Honor Harrington Anthologies

[SecondToDie]

A few years back, I started reading the Honor Harrington series and read through the first nine books in about a month and a half and have been keeping up with the new releases and the spin-offs. The other day I noticed that there's a series of four Honorverse anthologies with stories from various sci-fi authors. Has anyone here read them and if so, are they worth reading or are they basically just another way to bilk Honor Harrington fans out of more money?

[Beowulf]

*shrug* Read them for free online.

http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/17-S ... ShadowsCD/

Note: this is a perfectly legit site. If you don't believe the Orientation, feel free to hit up Baen.com.

[Stormbringer]

A few years back, I started reading the Honor Harrington series and read through the first nine books in about a month and a half and have been keeping up with the new releases and the spin-offs. The other day I noticed that there's a series of four Honorverse anthologies with stories from various sci-fi authors. Has anyone here read them and if so, are they worth reading or are they basically just another way to bilk Honor Harrington fans out of more money?

Changer of Worlds and Service of the Sword are both worth picking up. They have stories which are a direct part of the major ongoing plot lines and are actually well written. Honestly, I think those two anthologies have been better than the main line books recently. The plots are tight and the characters engaging, and thanks to Eric Flint's influence some of them are actually deeper (and less in the Weber mold) than usual. Even those that are either just backstory or an aside are still worth reading.

The first two, less so. There's some relevance to the main plot but nothing earth shattering. A few tidibits of deep background and some focus on events referenced in the series. The only one of the stories I really sunk my teeth into in those first two was the one David Drake did. He actually made the most of the "Napoleanic Wars IN SPAAAAACCCCCE!" concient and I'm glad he did really.

PS: If you're interested in similar space opera, check out David Drake's Cinabar Navy series. Different universe (obviously) but it's really an Aubrey-Martin type story to Weber's Hornblower. Haven't kept up with it as much but it's still pretty darn good.

[Netko]

"Darn good" is very subjective. For my taste, the last two RCN novels were relatively good because we finally got some action that has some importance, but before that there was a steady decrease in quality following the first one. Sure, its fun space opera, but its also a series that is just too damn stuck in its mold, not willing to shake up its formula (like making the characters a bit less two-dimensional - you would think that wouldn't be much to ask for, what, 5-6 books in? If any characters developed at all from the first book, the developments are minuscule).

As for the anthologies, considering you can read them for free, go for all of them. But be ready to skip stories, especially, as noted, in the first two. In those, there are even a few stinkers by misc. authors that were originally written for other universes and then just hack-jobed into the Honorverse (you'll feel it when they come up). On the other hand, there are good stories in there that flesh out the universe, as well as some simple fun romps that we don't really get in the mainline series (like that spy story).

And while we're talking about space opera, any other good suggestions in the Honorverse/RCN mold? Preferably something other then Baen books, since I've gone over most of their stuff. Maybe there are some good WH40k space-based novels?