On Basilisk Station

Honor Harrington, Book 1

De: David Weber

Narrado por: Allyson Johnson

Having made a superior look a fool, Honor Harrington has been exiled to Basilisk Station in disgrace and set up for ruin.

Her demoralized crew blames her for their ship's humiliating posting to an out-of-the-way picket station.

The aborigines of the system's only habitable planet are smoking homicide-inducing hallucinogens.

Parliament isn't sure it wants to keep the place; the major local industry is smuggling; the merchant cartels want her head; the star-conquering, so-called "Republic" of Haven is up to something; and Honor Harrington has a single, over-age light cruiser with an armament that doesn't work to police the entire star system.

But the people out to get her have made one mistake. They've made her mad.

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.

©2002 David Weber (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Good enough that I will be picking up the sequels

OK, so I think that in the fantasy/SF audio book community we've been spoiled a bit. We're surrounded by several really good narrators: Stefan Rudnicki, Scott Brick, Reading/Kramer, and many more. Now all of a sudden along comes On Basilisk Station, read by a "merely" competent narrator, and we react in horror.

Honestly, I listened to this book in relatively few sittings (I had a couple of lengthy flights to sit through) and I found the story to be acceptably presented. Not excellent, not terrible, but acceptable. Acceptable enough that I will be grabbing the sequels as quickly as my credits renew.

(I have indeed read the novels previously, a few years ago.)

P.S. This is Mike - Heather is my wife, and her name is on the account here at Audible. :P

Slow Start, Great Finish

I was worried about the narration from the reviews, but found it more than adequate.

The start of the story was a little slow, and I was wondering if it was going to be the average redemption story. But the naval/marine simultaneous engagement and great character development was totally worth it. I also liked the nod to Prince Roger.

Because I am a total nerd, I am going to write a Star Frontiers adventure based around this book.

Honorverse!

I read this long time ago in Japanese and I remembered enjoying it. My memory was correct. I had a lot of fun rereading the book through audiobook. The narration was perfect and I actually could imagine the scenes while listening to it.

This is one of those military SF where one soldier moves on a builds a career. At the time when I read the series for the first time, I haven't read the Horatio Hornblower series. But this time I have and I now could see the resemblance there even though Honor is a woman.

Recommended for anybody who enjoyed HH series!

First book of a wonderfull series

This is the first in a series of Honor harrington books and it is a fantastic beginning. I would highly recommend listening to this series (now 12 books soon to be 13). If you like space opera this is absolutely good material. David Weber is great.

It's a shame audible does not make it eassier to listen to them in the correct oreder, because the order is really important.

But people can go to the honorverse wiki to find out what the correct order is.

Iffy narration worth it because of great story

A friend recommended the series, but after reading the reviews I was so nervous to get this as an audiobook. I'm glad I did, and I'm on my third book in the series. Sure, the narrator is kind of oddly stilted and in the beginning DOES sound like the Macbook voice reading. But I think either she hits her stride partway through or I adapted; either way it doesn't take much away from the story. Honor Harrington is a great heroine and the story is pushed along by the interactions of people with just the occasional dollop of space-math jargon. If you read both printed and audio books, maybe go print edition for this one, but if like me you only listen to audiobooks (commuting!) then don't pass this series by.