At All Costs

[sawyl]

I've just finished reading the latest of David Weber's Harrington novels, an 850 page doorstop of a book called At All Costs.

The story follows on directly from War of Honor and partially overlaps with The Shadow of Saganami, making it, I suspect, completely incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't read the previous ten or eleven novels and the various other short stories. Fortunately, the hardback edition includes a handy CD with all Weber's novels in various ebook formats. Now that I've said that I'm going to skip over a plot summary, because I doubt that any book with a 10 page appendix of dramatis personae can be summed up in a couple of paragraphs, and jump straight to a few conclusions.

I wasn't really convinced by this as a novel. It felt patchy, as if the plot had been constructed by pasting together a series of disparate events from other novels in an attempt to bridge various gaps. There were a number of frustrating occasions when minor characters would breeze in and almost immediately breeze out again, presumably having set themselves up for a spin off novel, and making very little contribution to the main story. Not that it's all bad — the fleet actions are as note perfect as ever — it's just that I don't feel it's up there Weber's best.

Then again, if you're a fan and you're slogged through eleven other books, you're going to read this regardless of what anyone says, aren't you?

Comments

[doctor-squale.livejournal.com]

How can you buy a book with such an ugly cover ?

[sawyl.livejournal.com]

It is rather, um, American, isn't it? Fortunately, it's a hardback, so I can slip of the dust jacket and no-one will ever be any the wiser...