Rating: 
Summary: brief look at ashes of victory
Review: after spending several years waiting for the arrival of this book i find that i am not dissappointed with what arrived, in fact i am delighted.following the career of honour harrington has been a delight and pleasure. in the latest rendition of HH career "Ashes of victory" we find HH arriving back after her escape from "Hell", and cast immediately into the polictal battles of both her homes. This book i found interesting in that it seems to a transition novel from the earlier high action, edge of the seat reading space battles to the possiblity of the same things in the political arenas. While many areas seem to be passed over with brief sentences, and minor elements appear to be given more than their share, it would seem to this reader that these minor events will assume more importance in later stories. i would suggest to any new reader of HH stories that they do not begin with this one but with an earlier tale, preferably Basilisk station the first in the series, I look forward to hearing of your addiction to one of the best space opera series of modern times. One other point i would like to make is that it is a pleasure to see the stories here mature and grow up as the main character progresses through life.
Rating: 
Summary: Fun, but a bit of a chore to read
Review: I'm a recent HH discoverer, and have enjoyed the books immensely, reading all of them in the last 3-4 months. As others have mentioned in their reviews, it seems that in Ashes of Victory, much attention to detail is devoted to what appear to be minor or irrelevant topics, while major events, like a coup or two and turning tides in the war, get short shrift. Beloved characters' deaths are handled rather poorly (in a sentence or two), while much is made of situations that have little impact on the story (the "special training" session with students comes to mind). I think Esther McQueen was vastly underdeveloped in this book. On the positive side, at least we didn't have to put up with page upon page of Honor berating herself over the death of a loved one (e.g. Tankersley / Coursovier) and how it was all her fault (in her own mind). Those long self-deprecating/loathing, "woe is me" monologues have tried my patience too often in the series. HH seems to finally have grown past that stage of self-pity. Thank God! And, Honor doesn't get mutilated or lose any additional body parts in this round - hope that's not too much of a spoiler for anyone. The last few chapters really move along briskly, but I felt that they were the ones given short shrift - as if the outline had some padding added to it rather than full development. Major, MAJOR events happen with such scant coverage that you feel cheated. While at the end of Echoes of Honor I felt like cheering, I went "hmmm?" at the end of Ashes. Maybe that was DW's intent, as this seems to be a transition novel. Still, I'd expected more blood 'n' guts detail on certain events that impact scores of planets. Certain intriguing developments (e.g. treecats learning to communicate better w/ humans) commanded too much detail in their introduction, but then were ignored until suddenly they were tied up, but then underused. Another example was Hughes' role and ties in Mueller's scheming, and how Mueller's efforts were ... um ... resolved. Lots of build-up, but then a sentence or two after-the-fact later on. One of the most irritating problems I encountered with this book were editing / typographical errors. Cases where "if" instead of "of", or "emphasize" rather than "empathize" were used. Also, it seems DW LOVES the word "wry". I found myself making mental bets in both Echoes of Honor and Ashes of Victory about how many more pages it would be before someone was wryly smiling or thinking. At some points, you could bet on reading that word every 2-3 pages. PLEASE try to avoid overusing the same word. "Wry" isn't really a commonly used word for most people, and seeing it so often makes it jump out as a "pet" word, or even worse, that not much care is being taken in writing descriptive text. Let there be no doubt that enough tantalizing threads are left untied at the end of this book to lead us to believe that there is much still to come. It will be interesting to see how Honor adjusts to life away from the front lines, and engages in more political sparring. The suspected, but additional undiscovered wormhole junction is another opportunity to rejuvenate the series. Please do not let it be a parallel of what's happening in the Star Wars books. I don't want to hear DW be accused of pilfering that idea. What I'd like to see is just how the Solarian League reacts to Manticore's victory, assuming the Peeps are toast. Also, there are plenty of political problems on the horizon, with plenty of nasty - if non-military - developments possible. But please tighten up the stories and improve the editing / proofreading and I'll be happy.
Rating: 
Summary: Ashes of Victory- A misnomer?
Review: No one should tackle this book without having read the whole series, but then that is what series books are for, is it not? I have been captivated by Honor Harrington since "On Basilisk Station" and have eagerly anticipated David Webers subsequent works on this theme. Wheels within wheels are at work in this novel, and it simply cannot be read as a "stand-alone" work, any more than Tolkiens books can be logically read back to front.And he leaves just as many threads undone in this work as he tied up with it. There just HAS to be more to come. Will the Graysons (with Honor as Senior Admiral) and other allies continue the assault on the peeps even if the Star Kingdom goes limp? Will Admiral Theisman and "his" navy sue for true peace? Will there be Grayson CLACs named after Sir Horace Harkness and Scotty Tremaine? Could Admiral White Haven turn out to be posted as advisor to the Grayson Navy? The implications are innumerable, and I can hardly wait to find out!! As long as you have been a true follower of this series, you can't help but be excited by the comming possibilities that lie ahead. Great job, Weber, and keep Honor alive and fighting!!
Rating:
Summary: Honor keeps going and going.
Review: Another outstanding book in the Honor Harrington series. The plot grows up a bit from simple space shoot-em-up to true space drama and plenty of politics. (Anyone who has been in the military more than a month knows the politics just has to be part of the story.) Great read... I can't wait for the next one!
Rating:
Summary: From An Honor Fan
Review: I was introduced these books about three years ago and was impaitiently for this book. To be honest most of this was because of the whole White Haven-Honor thing. Unforunatly nothing happened on that front but this book is still great. The ending does leave a lot of questions about the whole situation between haven and star kingdom but that opens another realm of possibilities. Regardless, i will be waiting for the next one to find out how the white haven and other storylines turn out
Rating: 
Summary: Honorless Victory
Review: As a long-time appreciator of Weber's "Honor Harrington" series, I feel "Ashes of Victory" is an apt title for this book; it certainly left me with a desire to incinerate it. Weber deftly advanced many of the minor plot threads developing throughout the series and then must have become bored. Previous books in the series gradually fleshed out important plot threads involving the characters and government of the "People's Republic of Haven" (the enemy) which added faces and interest for the reader. Weber hints of important events unfolding and exciting action to follow - then skips it entirely in favor of a pitifully inadequate, miniscule, one-chapter summary of what could have been an climactic turning point for the series. The book fails to regain energy after that, ending with a whimper (both figurative and by this reader!).
Rating:
Summary: Honor up the ladder
Review: First, let me say that I wholeheartedly agree that this is the wrong Honor Harrington book to start with. Pick one of the earlier ones or just do what I did - go back and buy all of them and read them in series. Honor continues on her trip up the ladder in two navies and society at large in this book, and as usual has to deal with all of the good and bad that this brings. She isn't the dashing heroine figure in this book, but anyone who read Echoes of Honor knows that she deserves a little time off. The book is generally slow to build, but once again I found myself staying up late to finish it. A tip from me - plan to read the last 75-100 pages in one sitting. The blockbuster, world-changing ending reminds me of the ending of Tom Clancy's Debt of Honor. I can't wait to see how different Honor's world is in the next book.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but too much of late Tom Clancy-ish bloat
Review: I'm a pretty big fan of this series of books, as well as a Star Wars and Clancy fan, among other things. When I read Ashes of Victory, I was struck by how much it reminded me (not, mind you, through similar story or characters but through the pace, style and sheer size and scope of the book) of Clancy's more recent books, namely Executive Orders and Debt of Honor. There really are an astounding number of similarities, when you think about it. All three books are behemoths of 500+ pages, with enough separate plot lines to make up entire volumes of separate novels. Clancy could have written Executive Orders as a trilogy easily. This is essentially what Weber suffers from here. He is a victim of his own interesting and engaging characters. He has introduced so many interesting plots, sub-plots and characters that he has to give them all some mention in every new book. That's why the size of the books keeps increasing. Don't get me wrong, I liked this book and all his others, but compared to some of the leaner and more action-packed books Ashes seems hugely bloated and slow-paced. Again, that reminds me of Clancy, as that is exactly where the Jack Ryan books went as time went on. Early in the series, Ryan was neck-deep in the fights and the action, much like Honor was in Weber's earlier books. Now, both characters seem somewhat stagnant, though they are still very interesting. But in both cases, the authors have had to introduce younger characters to take the mains' places on the firing line, which makes sense enough, but because a character becomes more important in a universe doesn't mean the author can't be inventive with new physical and action-oriented challenges for them to face. It would be harder for an author like Clancy, who writes in a very contempory setting similar in almost every way to our real society, but Weber should be able to use the fact that his universe is nearly entirely of his own making. I'd heartily recommend this book to anyone who has read the preceeding few, especially Honor Among Enemies through Echoes of Honor. Those three books, along with Ashes, make a superb story together. However, this book does not stand on it's own very well... if I'd picked it up not having read the previous few I would have missed out on three-fourths of the most rewarding parts of the book. Keeping that in mind, there is definitely a lot here for HH fans, a solid if unspectacular effort. With Echoes of Honor and more recently Ashes, Weber has moved from sharp, action-oriented, engaging and exiciting stories to the sort of huge, epic, still engaging but involved and occasionally fatiguing stories. Where they were once easy to pick up and blow through, his books are now somewhat heavier and seem to come with more baggage, because of the exponential increase in the number of sub-plots and switches of focus. He doesn't match the almost wizardlike ability of Tim Zahn to weave in and out of sub-plots, but easily matches Clancy's in that regard. I like hearing from all the minor characters that both Weber and Clancy have introduced over their respective careers, but I'm not sure I like the change in the scopes of the books. A little more creativity when drawing up the challenges that Honor faces wouldn't hurt.
Rating:
Summary: Space is not the only battlefield
Review: Many of the people who have offered their opinions on Weber's latest "Honor-verse" installment have expressed disappointment in the lack of knock-down drag-out battle scenes in this book. Ok, I admit that I get a andrenaline rush every time Honor charges into a battle with the odds hopelessly against her. But there's more than one way to get one's blood pumping. In _Shards_, Honor is promoted to senior Admiral. Senior Admirals do not often find themselves fighting ship-to-ship engagements, but they often do fight battles on other fronts - quite often political ones. As any fan of Tom Clancy's novels can tell you, a political battle can be just as tense and engaging as traditional combat. I suspect that Honor's future battles will be fought more and more on the political front - and I, for one, look forward to this. I'm confident that we'll still get a good dose of space combat - fought by Honor's (former) subordinates - while Honor fights equally nasty battles on the political front.
Rating:
Summary: As good as Leo Frankowski's Conrad Stargard series, but...
Review: I have to say that one of my most favorite things about this book was also what made it most incomprehensible--the way Mr. Weber keeps shifting from a fog of political intrigue so thick I could have choked on its atmosphere, to often-humorous, lighthearted scenes of Honor Harrington's family life which reminded me strongly of some of the more genuinely humorous moments in Leo Frankowski's The Cross-Time Engineer. After reading this novel, I agree with the first reviewer, who recommended that people new to the series should read On Basilisk Station first--if for no other reason than to give readers like myself who jump straight into the "Honorverse" with the latest novel a chance to get used to Mr. Weber's writing style first. Otherwise--great book, especially because of the humor!
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