A Rising Thunder

Honor Harrington, Book 13

By: David Weber

Narrated by: Allyson Johnson

Length: 17 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

Peril and strife strike on a double front for Honor Harrington and company. After a brutal attack on the Manticoran home system, Honor Harrington and the Star Kingdom she serves battle back against a new, technologically powerful, and utterly nefarious enemy. And as if that weren’t task enough, Honor must also face down a centuries-old nemesis in the crumbling, but still mighty, Solarian League.

The war between the People’s Republic of Haven and the Star Kingdom is finally won and peace established, but grave danger looms - for there is a plan well on its way to completion designed to enslave the entire human species. Behind that plan lies the shadowy organization known as the Mesan Alignment.

Task number one for Honor is to defend against another devastating Mesan strike - a strike that may well spell the doom of the Star Kingdom in one fell blow. It is time to shut down and secure the wormhole network that is the source of the Star Kingdom’s wealth and power - but also its greatest vulnerability. Yet this is an act that the Earth-based Solarian League inevitably will take as a declaration of war.

The thunder of battle rolls as the Solarian League directs its massive power against the Star Kingdom. And once again, Honor Harrington is thrust into a desperate battle that she must win if she is to survive to take the fight to the real enemy of galactic freedom: the insidious puppetmasters of war who lurk behind the Mesan Alignment!

©2012 Words of Weber, Inc. (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Disappointed with Audible on this one.

Disappointed the chapters are out of order. This made it difficult to enjoy. Here’s the lineup:
Start with chapter 15 - 25 (book chapters 1 - 11).
Then chapter 1 -14 (book chapters 12- 24).
Chapter 26 - 36 (book chapters 25 to end. )
Confusing huh?

I HATE the year-long wait for the next installment

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.

Chapters are out of order.

This book has been out for years, no reason this shouldn't be fixed by now.

Honor Harrington Universe Book 22

"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

Compelling Series But Too Much Filler

Overall, this book is a nice continuation of the story. The story arc allows for an interesting mix of action, politics, and character development. Having said that, the author seems to be developing some annoying habits if you have followed his writing style from book 1.

There is far too much filler material. For example there are long boring sequences where he describes conversations between humans and tree cats, where he describes in detail the tree cat's hand movements as they use sign language. Describing hand and finger position and the motion of the gestures as the tree cat spells a word letter by letter is excruciating. Imaging watching a closed-captioned broadcast with someone speaking in your ear who explains with as much detail as they can, what the person signing is doing. This would test anyone's patience. Normally a translator would simply tell you that the person is signing followed by the translation. Five minute descriptions of hand gestures is massive overkill and I found myself using the fast-forward key frequently, lest I fall asleep.

Ditto the author's annoying tendency to have us attend entire religious services where he takes us through a complete religious service with lengthy scripture readings and pastoral comments, rather than simply giving us the first few lines like any author who wants to keep us engaged would do, followed by a synopsis of what was said so we can get back to the story. Again, making us sit through complete sermons is massive overkill and again, thanks for the fast-forward button. I probably skipped 20-30 minutes of this novel.

Lastly, the author has for the last 2 books picked up the annoying habit of everyone's lip twitching and tightening whenever they are surprised. That never happens to me so I can't relate to it. And since it happens over and over and over, it gets irritating. There are other ways to depict surprise in writing but the author seems to be getting lazy.

I still like the story a lot but each novel seems to move more slowly and there are several bad habits the author is picking up that make me pinch my nose and press on. Since this story is not entirely self-contained and ends abruptly with several important things dangling, I'm sure there will be another soon. I just hope negatives don't get worse or I will probably tune out.

love this series, but less politics. more battles

Would you listen to A Rising Thunder again? Why?

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.

What was one of the most memorable moments of A Rising Thunder?

The treecats make a decision.

Which character ??? as performed by Allyson Johnson ??? was your favorite?

Honor, of course.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

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

Any additional comments?

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!!!!!

Good

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.

An episode of an on-going soap opera, not a novel

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

No, as the title states Mr. Weber has stopped writing novels and started writing episodes of a soap opera. It's a shame because he has interesting material and he is a very capable writer. I love the early Harrington series, but the later half of the series seems to be a single run-on story rather than several distinct novels.

Which character – as performed by Allyson Johnson – was your favorite?

Ms. Johnson is an excellent narrator. One of the best I've heard in many years of listening to audio books. It would be hard to say what character she does best. They are all excellent.

Any additional comments?

I'm not the only one noticing this problem with Mr. Weber's most recent works. I've seen others make the very same comments. I wish he would take note and get back to writing novels the way he used to. He is not a bad author; he is, in fact, a very good author, but he has slipped into some very bad habits.

Great book for fans of the series

Any additional comments?

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.

This is half a book, not a full novel.

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Weber has grown complacent that his books in the Honorverse will sell simply because the previous ones have done so. I purchased this book expecting a full story, like On Basilisk Station, and instead got a teaser with no plot arc whatsoever.

This novel is a jumbled mishmash of words with poor pacing, lack of finality, and two-dimensional characters shoved into the limelight. For an Honor Harrington novel, it manages to actually have her in it for all of probably 20-30 pages.

Don't waste your money or download credits on this book.

Has A Rising Thunder turned you off from other books in this genre?

Yes. I will not be getting the next Weber book.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

No. It would have no ending.

Great story, good narration

I have enjoyed the entire Honor Harrington series thus far, and "A Rising Thunder" is one of the best books in the series. It mixes just the right amount of battlefield tactics, personal interaction, and global politics to make an engaging story.

If you're a Harrington fan you'll definitely want to listen to this episode; if you haven't heard of Honor Harrington you'd better start at the beginning and enjoy all the episodes in this excelleent series.

All that is bad about his wtiting

I was a huge fan of the Honnor Harington series. But as the story has gone on Mr Weber has increasingly lost his touch. Now his books are bloated slow and devoid of all the action that made the early books so good. He is not a skilled writer and his dialogue has always been uncomfortable. This did not matter when surrounded by clever fast paced story lines and what he is good at Action! Now his books are all dumb dialogue, slow politics, and flimsy almost comic book protagonists. He needs a good editor to remind him what he,s good at and what he is truly bad at and this book is a truck load of the latter!!!!!!!

If you enjoy meetings....

The first section of this story was one meeting after another. I don't recall even as much action as someone getting up from a chair. Add to that that many of these meetings were of people who don't reappear and I'ld have been happier to have received an extract of the minutes.
Matters did pick up in the second part, but I felt it could almost have stopped there as we moved back to the meetings plus a lengthy section relating to a wedding of two people who hadn't appeared up to now. They may have been in the previous book, which I realised I hadn't read, but it would have been nice to get some back story.
The Honor books will never be great literature, but the earlier stories have a wonderful over the top melodrama which is lacking from this, leaving a husk which attempts to be a future history and fails.

Running out of steam

I have enjoyed this series very much especially the earlier books, but this last one gives the very strong impression that the author has run out of steam, there are huge overlaps on the previous book with some parts being verbaitum repeats of previous material. The plot is drawn out and you get the impression of one of those episodes in a sitcom where the writers simply paste together scenes from previous episodes in a "o yes remember when " type format. Much of the dialogue is jaded with phrases that initially sounded novel and interesting in book one now sounding tired, over used and lacking the freshness of the origionals. 3 or 4 hours of waffle and literary padding could easily be edited out without any noticeable difference.

Where I lost interest in the series

After the previous book really dragged along, I was hoping this would rekindle my love for the series, but this was very disappointing. There is almost no dramatic tension in this book. Honor and Manticore are invincible and perfect, and this is 17 hours of every character in the universe waxing lyrical about these facts. Excellently performed as always, but Allyson's voicework cannot redeem this drudging plot. Unless you really enjoyed Mission of Honor, give this one a miss and find a new series.

Absolutely PLYING Brilliant

I must first say I liked the premise of Honor Harrington, and have waited till I had all 14 books to binge on.

I am Glad I did. having just finished book 13, only pausing to write "READ THIS BOOK" I'm starting book 14 NOW... LOL 😆 🤣

Best book in the series for some time

Good action, lots of system wide intrigue and best of all; very little pointless filler

excellent narration

this is a long novel, but with excellent narration the story zipped by. I have this novel in hard copy and on Kindle, though I enjoy David Weber's work I do find him a bit long winded at times. the audio version held my attention all the way through & was purely due to the narrators skill, though I did find Honor's voice a higher pitch than I imagined. still thoroughly enjoyed this version.

Good book and excellent narration

Where does A Rising Thunder rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

It's a great book in the genre

What did you like best about this story?

The complex characterization, politics and in depth explanation of military tactics.

What about Allyson Johnson’s performance did you like?

Top notch voice acting consistent on all books of the series.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes