not even close to the clash of empires that we have come used to in Harrington’s time.The book is, as I wrote above, very well written. Characters are well done, the plot is good and it is enjoyable to read about Travis and his adventures. Though I have to say that, when reading the first chapter at the beginning, when Travis is enlisting and we learn the circumstances around the events I was getting a wee bit worried. My was this guy stupid! Luckily both Travis and the book shaped up quite quickly after that.The book is not really slow but I would not say that it is fast either. Personally I think it has about the right pace. During the course of the book Travis manages to get through boot camp and his first assignments which included thwarting a few bad guys plans. However, he is still a green young navy guy and I would say that this book was more or less used as a “stage setter” for the series. An impression that was enforced by the fact that the last couple of pages was used to set up a pretty big cliffhanger involving what I would suspect to be a well-known element from the Harrington books. One which would have a profound impact on the future of Manticore.Now this is a good book but, for me, it was not a great book. The reason for this is the politics. In general I do not like prequel type of stories but that I could have lived with but something that irked me throughout the book was the political nonsense. When we are not reading about travis we are reading about dumb--s political a--holes who have nothing else on their agenda than to dismantle the navy and use their funds for shortsighted vote-buying. It is frustrating and infuriating. It is also reminds me of our current day dumb--s politicians who frequently do just that, especially in my home country. I would say that this is the main reason why I am not giving this book a full set of stars.It was a good read though and I am looking forward to the next instalment.

This is a book that you can jump straight into without reading any other part of the Honorverse's extensive lineup of books, much less the very latest books. While I have read and loved many of those other books, I no longer keep up with the mainline series, dropping off several books ago. With that out of the way, I can confidently say that Timothy Zahn is a very good influence on David Weber, because this book has all of the best parts of the Honor Harrington series (action, deep worldbuilding, characters that we love and love to hate) without getting bogged down in Weber's tedious overdescription and cautious storytelling that has affected his stories for the past few years (maybe Baen decided he was too big to edit). In any case, the main character is excellent at their job, of course, but far from being a Mary Sue type character, this excellence actually gets him in trouble in the mediocre organization that he joins, and he is forced to learn how to get along with others and mature as a person rather than hammer an organization into his own personal image. I really enjoyed this book. It was a great start to a new series with lots of promise.

As prequels go it was ok. The fledgling Manticore Navy seemed to have as many idiots telling it what to do as Harrington's has. Again with the politics and scheming by big business but all is forgiven as the sneaky Manties find a way to win. Watch your fusion bottles the Manties are coming. Flashing destruction and death to the bad guys.

Another wonderful piece of the Honorverse by the brilliant David Weber assisted by the equally brilliant Timothy Zahn.It's as you would expect from a Honorverse novel, space battles, the science behind them and brilliantly writteb characters, from the main character Travis Long to petty officer's who appear for less than a couple of pages.It's interesting to see the Star Empire of Manticore when it was barely the Star Kingdom and when their navy wasn't not only the envy of Known space but barely a navy at all, it's also interesting to see Haven and Manticore getting along without any of the history in the main line of stories.If you like military sci-fi you will enjoy it, if you like good story writing you'll enjoy it. Couldn't recommend it more than as a Honorverse fan saying that it's in my top 5 of all the books.

Mixture of politics and action, set in the early days of Manticore. As such, the characters are all new compared to the main Honor Harrington books. The action parts are well written, nearly un-put-downable! Complements the Honorverse series.

I really enjoyed this story. It held together well. It didn't fragment too much into different scenarios. This enabled me to remain engaged with the characters and not lose track of the plot.

To be honest I haven't been a great fan of all the Honor Harringtonverse spin-offs and this is another that just doesn't hit the spot. Whilst it has potential, it just lacked the punch you expect from this world (it's no longer w series but a world). Has potential and I'll look forward to the next book, but DW should put us out of our misery and release the next Honor book.