Crown of Slaves (Audible Audio Edition) David Weber Peter Larkin Eric Flint Audible Studios Books
Download As PDF : Crown of Slaves (Audible Audio Edition) David Weber Peter Larkin Eric Flint Audible Studios Books
The Star Kingdom's ally, Erewhon, is growing increasingly restive in the alliance because the new High Ridge regime ignores its needs. Add to that the longstanding problem of a slave labor planet controlled by hostile Mesans in Erewhon's stellar back yard, a problem which High Ridge also ignores.
Finally, the recent assassination of the Solarian League's most prominent voice of public conscience indicates the growing danger of political instability in the League - which is also close to Erewhon. In desperation, Queen Elizabeth tries to defuse the situation by sending a private mission to Erewhon led by Captain Zilwicki, accompanied by one of her nieces. When they arrive on Erewhon, however, Manticore's most capable agent and one of its princesses find themselves in a mess.
Not only do they encounter one of the Republic of Haven's most capable agents - Victor Cachat - but they also discover that the Solarian League's military delegation seems up to its neck in skullduggery. And, just to put the icing on the cake, the radical freed slave organization, the Audubon Ballroom, is also on the scene - led by its most notorious killer, Jeremy X.
Crown of Slaves (Audible Audio Edition) David Weber Peter Larkin Eric Flint Audible Studios Books
This was the first Honorverse novel that actually disappointed me a bit, even after reading the slightly juvenile-focused treecat/Harrington origin books, which were a bit lighter in content and tone, but still fairly enjoyable.It's hard to put some of my irritations into words without spoilers, so let me just state that some of the decisions made by the protagonists were were seemingly meant to be tough, noble, idealistic, but were just face-palmingly stupid and naive. You can forgive teenage girls for this, I suppose, but the adults should have known better. And a few of the expository character speeches this series is known for really went overboard, and were far too on-the-nose to be considered as clever and insightful as it pretended it was... almost painfully so. On the plus side, the characters themselves were mostly dynamic and interesting, and the plot kept me fairly engaged. It flagged a bit near the end, and seemingly continued mostly just to set things up for the next book in the series.
It's too bad, because I'd love to continue reading Honorverse stories, but I think I'll probably wait for the main series to continue. But by all means, feel free to ignore my recommendation of a pass if you're desperate for more Honorverse, and consider yourself a reasonably tolerant reader.
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Crown of Slaves (Audible Audio Edition) David Weber Peter Larkin Eric Flint Audible Studios Books Reviews
Not Much of Honor or the Treecats in this one (or the next 2), as its more of a spin off series of the Honor Harrington books rather than a continuation of Honor herself. So if you were expecting another Honor Harrington book, you really aren't going to get it as these are another cast of major characters (some old some new) with Honor and Nimitz only making a brief cameo, and with hardly any Treecat major involved at all. (Ok so the 'Cats were some of my favorite characters so sue me) But other than that its worth the time. I thought it was good enough to buy the other 2 that are out anyway.
"Crown of Slaves" is set in the Honorverse, although Honor herself has but a 10-page cameo. It takes place during the last year of the unhappy, incompetent High Ridge government ("War of Honor"). In place of the meticulously constructed battle scenes in the "main sequence" this time out David Weber, with Eric Flint, concoct a meticulously created sequence of intelligence ops in which two spymasters, Anton Zilwicki of Manticore and Victor Cachat of Haven, find themselves reluctant allies.
You'll also be introduced to two fabulous creations, Berry Zilwicki, Anton's adopted daughter, and Thandi Palane, aka Kaja.
It's long, involved, full of character development and political science theory, but it's suspenseful and lively for all that. It also fills in a few of the gaps in "War of Honor."
This is hardly any place for a newcomer to the Honorverse to start. Begin with "On Baselisk Station" and work your way along.
This is at least reread number 2, if not more. I love the world of Honor Harrington and have ever since I started reading the short stories set in that universe. I’d already met Ruth’s parents, Anton Zilwicki (my hero) and Berry (and Catherine)... and the fantastic Victor Cachet. I love all of these characters and to have them all in one story? YES PLEASE! I love the world building, the intrigue and the twists and turns. I opened the book looking for a single detail to refresh my memory and ended up 85% finished 3 hours later... brilliant.
I liked most of this book, to be sure, but parts of it were a real struggle to get through. I had a couple of specific problems with the book, so let me get into those.
1. At this point, the Honorverse is so large that any book you read will have a tangent that you can follow to learn more; the difference is that when David Weber writes you CAN go down the rabbit hole, but with Eric Flint you MUST. While reading this book, I had to stop three times, buy two new books, and read two novellas ("From the Highlands," which can be found free online or in the anthology "Changer of Worlds"; and "Fanatic" from "The Service of the Sword"). "From the Highlands" is absolutely essential, it's the character introduction of Flint's cast of characters, which play a huge role in the main storyline books as well; skipping it would be like skipping "On Basilisk Station" and starting with "The Honor of the Queen." "Fanatic" is almost more confusing than helpful, but we'll get back to that. When Weber references a side story in the main books, he does it in a way which only enhances the scene; he tells you everything you need to know in a way which adds lore and depth to the moment without pulling you too far afield. When Flint references a side story in his side stories, he'll summarize some of the other side story but not in a way where you know all what happened in the other side story, and then you go and read that other side story because you need it to understand the first side story and it leads you to another side story and......uugh.
2. He forgot to write a side story. Or someone did. Flint's characters are also used by Weber, and quite well, in fact I think better than Flint himself uses them, but someone dropped the ball. Where in the name of all that's holy is the assassination attempt of Catherine Montaigne?! Three separate times in this book (and maybe once more in something else, it's all starting toblurtogether) they talk about how Mesa or Manpower, they weren't really clear, tried to kill her, and Anton Zilwiki littered her estate with their corpses, and that helped build his infamy. It sounded cool to the point that I would have read about it, but also vague enough to the point where I still didn't know what the characters were talking about and NEEDED to read about it, but no such story exists, as far as I can tell. This totally broke the pace and flow of the story every time it happened. His references are like reverse dramatic irony the characters are in the know, but the audience is left behind.
3. I have no idea what anyone is thinking. Time and again, characters who are super geniuses about politics or spycraft or other stuff begin plans for something and then break off halfway through when another character who is also a super genius picks up their thought train before it's said and starts to run with it, until you have pages of half finished dialogue sentences interrupted by other characters agreeing or disagreeing for reasons that they don't finish explaining before they are interrupted. The space stuff gets explained, but anything with a fact base IRL doesn't. Imagine being invisible and sitting in on a planning session for a political campaign halfway through campaign season. None of the experts are going to explain anything they already know because they assume nobody out of the know is listening and everyone listening is in the know. Well, I was listening (reading) and I am not an expert on politics or spycraft, and I feel like a third wheel on spring break. Nothing makes sense to me.
3.5. Nothing makes sense to me. It might be me, and I might be an idiot, but reading this book either I AM an idiot or the person coming up with these plans is an idiot, because half the book is full of the most absurd, convoluted, fallacious, unwarranted, misconstrued rabble that I have ever heard or read. Cringe worthy, in a lot of cases. As in, put-down-the-book-and-walk-away-for-a-fifth-of-absinthe-to-help-me-get-through-the-chapter kind of crazy. The kind of crazy that if your ideas followed the same logic at work, by the end of the day either you would be fired, or the building would explode. Maybe I'm an idiot, or maybe Flint is; either way, I don't like feeling like an idiot when I read a book, and I definitely feel like an idiot when I read this one.
4. The characters are inconsistent. If you only read this book, it wouldn't stand out, but like I said, you're going to need to read other stuff along the way. Across all the tangents I had to travel, I felt like every time I read someone's name I was meeting a different version of them, and no character is guiltier of this that Victor Cachat. In "Highlands" he's a youthful, naive revolutionary with debates about the morality of his chosen masters. In "Fanatic," with never a description of his thoughts at all, he shows up working for those same masters as part of their inner circle and tortures like 40 people to death in front of their colleagues. Then, SPOILERS, he finds out Saint-Just got overthrown and surrenders without a fight and deflates into an exhausted but wise old man (at the age of like 25). Then in "Crown of Slaves," he's Haven's most experienced spymaster, a political mastermind, a ruthless murderer, and the galaxy's greatest lover. I wouldn't put his characterization at "Oh no, it's John Ringo!" level of bad, but it's definitely on the same end of the scale.
5. Seriously, did John Ringo help write this? Every character is the be all and end all of something. Either spying, or hacking, or power grabbing, or assassinating. Not one character in this book feels tempered. Everyone is the best in the galaxy, and you are told about it, never shown. Some characters know it and own it, although of course with heaping piles of sincere modesty and humility (which really loses its authenticity when they tell you how humble and modest they are), and some just don't care that they are the best but they still know it and use it. This creates many problems for the story, one of which is that there is no tension at all. If you have a group of people who are the best space marines in the galaxy and they are going up against piss poor pirates, everyone knows the outcome (you, the marines, the pirates), and reading through the fight scenes and action feels like a chore more than anything. There is no sense of tension, because there is no conceptual way that any of the characters involved could possibly lose. At anything. Even sex.
6. Seriously, Baen, stop letting John Ringo write soft core erotica and publish it through you. It's both too weird to be relatable (unless you go to the Folsom Street Fair every year), and not saucy enough to be satisfying. Okay, to be real, it's not erotica, but there are erotic scenes (like political meetings which take place in the middle of spontaneous orgies), and they just feel out of place. Weber's use of sex was character building, but once again Flint just doesn't measure up.
7. The ending was good. No spoilers, but it all wrapped up nicely, there were no loose ends, but there was room for expansion and surprisingly I wanted to read it. And yes, this is a problem. By and large, I didn't like the way the book was written; I didn't really like the exposition, the character development, the plot, or the action. I don't want to be left wanting more, because then I'll end up needing to buy more books with more side stories to understand the tangents in the sequels to this side story. I don't have enough absinthe to get through two more of books, or enough liver to get through ten fifths of absinthe. I don't want to have to wade through 700 pages of crap (not like a wet cow patty, but more like a dry, dusty pasture where you know the dust you're kicking up is old cow patties and you know that mud taste in your mouth isn't really mud) to get a pat on the head and a rub behind my ears with a good epilogue.
But, I already bought the other two Flint books before I opened this, so...d**n it...
TL;DR It's a bid filler arc, but the ending made me feel good.
This book is full of spies , conspirators , politics , and more political theory than you can shake a stick at . The cast of characters is large . There is a lot of political lecturing . Some of which could have been edited out .
Not a bad book , goodly long imo . Worth the price of admission into the trilogy .
I have one bone to pick , and that is the notion that slavery is "unbridled capitalism " . The capitalists wiped out slavery in this country . That kind of tyranny can only be sustained with government support the flaw in the Constitution forcing the Free States to enforce slave catching .
This was the first Honorverse novel that actually disappointed me a bit, even after reading the slightly juvenile-focused treecat/Harrington origin books, which were a bit lighter in content and tone, but still fairly enjoyable.
It's hard to put some of my irritations into words without spoilers, so let me just state that some of the decisions made by the protagonists were were seemingly meant to be tough, noble, idealistic, but were just face-palmingly stupid and naive. You can forgive teenage girls for this, I suppose, but the adults should have known better. And a few of the expository character speeches this series is known for really went overboard, and were far too on-the-nose to be considered as clever and insightful as it pretended it was... almost painfully so. On the plus side, the characters themselves were mostly dynamic and interesting, and the plot kept me fairly engaged. It flagged a bit near the end, and seemingly continued mostly just to set things up for the next book in the series.
It's too bad, because I'd love to continue reading Honorverse stories, but I think I'll probably wait for the main series to continue. But by all means, feel free to ignore my recommendation of a pass if you're desperate for more Honorverse, and consider yourself a reasonably tolerant reader.
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