Second Breakfast

Another installment in the rather large “Honor Harrington” series by David Weber, which recounts the adventures of Honor Harrington, starship captain and all around Good Guy (or Gal).
Weber is definitely a military guy, and his emphasis is as much on strategy and tactics as it is on the conflicts and characters that require their employment.   The story revolves around the impending conflict between the imperiled Kingdom of Manticore (aka Britain) and the so-called Republic of Haven (aka France) engaged in a proxy war with two planets involved in a religious feud going back centuries.

Turns out that Grayson and Masada (the two planets in direct conflict) are the descendants of Puritanic religious settlers with a particularly nasty attitude towards women.  Given that Honor is the first female officer these folks have encountered, lots of conflict erupts, and soon someone starts shooting as the events unfold.  People die, sometimes badly, and the bad guys act like real bad guys when things go wrong.  Of course in the end Honor and her people save things brilliantly, but at some personal cost.
After two books one starts to see some patterns.  Weber tends to regard the career military folks generally as the “good guys”, even when they’re on the other side.  In this book the captain of the Havenite task force involved in this proxy conflict is portrayed very sympathetically, mostly at the mercy of the crazy religious fanatics whose aims are less than savory.  That said, Weber does go beyond the Star Trek trope of “religion is stupid and we evolved beyond all that superstition” to explain in a compelling way how the Grayson folks came to regard their female population because of the harsh conditions of their planet, and the absolute need for survival.

Weber’s also an optimistic guy, and in his world when the professionals are allowed to do their jobs, good things happen.

I’m generally not one for military culture, but I like the Harrington character, and I like the large story arc he’s drawing here.  These are good beach, plane, train, or vacation reads if you “like this sort of thing”.