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Frequently Asked Questions

Perhaps it is because of the nature of the books that David writes, perhaps it is because David Weber's fans are unusually dedicated and inquisitive... but it seems that everyone has a question! Here are a few that David finds he gets asked most often.

If you have a question that you would like to see considered as a FAQ, please e-mail us at faq@davidweber.net. Responses will be posted if and when David can get to them. We'd love to hear from you! 

Series Question Posted
Honorverse About those treecat toenails... Why are they so short, and if they're that short, how do they do the damage that they do? May 2009

I suppose I should properly have said that treecat claws are [12.7] millimeters long, rather than 1 centimeter long. I actually intended it to be understood that they were close to a half-inch in length, and I simply rounded down, which I shouldn't have done. This is still short, by the standards of terrestrial cats, but treecat claws are not really close analogues to terrestrial felines' claws. Treecat claws are needle-pointed and sharply curved. The concave, rear-facing side of the claw also closely resembles an extremely sharp knife. Although treecats often use their claws when climbing, they seldom extend them fully when doing so. I have made repeated reference to the fact that they have long, agile, slender, etc., fingers, which they normally use much more as a monkey or a chimpanzee might when climbing. They are, however, capable of extending their claws in order to climb in a fashion much more similar to a terrestrial cat. It's important to remember, however, that they are called treecats because humans familiar with terrestrial cats were looking for a convenient referent to hang on them. And, of course, the original name was bestowed by a very young -- if exceptionally bright -- girl, not a trained xenobiologist.

A treecat's claws evolved primarily as weapons, not as a general utility adaptation, and they are not composed of the same materials as terrestrial felines' or canines' claws/toenails. I haven't made a study of exactly how cats and dogs claws and toenails differ from one another, but my understanding is that a cat's claws are basically bone, and a dog's are basically specialized, toughened skin. Treecat's claws are much closer in composition to what we might think of as teeth. That's not exactly accurate, of course. For one thing -- although this hasn't been particularly emphasized or dealt with in the novels to date (I'm sort of saving a lot of details about treecat physiology and societal organization for the series I want to do centered around Stephanie Harrington) -- the “bone” used by Sphinxian critters is substantially heavier and denser than that of terrestrial animals, thanks to several factors, but most of all to the fact that all of these Sphinxian animals are adapted to a heavier native gravity. Treecat claws should not be confused with toenails, as I think the above establishes, since they are actually much more similar in appearance and hardness to human tooth enamel. Moreover, treecat claws are like shark's teeth in two ways. First, they have the same sort of "slicing" sharpness. Second, like shark's teeth, they regrow quickly and can be regrown as many times as necessary. In terms of just how sharp they are, in both the needle and the knife edge sense, you might want to reflect upon the fact that the reinforced portion of Honor's garments is literally "bulletproof."

Honorverse Gun control in the Star Kingdom of Manticore would probably make the NRA very happy. I wonder why that is? May 2009

There are no real restrictions on the small arms available to private citizens (small arms in this instance being defined as non-energy, projectile-throwing weapons) at the national level. As far as the Crown is concerned, if you can afford it and you want to lug it around, you have a constitutional right to do so. At the same time, the royal ministry of justice comes down like a hammer on anyone who misuses or abuses any weapon. Energy weapons are somewhat restricted in availability. The position of the Crown and Her Majesty's Government is that projectile weapons, especially with the lethality of pulsers and tri-barrels, are sufficient for most self-defense means and constitute sufficient firepower to give even minions of a tyrannical central government pause. Energy weapons are regarded as falling in an intermediate stage between weapons of self-defense and weapons of mass destruction. Private citizens can own them, but unlike the owners of projectile weapons, they are required to pass a government-designed competency test and to be bonded. Moreover, unlike projectile weapons, energy weapons must be registered.

The Constitution of the Star Kingdom specifically guarantees the right of the citizens to be armed, and where small arms are concerned, the entire Star Kingdom is under a \shall-issue" system. Local municipalities can -- and do -- pass local ordinances which restrict where and how weapons may be carried, however. For example, in the City of Landing, chemical-powered projectile weapons can be carried by virtually anyone, although the City requires licensing and the successful passing of a basic competency test before they can be carried concealed. Pulsers, on the other hand, are restricted to police officers and bonded security forces as carry weapons within the city limits and may not be carried concealed at all under normal circumstances. In addition, there are certain areas in the city where private citizens are not permitted to bring weapons. Such places would include courts of law, government offices, etc. No municipality, however, under the Constitution, may legally tell a citizen that he/she cannot possess any non-energy weapon he/she wishes, including pulsers, within his/her own home.

The Star Kingdom does not mandate a Kingdom-wide weapons training curriculum, but the policy of the Crown has always been to strongly encourage local school boards to make such courses part of the required curriculum at what we would consider the middle school and high school levels. The position of the Crown is that since the right to be armed is enshrined in the Constitution, it only makes sense to ensure that every citizen has basic safety and marksmanship training. There is, however, an enormous degree of local autonomy when it comes to making decisions about school systems for specific communities or duchies, and by tradition, the Crown cannot dictate what a specific local or regional curriculum will include. In effect, though, the degree of emphasis the Crown has placed on certain courses -- history, weapons safety, etc. -- has been more than sufficient to ensure virtually 100 percent acceptance of them, which means that almost all citizens of the Star Kingdom have received at least basic weapons instruction.

Honor herself was born in Craggy Hollow, County Duvalier, Duchy of Shadow Vale, on Sphinx. Shadow Vale, which is still very thinly populated, has a typical "rural" attitude towards weapons. They are day-to-day survival tools for people wandering around in backcountry areas which still contain the occasional hexapuma and other large and dangerous predators. People like Honor and her parents also have what you might call a "sturdy sense of responsibility and independence," because they know perfectly well that it is extremely unlikely, even with modern transportation, that law enforcement personnel are going to arrive in time to do much good in an emergency situation. As a result, they have a powerful "do-it-yourself" attitude where self-defense and defense of property are concerned.

This would not necessarily be the case for someone born and raised in a more urban area. Most of those areas continue to enshrine the right of the citizen to be armed and to use lethal force in self-defense under circumstances which make it appropriate, but the environmental threats are much less extreme and so the majority of the citizens feel no particular need to go around armed to the teeth. This was the attitude of the tactical officer aboard Honor's ship on her snotty cruise, who was basically a big-city girl. She had received basic training in personal weapons even before joining the military, but she had never acquired the mindset which would have gone with actually carrying one on a day-to-day basis.

Although the Star Kingdom's Constitution enshrines the right of the citizen to be armed, and specifically prohibits the government from infringing that right (except, as noted above, in the case of energy weapons), there are a great many ways in which an individual citizen may lose that right. All of them involve criminal or criminally negligent actions on the part of the citizen, and the criminal and civil liability penalties for the misuse or abuse of personal weapons, from old-fashioned edged steel to energy weapons, are severe. One might almost call them draconian, because most of them entail hefty periods of jail time (at a minimum) in addition to the subsequent permanent loss of the right to possess weapons.

Basically, the Star Kingdom believes in punishing individuals for their actions rather than depriving entire groups of law-abiding individuals of their rights. There was an effort to amend the Constitution to place much more stringent limits on the rights of citizens to be armed following the clashes between the Gryphon highlanders and the "sons of shareholders" in the so-called "Gryphon Uprising" of 1721 PD. Those efforts failed because the only people who really supported them were certain members of the aristocracy, and those aristocrats found themselves up against the perception by the bulk of the population of the Star Kingdom that the weapons in the hands of the "rebels" had done precisely what they were supposed to do: protected those who had them from the strong-arm tactics of the petty aristocrats trying to force homesteaders off of the recently opened Crown Range on that planet. Eventually, the military was used to separate the two sides and to impose order, but once order had been restored, the right of citizens to be armed remained unimpaired.

Honorverse Please explain prolong. What generation is Honor Harrington? May 2009

There are currently three generations of prolong. The term "generation" has nothing to do with descent or parentage; it refers to the version or variant of prolong available.

First Generation Prolong: May be administered up to the age of about 25; normally administered about 16; may be administered pre-puberty but virtually never is. Aside from the case covered in the 3rd sentence of the next paragraph, 3rd generation prolong works equally well for everyone, regardless of genetic makeup. Stops the aging process in the early 20s. Does not slow physical healing times and/or extend pregnancy periods, etc.

In addition to the above, 2nd and 3rd generation prolong are expected to extend the "frozen" aging process by about 20% and 33%, respectively, over 1st generation prolong. (That is, they will both stop the aging process earlier and keep it stopped longer.) Also, for reasons which are still subject to investigation, it does appear that the children of prolong recipients respond more strongly to the same or later generations of the prolong therapies. 3rd generation also plays less havoc with hormone balances and so forth than 1st or 2nd generation prolong.

Honor is, in fact, 3rd generation, despite the error in the earlier book. She is also the daughter of prolong recipients on both sides. She did not receive the treatment until about the time she entered the Academy, which put her through puberty and most of her physical adolescence before it began taking effect.

As for the "jail bait" aspect of her appearance which some people have commented upon, this is a woman who looks to be about 21 or 22 (which gets her out of the "jail bait" category in most jurisdictions). However, remember that she is also half-Chinese. It has always seemed to me that Oriental women appear physically younger (to Western eyes, at least) than Western women do. This is not a value judgment, only a statement of fact (or, at least, opinion), and I cheerfully acknowledge that it may be culture bound. However, one should also remember that the people to whom Honor seems so physically youthful have their own cultural baggage. Alistair McKeon is a 1st or 2nd generation recipient; Hamish Alexander is a 1st generation recipient (and, because of the culture in which he was raised, continues, deep down inside, to carry around a pre-prolong society's views on physical aging); and Andrew LaFollet who, in Flag in Exile, thought of Honor as (I believe) "barely post-adolescent" in appearance is from a culture which (a) did not have prolong at all (prior to the Alliance) and (b) had virtually no ethnic Asians in its population. (And note that, nonetheless, he thought of her as post-adolescent.) The point I'm trying to make is that while Honor does look absurdly young for her actual age, she may not look quite as young as you think (by our standards), because you're seeing her through the eyes of other people with other standards.

Multiverse with Linda Evans and Joelle Presby I really loved the Multiverse series! When can we expect book three? July 2009

In the Hell's Gate series, there are two more books under contract, but the project is in hiatus while David tries to catch up with his writing schedule. He has told people at Cons that he had no business starting "still another series", but he wanted to tell the story so badly that he bit off more than he could chew. This was actually one of the original series that he pitched to Jim Baen all those years ago, and he's been itching to get it told. It's a good story!

**Update: David understands that these books are very much in demand by his fans, and hopes to make room in his schedule to begin working on the next one sometime this year. 

Honorverse What are the books of the original Honor Harrington series? July 2009
The (Only) Honor Harrington Books:
 
1. On Basilisk Station (1993)
2. The Honor of the Queen (1993)
3. The Short Victorious War (1994)
4. Field of Dishonor (1994)
5. Flag in Exile (1995)
6. Honor Among Enemies (1996)
7. In Enemy Hands (1997)
8. Echoes of Honor (1998)
9. Ashes of Victory (2000)
10. War of Honor (2002)
11. At All Costs (2005)
12. Mission of Honor (2010)
 
But please take the time to enjoy the other Honorverse books too, especially Crown of Slaves (2003), Storm from the Shadows (2009), and Torch of Freedom (2009) - they are advancing the plotline for the entire story arc, besides just being really great reads!
 
Empire of Man with John Ringo Is David ever going to give John Ringo the outline for the next Empire of Man book? In an interview a while back, John Ringo said he had been waiting for a while and was looking forward to writing the next book. July 2009

First, and this is really the point that is holding up both of them, is the fact that David and John Ringo both have several contracted books that they are due to write and they honestly haven't had a break in their writing schedules for quite a while. When they both have a break together, David will prepare an outline, and (since you have read David's work, I'm sure you can understand this) David never does anything short...In fact he has written short stories that have managed to grow into a full novels! So, yes, David does have to do an outline for John to work from, but it isn't something he can just sit down and write out at breakfast. David assures me that it is a story he wants to continue, but he won't be continuing the Prince Roger storyline, rather he will be going back and telling the prequel story of Miranda McClintock, the founder of the Empire of Man. So, David says there will definitely, definitely be a continuation of the story, but he's not sure of exactly when!

Safehold I've just finished reading the most recent Safehold book, and I've got to know, what is the name of the next Safehold novel, and when is the publication date? July 2009

David is currently writing one per year. The next Safehold release is titled Hell's Foundations Quiver, with the release in November of 2015.

Safehold Okay, So I'm dying to know...how long does David think that this series is going to be? And will the inhabitants of Safehold ever meet the Gbaba? August 2009

David is currently anticipating that the Safehold series will be a minimum of nine books. And, he is currently planning for the humans of Safehold to run back into the Gbaba at some point...but that's all the details I could squeeze out of him!

General Okay, we love David's work and we would like to invite him to be our guest at a Sci-Fi Con/Book Fair/Writing Conference/etc. What do we need to know and who do we need to talk to? January 2010

Due to David's writing schedule and having 3 kids, he is only able to do about 5-6 events a year, including the events that his publisher requests. We are always glad to consider your convention, but currently we are booking about two years ahead for cons. E-mail  duckk@davidweber.net with all of the pertinent information, and we'll get back to you as soon as possible!

Honorverse What order am I supposed to read the Honor Harrington/Honorverse books? September 2010

Great Question! David originally intended the books to be read in order by publication date, but that's gotten a little complicated. Check out our handy list, contributed by Christine Acker!

http://www.davidweber.net/downloads/28-honorverse-timeline-1.html