David Weber

(from inside dust jacket) COLLISION COURSE The Star Kingdom of Manticore and the Republic of Haven have been enemies for Honor Harrington's entire life, and she has has paid a price for the victories she has achieved in that conflict. And now the unstoppable juggernaut of the mighty Solarian League is on a collision course with Manticore. The millions who have already died may have only been a foretaste of the billions of casualties just over the horizon, and Honor sees it coming. She's prepared to do anything, risk anything, to stop it, and she has a plan that may finally bring an end to the conflict to the Havenite Wars and give even the Solarian League pause. But there are things not even Honor knows about. There are forces in play, hidden enemies in motion, all converging on the Star Kingdom of Manticore to crush the very life out of it, and Honor's worse nightmares fall short of the oncoming reality. But Manticore's enemies may not have thought of everything after all. Because if everything Honor Harrington loves is going down to destruction, it won't be going alone.

A collection of tales set in the Honor Harrington universe includes contributions by Timothy Zahn, Charles E. Gannon, and Joelle Presby and is complemented by a new novella by David Weber featuring a young Manticoran Royal Navy commander.

No one wanted another war. Thomas Theisman didn't. After risking his life and a fresh round of civil war to overthrow the Committee of Public Safety's reign of terror and restore the Republic of Haven's ancient Constitution an interstellar war was the last thing he wanted Baron High Ridge didn't. The Prime Minister of Manticore was perfectly happy with the war he had. No one was shooting anyone else at the moment, and as long as he could spin out negotiations on the formal treaty of peace, his government could continue to milk all those "hostilities only" tax measures for their own partisan projects. His Imperial Majesty Gustav didn't. Now that the fighting between the Star Kingdom and the Havenites had ended, the Andermani Emperor had his own plans for Silesia, and he was confident he could achieve them without a war of his own. Protector Benjamin didn't. His people had made too deep a commitment to the Manticoran Alliance, in blood as well as treasure, for him to want to risk seeing it all thrown away. And Honor Harrington certainly Didn't. The "Salamander" had seen the inside of too many furnaces already, knew too much about how much war cost. Unfortunately, what they wanted didn't matter...

What it means to be a warrior has become a pertinent issue of our time. What makes some men and women perform extraordinary deeds on the battlefield? What makes them risk their lives in the pursuit of victory? And do their successes or failures in combat bring them happiness, melancholy, or fulfillment? Max Hastings's "authority [and] humanity" in depicting "the realities of combat" (Alistair Horne, The Wall Street Journal) has been greatly praised on the release of his previous book, Armageddon, which documented the last eight months in the European theater of World War II. In Warriors, Hastings takes up the experience of fourteen soldiers and airmen, together with one remarkable sailor, who fought in the wars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, portraying their triumphs, follies, and, sometimes, tragedies. We meet Baron Marbot, an exuberant cavalry officer who joined Napoleon's army at the age of seventeen and fought through Waterloo in a happy and shameless pursuit of glory; paratrooper "Slim Jim" Gavin, an orphan who enlisted in World War II to escape his miserable boyhood and went on to become America's youngest general since Custer; Nancy Wake, a dashing Australian who fought for the resistance in Nazi-occupied France; Avigdor Kahalani, an Israeli officer hideously burned in the Six-Day War, who, six years later, was one of the tank commanders who saved his country during the defense of the Golan Heights in the Yom Kippur War. Each of Hastings's pen portraits depicts a unique and remarkable human story. A tribute to the valor of these fighters and a searching study of combat in modern history, Warriors enhances our understanding of the hearts and minds of the people who serve in war. It is also an appealing book for the reader who is drawn to tales of heroism, human drama, and some of the most exotic characters of modern times.From the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist The creator of sf series heroine Honor Harrington turns successfully to fantasy. Bahzell is a prince of the Hradni, an outsize humanoid race prone to berserk rages. Due to a variety of circumstances, he becomes obliged to flee into regular humans' lands where Hradni are understandably unpopular. He and his companion survive a series of briskly paced adventures in a world Weber builds with a nice eye for detail, above-average knowledge of history, and a pleasing amount of wit. Moreover, the book's ending neither requires nor precludes a sequel. At the moment, Weber is not on a course to high honors or academic reputation but rather is emerging as a consistent producer of highly entertaining and intelligent action tales. Roland Green

"Roger Ramius Sergei Alexander Chiang MacClintock has had a really bad year. Bad enough to be the spoiled rotten fop of a prince no one wanted or trusted."--Jacket.

This is the second book of the DAHAK series. This sequel has Earth facing the Achultanni, Colin and a picked crew of earth soldiery are now out to find out why the old empire has not responded to the alert message from the outer sensor bouys. While they are searching for answers the earth is left in the hand of Horus and a very select group of generals. These men are responsible for overseeing the defenses as well as trying to integrate the entire earth population into one body. Adventures for everyone concerned ensue and the whole time this is happening the enemy grows closer and finally the assault on earth begins.

The Kingdom of Charis and the Kingdom of Chisholm have joined together, pledged to stand against the tyranny of a corrupt Church. The youthful Queen Sharleyan of Chisholm has wed King Cayleb of Charis, forging a single dynasty, a single empire, dedicated to the defense of human freedom. Yet there are things Sharleyan still does not know. Secrets Cayleb has not been permitted to share, even with her--and these secrets may threaten all they have achieved between them ... and her own life.

Stephanie Harrington always expected to be a forest ranger on her homeworld of Meyerdahl... until her parents relocated to the frontier planet of Sphinx in the distant Star Kingdom of Manticore. It should have been the perfect new home - a virgin wilderness full of new species of every sort, just waiting to be discovered. But Sphinx is a far more dangerous place than ultra-civilized Meyerdahl, and Stephanie's explorations come to a sudden halt when her parents lay down the law: no unsupervised trips into the wild! Yet Stephanie is a young woman determined to make discoveries, and the biggest one of all awaits her: an intelligent alien species. The forest-dwelling treecats are small, cute, smart, and have a pronounced taste for celery. And they are also very, very deadly when they or their friends are threatened... as Stephanie discovers when she comes face-to-face with Sphinx's most lethal predator.

Set about 1,000 years in the future, mankind has spread to occupy 1,800 worlds with an average of ~1 billion population each. After fratricidal wars, mankind has been forced to unify in the face of the Rishathan, an aggressive alien civilisation. This is the story of Alicia DeVries, from the time she is about 14 until age 30. She chooses a military career, first in the Marines, then she is selected for the crack Cadre, the Emperor’s personal liege corps. There are several well-told action situations as she moves along in her career, first in the Marines then in the Cadre. Then at about age 25, she resigns her commission in bitterness over what she considers a soft attitude of the Empire’s authorities toward a fellow officer who betrayed her battalion into a Rishathan trap. She joins her parents, brother and sister and other family members in a homestead on a frontier planet. Five years on, a band of pirates attacks their planet and brutally kill most of the 30,000 inhabitants, including all her family members. Alicia survives and launches a vendetta to avenge her family. The author, surprisingly and convincingly, has her teamed up with one of the 3 Furies from Greek mythology and a state-of-the-art artificial intelligence-run space warship. Great adventures ensue as the three of them pursue Alicia’s desire for vengeance, which she finally overcomes, at the same time as the enemy, with the aid of the Fury and the AI. In addition to being an enjoyable science fiction adventure, the story is refreshingly free of any improper behaviour by any of the protagonists. More, a very positive portrait of Alicia’s family is presented, with all rejoicing when her mother has a 3rd child more than 10 years after her second. A Christian setting is revealed when the christening of the new baby is mentioned. There is, moreover, a positive portrayal of the virtues of loyalty, toughness, friendship, etc. But it is not “preachy”, but is rather a cracking good story, a page-turner.