A Rising Thunder: Honor Harrington, Book 13

The story fit the title. A rising thunder is designed to build up all the causation for the push in the second half of this installment due later this year. The story is actually made up of several short stories interlinked by the main common theme. I liked the quick pace of multiple events happening in succession all over the the galaxy and being interlinked with the "rising" plot. I am salivating for the missile crescendo that will spell the end of Manpower....
As For JOHNSON's narration. Ok one Good compliment and one little criticism. The critical first: Johnson had a tendency to confuse scenes a bit in this one. For example: At the end of a certain Board meeting in old Chicago (towards the end of the book) she cuts away to a conversation between a powerful Male and Female character without a breath, it was a little disorienting. On the bright side, People have been hating on Johnson for her changing of the pronunciation of Manticorian. She used to say Man-Tic -or-n. BUT she has grown as a narrator and now pronounces it Manticorian, which is the correct phoneme structure. The old way was 4 distinct Morphemes while the proper (new say she says it) is only 3. Proper pronunciation is defined "Communicating a words intent using the least morphemic units" SO major kudos to Johnson for this.
THIS IS NOT for the first time Weber reader, it would be like trying to read Lord of the rings and getting irritated because you choose to start in the last half of the third book.
Overall I enjoyed it for its purpose; to build up for the coming storm and it was needed synopsis for the major events enveloping every major and most of the minor star nations in the series.

A Rising Thunder was a long wait for us Honor Harrington fans. For those of us that were hooked after Basilisk Station by the space battles and how Honor had a force of will, A Rising Thunder is more of a sign that the series has morphed into something else.

Most of the book has nothing to do with Honor Harrington. It talks about the entire Honorverse. What is going on all over the galaxy. All the intrigue. It is an amazing universe that I think would be a very interesting MMO. But I just didn't feel the love of the older books here. Especially with the long wait for this book. I was disappointed.

This book is primarily seting up the series for a new set of books. It actually starts prior to the end of the previous book in order to give aditional background information to frame the New struggle about to envelope the varius star nations.

That it was an Honor Harrington novel and a continuation of a story that I have been following since 2000.

The Treecats and the refusal of the so-called educated politicans that refuse to believe that they have anything to add to a discussion or are afraid to be around them for fear of being found out.

I have listened to them many times and I wish that she would STOP with the accents. I understand that she is trying to make the story more intresting but she is just muddying up the story and making it harder to follow.

disgust at the blind averice in the Solie politicians attitudes. I nearly screamed. They act just like Washington politicians.

Bring in a male narrator for the scenes where a male is the focus like the ones for the senior undersecretaries. The breaking up between male and female voices would enhance the books. The publisher might even go back and redo all the books that way. I know that I'd get them.

yes. It is part of a memorable series. The author had built an amazingly complete and complicated universe. I would like the story to move a little faster and have more battles. In this book there was only one and it was not detailed. The politics were more important. and they are important to the story, but I wish for less emphasis on the politics. Never the less. I will grab anything in this series or from this author. Great stuff!! most of all I hate the wait for the next installment.

The treecats make a decision.

Honor, of course.

I wish it did not ring so true how vulnerable we are to the lies we are told by our leaders.

Start at the beginning of the series or you will be lost! but it is well worth the many hours of reading. I love the long books!!!!!

I've read all the books in the Honor Harrington saga multiple times. Some are better than others. At one point, it seemed like they were getting so incredibly long and so little happened, that I decided to stop reading the series, but at some point I gave in and got the books I had missed and started again, and the series has actually improved again. In the early books, the exciting action was carried mostly by Honor. Now that she is a bigwig, a lot of the better action sequences are carried by other people. But the story is interesting and exciting again. I got this book yesterday and have listened to it almost non-stop. And as it neared its end, I felt like groaning. Two days of intense involvement in the story and then 363 days waiting for the next installment. It's sheer torture.

If you have never read any of the Honor Harrington books, this is not the one to start with. The series should definitely be read in order. The first book is "On Basilisk Station." If you have been a fan of the Honor books, be glad. Weber has produced another worthy entry into the series.

The performance is better in this one. I think she's getting better. I enjoy the story. The thriller/intrigue elements are interesting. One thing, it's "delta vee" not "delta five", as in change in velocity. Not a big one, but it does shatter the suspension of disbelief.

"THE NEW CHAPTER"

"June 1922 Post Diaspora: Protector Benjamin Mayhew IX makes first interstellar state visit to Manticore to sign Manticore-Haven Peace treaty on behalf of Grayson".

The war is over, and from the ashes of this war the "NEW ALLIANCE" is born.
The alliance of two enemies who now understand that they became enemies not by their own Will. Now they finally understand that for more than Twenty years they were puppets of the third party, party who wanted to destroy them both all along. And now one more Puppet of the same master is used to Finish them. But perhaps this NEW ALLIANCE has some friends it doesn't even know about.

"EW" gets a new meaning.
Previously "EW" Electronic Warfare but now it's time for Economical Warfare!!!

PS
It's been taking a bit longer than expected to complete this book , originally it supposed to be around 1200 pages long, but publisher decided to cut it in two, and publish them separately. This book is around 440 pages long and the next one is 610.


NEXT BOOK IS "SHADOWS OF FREEDOM"
Expected publication march 5th 2013

This was like the start of a new series for me. I Love the harrington series so this was ok for me. But a new listener should start out with On Basilisk Station and go thru the series. In this one, It felt to me like the battles were good but more background than the usual core of the book. It was even more heavily invested in statistics and setting the story than usual. Having said that, it held my attention throughout and I will get the next one.

This book finally moved the story along quite a bit after all the set up in the last book.
I listened to all three parts in two days and most of the time could follow who was who.