cthia wrote:JustCurious wrote:Another thing that has led to a lot of complaint has been the change in the nature of the stories centered around Honor. They changed to becoming more about the politics than about the fighting.
But this is a necessary consequence of Honor becoming part of the high command from Ashes of victory onward. Many followed her career and wanted to see her succeed. They got their wish but wanted to see her in the same sort of action as in the earlier books. But that would have jarred with many, especially most of those here. Giving them what they wanted would have been contrived.
The growth in the size of science fiction novels has been due to two things. One is authors putting in detail that older authors would have left out. The other is telling a story from more viewpoints.
The amount of detail is a matter of taste. The Honorverse books need more than most but I do think he is overdoing it. I think what is more important is how the detail is introduced. Is it introduced in ways that fits in with the flow of the story?
And the change to a more politically oriented type of story does mean that a story does need to be told from more viewpoints.
I certainly can admit that I was also miffed at the deviation from an ingredient that worked. If it ain't broke don't fix it. My main attraction in any story is the allure of a strong female character. It is why I purchased the original publishing of OBS for $5 in the first place, even though it has an unappealing, hideous picture of Nimitz staring at me from the cover. I dislike the horror genre and I wasn't sure what OBS wasn't about that, because it wasn't located in a bookstore but in a closeout book bin at a sidewalk sale. But the pic of Honor was compelling, she was female and it was only $5. It turned out to be a real steal. But I digress.
OBS is the first in the series and it is the preferred starting point. It turned out to be my favorite read in all of the Honorverse and probably amongst my global all time favorites. The heroine is female and she kicks ass and takes names. She literally takes names, entering them into her database. LOL
But alas, storyline moved away from our heroine. I think it was due to the series length and some psychological notion only Freud and his colleagues can explain, having to do with an author not wanting to burn his reader out or appearing to be one dimensional and/or unimaginative in his writing. Which isn't possible for this reader. Weber could have force fed me Salamander cooked in many different ways and I'd've pounded the table for more. But that's just me. I can eat Italian every day and not grow tired of it either. Is Honor Italian by any chance? LOL
Then I hear my mother's words reminding me to be mindful of others and I suddenly realize that the author has stories he wants to tell and, well, too much Honor in epic space battles could have burned him out as well.
Our tastes differ here. I prefer the story of a character, how that character develops, to unending stories about an undeveloping character. And those look like the stories that RFC wants to tell.
A consequence of that is that Honor was eventually going to be promoted into a position where she would not see frequent action. I accepted that. I wanted the story to have a conclusion.
I like the background detail about the societies and the technology. But RFC does overdo this and has taken it to a level where it interferes with storytelling. I wonder whether the historian and the world builder are interfering with the story teller without him realizing it. Also he can drop the infodumps in a way that causes more interference with the story than was needed.