Product Description

What price victory? The war with the Republic of Haven has resumed . . . disastrously for the Star Kingdom of Manticore. Admiral Lady Dame Honor Harrington, Steadholder and Duchess Harrington, the single victorious Allied commander of the opening phase of the new war, has been recalled from the Sidemore System to command Eighth Fleet. Everyone knows Eighth Fleet is the Alliance's primary offensive command, which makes it the natural assignment for the woman the media calls ?the Salamander.? But what most of the public DOESN'T know is that not only are the Star Kingdom and its Allies badly outnumbered by the Republic's new fleet, but that the odds are going to get steadily worse. Eighth Fleet's job is to somehow prevent those odds from crushing the Alliance before the Star Kingdom can regain its strategic balance. It's a job which won't be done cheaply. Honor Harrington must meet her formidable responsibilities with inferior forces even as she copes with tumultuous changes in her personal and public life. The alternative to victory is total defeat, yet this time the COST of victory will be agonizingly high.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16724 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 912 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781416544142
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Nobody does space opera better than Weber, and his heroine, Honor Harrington, introduced in On Basilisk Station (1993), remains as engaging as ever in the latest tome to chronicle her adventures. At the start, intelligence agents of the newly democratic Republic of Haven detect a hidden hand behind their renewed hostilities with the Star Kingdom of Manticore. As the Havenites struggle to convince their foes that they are being manipulated by common enemies among the genetic slave trade, the Manticoreans force their hand until there's no alternative but the Mother of All Space Battles. Weber manages to invert the respective moral positions of his sides quite adroitly, showing how emotion and prejudice can impair even the finest among us. The sweep of interstellar conflict contrasts with developments in Honor's personal life that could have been maudlin, but succeed in being highly moving. Reading like a fusion of Horatio Hornblower, Robert A. Heinlein and Tom Clancy, this is easily the best installment in the series to date; one can well imagine that when future star warriors develop their tactics, Weber's narratives will provide a template. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Seasoned voyagers through Weber's Honorverse (the Honor in question being Harrington) mustn't be put off by the stupendous size of the eleventh volume of the lady's adventures. All the pages are needed to encompass a fast-paced tale that brings together all the elements developed in previous books, and push them a good way along toward an ultimate conclusion. [...] The climax is bloody and fine preparation for at least one more desperate round of fighting. It also leaves Honor reflecting on the price of war in warriors' lives. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
David Weber is the science fiction phenomenon of the decade. His popular Honor Harrington novels are New York Times best sellers and can't come out fast enough for his devoted readers. In addition to the Honor Harrington series, he has written many top-selling science fiction novels, all for Baen, including Empire from the Ashes, The Apocalypse Troll, and In Fury Born. He has also begun a top-selling epic SF adventure series in collaboration with John Ringo, with four novels so far: March Upcountry, March to the Sea, March to the Stars and We Few. His Wind Rider's Oath, another New York Times best seller, continues his popular Bahzell fantasy adventure series.

Customer Reviews

Weber Evil
The Star Kingdom of Manticore and the People's Republic of Haven are still in the bloodiest war ever known. In a previous novel, readers learned that the Havenites believed the Manties, during a cease-fire, altered documents. Therefore, the Havenites fired the first shot, ending the cease-fire without even bothering to notify the Manties. Now the Havenites have reason to believe that the Manties never altered anything. In fact, it appears that one of their own did the altering, hoping to cause the war to continue ... and succeeded.

Haven President Eloise Pritchart wants nothing more than for the war to end. She releases a POW, who happens to be close to Honor Harrington, with a message for Queen Elizabeth. Eloise wants to meet and discuss terms for peace. Elizabeth is given the choice of when and where. Eloise asks that Honor be included, as well as, the treecats.

Honor Harrington is still close to Hamish and Emily (of White Haven). As Honor begins her return to the front, she learns that she is pregnant. Though all know, in the back of their minds anyway, who the father is, no one dares state it aloud. Since being killed in battle is always a possibility, Honor has her unborn child removed from herself and placed in a tube to mature. (Totally safe.) Those on Manticore and Grayson, depending on how they feel about Honor, are either thrilled to learn about an heir or furious and wanting to use the child as a weapon against the mother.

***** First off let me state that I hope the author creates a whole new series about Torch, its teenaged queen, and its Amazonian people. Such potential exists there. Queen Berry Zilwicki came across much better than Queen Amidala could ever hope to have done.

Honor Harrington is something of "a personal bogeyman" for the Havenites. As always, Honor's reputation for unusual strategies grows, with great reason. If a student is only as good as his or her teacher, then the author, David Weber, is down right scary! The planning, tactical details, and battle executions are unnerving to me. I totally believe Weber to be a genius in this regard.

As my husband or I read ANY book by Weber, we lose a lot of sleep. We no longer bother to inform the other of WHY we look so tired and exhausted. We simply look into the eyes of the other and say, with a voice of pure disgust, " Weber Evil." Those two words say it all. This series has my highest possible recommendation! *****

(...)

David Weber's Honor has been Restored
It pains me to admit it, but despite my own longtime love of Honor Harrington books, I waited a long time on this one, and only read it because my local library had a copy. You see, I found "War of Honor", the previous installment, to be almost agonizingly boring. Honor never commanded a single vessel up until the very end when she just happened to have her Elysian Space Navy on maneuvers at the right place at the right time. Nearly the entire book was spent on such things as Honor's "battle" with the smear campaign involving her, Emily, and Hamish; the Saganami Island students she was befriending; and the new efforts to communicate with treecats through sign. "War of Honor" was probably the most boring military sci-fi book I have ever read. I pretty much decided when it was over that David Weber must have forgotten how to tell an exciting story, and if I ever bothered to read "At All Costs" it would only be if I could get it free and felt like I didn't have anything better to read.

So having gone into sufficient detail how much I hated "War of Honor", "At All Costs" was absolutely gripping fiction at its very best.

For the first time, both Haven and Manticore are led by honest politicians. The war, by rights, ought to be ended. Republic of Haven's President Eloise Pritchart learns early in the story that it was her own Secretary of State that had been the one to alter the diplomatic dispatches with Manticore, resulting in her decision to launch her surprise attack. Now she desperately wants to bring a diplomatic end to the war. Unfortunately, the mysterious organization "Manpower" introduced in "Shadow of Saganami" has other plans for the two Star Nations.

Honor Harrington has been newly installed as Eighth Fleet's commander - the primary offensive fleet for the Royal Manticoran Navy. Her job is to find a way to convince the Havenites to cover their rear areas and reduce their fleet strength available for offensive operations. Unfortunately, she faces an opponent with an almost two to one advantage in hulls that not even superior Manticoran technology is sufficient to offset. Not only that, but they enjoy an advantage in ongoing construction, meaning their superiority is only going to increase. Her job won't be an easy one.

Tom Theisman, the Havenite Secretary of War, wants the war to end just as badly as President Eloise Pritchart. His dilemma is that while he too knows about the way his Star Nation was manipulated into going into war, the war itself enjoys too much popularity at home. Congress won't allow their forces to simply surrender and bring the fighting to a close. And if Manpower is going to sabotage any chance for a peaceful settlement, then the only other option is to end the war through an all-out military victory. And while he prays it won't come to that, Tom Theisman knows he's got the strength to make it happen.

"At All Costs" is not a book to be read if you can only devote a few hours to it here and there. From nearly the first chapter, David Weber weaves his most masterful and exciting plot ever, and putting the book down, even for a minute, can be almost agonizing. I know some will find it frustrating, and particularly the end might be unsatisfying for some. But I will enthusiastically recommend this book to anyone who likes military sci-fi. This is absolutely the best I've ever come across within that genre, and certainly the best book in this series.

One last thing... David Weber's recently released "Shadow of Saganami" takes place in parallel with "At All Costs", and provides additional background on the workings of Manpower. You may want to read that one first, even though it isn't technically an Honor Harrington book.

Worth the Wait
The scale of the carnage is incredible. The star kingdom of Manticore is on the ropes and reeling after the resumption of hostilities with Haven. Neither side wanted the war; they were driven into it by self serving and lying politicians. Now the war has been resumed and it is an ugly one. Even when it seems that peace might break out, vested interests fan the flames and send the peace process down to defeat. That costs even more lives on both sides.

In the climax, the two sides come against each other in a titanic clash, the largest in history, in which all depends on a single roll of the dice. Whichever side wins, the carnage continues to mount.

Weber does his usual splendid job of characterization and laying the groundwork. He is masterful at creating characters we love and respect, characters we can both despise and respect, characters we want to lose but want it to happen gracefully and characters we just want an Acme safe to fall on. Strangely enough, that even happens.

This is not Weber's work but he sets such a high standard that even a middle of the road book is very good indeed. That is what we have here.

I was lucky enough to begin this series late enough that I was able to read the first 10 in quick succession. Then I had to wait for this one to come out. It was worth the wait.