Mission of Honor: Honor Harrington, Book 12

By: David Weber

Narrated by: Allyson Johnson

Length: 24 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

The Star Kingdom of Manticore and the Republic of Haven have been enemies for Honor Harrington's entire life, and she has paid a price for the victories she's achieved in that conflict. And now the unstoppable juggernaut of the mighty Solarian League is on a collision course with Manticore. The millions who have already died may have been only a foretaste of the billions of casualties just over the horizon, and Honor sees it coming.

She's prepared to do anything, risk anything, to stop it, and she has a plan that may finally bring an end to the Havenite Wars and give even the Solarian League pause. But there are things not even Honor knows about. There are forces in play, hidden enemies in motion, all converging on the Star Kingdom of Manticore to crush the very life out of it, and Honor's worst nightmares fall short of the oncoming reality. But Manticore's enemies may not have thought of everything after all. Because if everything Honor Harrington loves is going down to destruction, it won't be going alone.

A Note from Author David Weber
There’s been some confusion—not to say, um, energetic debate, readers and fans being readers and fans—about the correct pronunciation of “Manticoran.” The truth, alas, is that a stitch was dropped. An error occurred. A mistake was made... and it wasn’t Audible’s fault. It was mine. Before Audible recorded the very first Honor Harrington book, narrator Allyson Johnson and I not only corresponded by e-mail but actually spoke to one another by phone. She wanted to make absolutely certain she had the correct pronunciations for names, places, star nations, etc., and I tried to make certain all of her questions were answered. And so they were. Unfortunately, at some point in the process, I replied to one of her e-mails by telling her that “Man-ti-core-ahn” was pronounced “Man-tik-er-ahn.” Exactly how this happened is more than I can say at this point, except to blushingly disclose that the original e-mail remains intact, confirming to all the world that it was, indeed, my fault. I can ascribe it only to a temporary mental hiccup on my part and crave your forgiveness. If, however, you must blame someone for the mix-up, that someone should be me and not Audible, who have done everything they could to get it right.

©2010 David Weber (P)2010 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Weber… combines realistic, engaging characters with intelligent technological projection and a deep understanding of military bureaucracy in the long-awaited 12th Honor Harrington novel….Fans of this venerable space opera will rejoice to see Honor back in action.” ( Publishers Weekly)

a ditto in time saves nine

Weber should be legally prevented from using the phrase, "but on the other hand". I have never seen an author who relies on dramatic dialog and writes some of the best space battle sceens I've ever read/heard rely on such a cliche this much. Literally every scene containing a substantiative discussion between characters, and they are numerous, used that phrase. His editors should be flogged.

Huge fan, hugely disappointed

I've loved the Honor Harrington series since book 1, but this one just didn't make the cut. Honor barely figures in for a long time, and Weber is trying to juggle too many nations and their perspectives. I might retry this in print, but I didn't like it as an audio book.

Change of Narrator

Would you try another book from David Weber and/or Allyson Johnson?

David Weber is a brilliant Sci-Fi autor and I have read most of his book. I also have almost all of the Honor Harrington Audiobooks. It was a shame that Madeline Buzzard became "unavailable" because she did a splendid job. After that they changed to Merry Cane which was OK. I just bought book 12 and 13 and Allyson Johnson simply ruins it. Her thick Texan accent dosent fit all story and the characters, so I have decided to return both books. 5 minutes was more than I could bear.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Mission of Honor?

Dont know

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Allyson Johnson?

Merry Cane

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

Read the book

Any additional comments?

Don't buy the audiobooks of Honor Harrington with Allyson Johnson.

Blah Blah Blah

I love the HH novels, and I have gotten very used to Ms. Johnson's narration, but this book never seems to end. Mr Weber has gone out of his way to destroy and wreak havoc on HH in more ways than in all of her previous "rides of the Valkyrie." Weber digs the grave so deep for the book's characters that I found myself just stopping the playback because the depression was just too much. He kills off some of our favorites as well, but we dont get the same emotional effect like when we lost Adm Raoul C.

Listening to the first two thirds of this book is a boring chore. It's all recap, bloated exposition and endless chatter that could have been done MUCH better and consisly..The book is not just slow, it crawls. There are hours of dialogue in which nothing happens and where minor characters do (and say) unimportant things. In one scene, we follow a team of marines through a captured ship, from the airlock to the bridge. Nothing happens. They don't even encounter anyone. Why was this in the book? The attack on the Manticore system is the big event of the book, but it feels very anti-climatic after listening for hours of drooning background. When compared to time wasted on the problems of prisoners, it really feels diminished. There are references to events from 'Torch' and 'Storm' which were never explained, and if you have not read or listened to them, you will be totally lost with this audiobook. I have read them, and I still got lost.

\If you are a HH fan, you will be disappointed. She is hardly in the book at all, when she is, she does not do anything. The book also ends on a huge cliffhanger, which is not at all typical for this series. I wanted to love it. It's been so long since we had a good solid HH book. But unfortunately I don't, and this isn't one! 3 stars, I gave 2 extra stars because HH is one of my favorite SiFi fictional character

Options?

Sadly, the only way Audible can gain a greater audience is to follow a competitor. That is to have a narrator read the book and have other voice actors read the various dialogs, giving more of a dramatization effect. Adding in some sound effects would enhance the experience. However, I can not see audible doing such. Check out Elizabeth Moon's dramatized Serrano series and you will see what I mean.

Still have troubel with the narration

I have been able to listen to a lot of the books narrated by a different reader who I greatly enjoyed. The narration here is quite different. This could have been OK but has turned out to be very annoying. This may be due to my preconceptions. I find the current pronunciation of "Manticorian" particularity annoying. I prefer "man-ti-cor-ian" not "man-tic-or-ian". This can be jolting as she always otherwise properly says "man-ti-core". Also her use of accents is childish. She has the Lords speak in an accent that belongs in the UK House of Lords circa 1900 not to mention the abomination of reading First Space Lord Caparelli with an Italian accent. In the future envisioned the only thing Italian about Caparelli is probably his name. Sorry for the rant.

More about supergirl Honor vs. the baddies

Well, we already know that she walks on water; so, nothing new there. I really could have done without the whole romance part. I will also say that if I have to listen to another 5 minute description of how a treecat signs he/she thinks you are funny, miserable, or whatever or of a lengthy description of how many pods get rolled with how many multidrive rockets and how many kps^2 their acceleration is compared with the awful bad guys' version, or how much the evil guys esteem Honor/Manticore, I am going to chuck my ipod into the nearest antimatter converter!

The narrator has about 3 or 4 different voices: plain old midwestern English, country/hillbilly English, pseudo-French English, and some other that I don't remember. Unfortunately there are many more characters and each accent appears for both the Manties (good guys) and Peeps (bad guys) and Mesa/Manpower guys (badder guys), and for the Sollies (really dumb guys); so, it is sometimes hard to figure out who is speaking until you are a few sentences in. I would have preferred a little bit more straight forward reading, but that is me.

If you have gotten this far in the series (12) you will probably continue, but this one is far below the standards of the first 4 or 5.

Incomprehensible

For die hard fans only. Yes, I've read the previous 11 books at one time of another in the past couple of decades, but this one just floored me. I simply can't keep the various threads of the story intact, and Weber is utterly unforgiving - you just have to work it all out for yourself somehow. Best of luck.

Very Disappointing...

Any additional comments?

First, it's very irritating to find the main character present in fewer than one-third of the scenes in the book. Second, this particular book in the series ends in the middle of the action. Is this a soap opera or a novel?

dear diary

I'm expecting every chapter in the next book to begin with "dear diary", have a pink cover with unicorns and hearts drawn in the margins and be insane with glitter. The series as a whole is wonderful, but weber is wasting a lot of pages delving into all of the characters feelings, i say waste because he could have gotten the point across with much fewer pages. more pages do not equate a better story, i found myself seriously wishing i had bought the ink and paper book just so i could skip the constant dialogue about how everyone was feeling. this book and the previous could have been at least a hundred pages and hours shorter and the reader/listener would not have missed a thing. do i recommend it, yes, i also recomend that you go make yourself a sandwhich or catch up on the news or something when they start talking feelings trust me you won't miss a thing.