STG's

A Mighty Fortress, by David Weber, is the 4th book in the SafeHold series. The SafeHold series is about humanity's last world, which was kept in a primitive state with a custom made religion so that aliens could not find their signals. In a way that really resembles the Honor Harrington, the nice nation (the Charisian Empire) is getting attacked unfairly by the bad guys (the Church), who now declared Holy War. Also, research is the only thing keeping the good guys alive as the stakes keep increasing. And there are very careful description of the battles. Just on the sea. Even if it is much like the Honor Harrington series (except that instead of being in space, there are sea battles), it is quite enjoyable. As most Weber books, there is quite a bit of dialog between the battles, which builds the book well even if it really slows down the action. Overall, recommended to fans of the series.

By Heresies Distressed is the third title in the SafeHold series, by David Weber. In this series, human kind got to the brink of extinction because of an alien race hunting us, and hid in a planet far away. The leaders decided to lower the tech level to avoid detection by the aliens, erase everyone's memories and establish a church where they were archangels to keep it this way. In this volume, the war between Charis and the church continues, and now is time to counter-attack Corisande. As usual, plenty of low tech battles, with a little SF added in. There is still a little less action that what I'd like, but I still enjoyed it very much.

Just finished  By Schism Rest Asunder , by David Weber , the second book in the Safehold series. The series are about humanity in a new planet, hiding from an alien species (unknowingly) by using only low tech, enforced by the church. But an android with a downloaded human wants them to know the truth... This was pretty nice. Not sure if I got used to it or if those sections were shorter, but the plotting by everyone and naval terms in battles did not annoy me as in the first book. One trend in Weber series repeats (not sure which was first, though) - a lonely kingdom with a good ruler, hunted by enemies, arise by having better tech and starts forming an empire. Obviously this is an important part of the Honor Harrington series, and so it is here. Overall, I really liked it (more than the first), and I was quite surprised when it ended (I read it in an e-book with 2 other volumes, so I had no indication it was about to end).

I had Off Armageddon Reef, by David Weber for a while, but decided to read it (or re-read it - I know I read parts of it before, not sure if got to the end) because I heard that the 10th book in the series was released. The story base is nice - human kind was interstellar, but aliens hunted each planet down and destroyed it. Humanity escapes with enough to make a colony, but tries to do it with low tech because the aliens located other colonies, presumably through tech emissions. One android with a human download survived the crazy church that was established by the colony leaders, and she will have to lead humanity to liberate itself from the church and eventually beat the aliens. Of course, most of the novel is not SF - it takes place in the world where yes, there is an android messing with things, but the tech has to be pretty low. So substantial portions are just conspiracies and politics (which is a common David Weber thing, if you've read the Honor series). There is a l...

Uncompromising Honor is the latest book in the Honorverse series. It is supposed to be the last Honor Harrington book, which is sad to think about, as I've been reading these for over 20 years (the series is 25 years old!). This felt like it could easily be a couple of books. Personally I would have preferred it that way - it's been 5 years since the last Honor book and I have forgotten many details about what was last happening. As it last ended, the Grand Alliance is at war with the Sollies, after a vicious attack by them to Manticore that utterly failed because of the Sollies' inferior tech. Still, because of the Mesan Alignment simultaneous attack, there was massive destruction in the system. As usual, there are changes in the tech all around. There are many battles, described in what I think are David Webber's pretty weird way (which work very well) and oh so many interludes everywhere breaking up the action, with the maneuvers in the Solly, Mesan and other...

A Rising Thunder - by David Weber - is the latest installment in the Honor Harrington series. As of the last books, the plot created by the Mesan Alignment is finally exposed, while the undeclared war with the Solarian League is warming up. The book was fairly exciting (well, in the traditional Weber sense, which includes very long and thoughtful pauses in the action where the main characters have long discussions). While there was at least one of the traditional space battles heavy on tactics, it was very short, and well before the ending - which consisted mostly of battles of the political kind. In that sense, the book is a bit of a letdown, but I have no doubt that other fans of the series will still enjoy A Rising Thunder. PS: Almost forgot - you can also get this as a DRM-free e-book on Baen , for a very cheap US$6. And it is easy to read on your Kindle (or iPad) - you can just e-mail it to the Kindle's e-mail address.

A Beautiful Friendship - by David Weber is a larger version of a story previously published on one of the Honorverse anthologies - More than Honor. The story follows how an ancestor of Honor Harrington, who just moved to Sphinx, discovers and then forms a relationship with the telephatic, sentient local life form - the Treecats. It is pleasant, but it does feel like a young adult book. In fact, overall it very much feels like a B direct-to-TV movie, with a young hero which is oh so much smarter than the adults beside her, and with the help of her pet saves the day.