Mission of Honor (Honor Harrington Series)

By David Weber
Baen Books, $27.00, 600 pages

Mission of Honor is book twelve in David Weber’s core Honorverse series, but to truly understand and enjoy this installment, one should have also have read the sub-series books Torch of Freedom and Storm from the Shadows. Plenty of storylines combine in this book, and while they all aren’t resolved, the overall story becomes deeper and more complex, albeit at a cost of focus on Honor.

Honor Harrington has won the decisive Battle of Manicore, and by default the war between Manicore and the Republic of Haven. But now the government of Manicore wants to press their advantage and take the battle to the Haven core systems. But Honor can tell through her telepathic link with Nimitz, her tree-cat, that Haven’s leadership actually wants peace, and she takes a risky mission to Haven to negotiate a final peace treaty. During her mission, the genetic slaver organization known as Manpower uses the Mesan Alignment to launch a crippling sneak attack against Manicore (following the Torch of Freedom storyline). Additionally, the Solarian League is starting to press its own claims against Manicore and the Manicorian Alliance.

While this has less action than previous books, the Mesan attack will keep the action and space battle junkies happy. Due to the many character perspectives and their often different locations, there is a fair amount of story repetition that slows the book down some. But readers of the previous Honorverse books will find much to like in Mission of Honor and any quibbles should be minor — except for the wait for the next installment in the series.

Reviewed by Ross Rojek