Review: A Rising Thunder, by David Weber

The book is A Rising Thunder by David Weber; published by Baen Books on March 6, 2012. The price is $26.00 US or $15.60 on Amazon.

After a peaceful resolution to years of war between Manticore and Haven, tensions and even armed conflict between Manticore and the Solarian League ships lead to a greater threat of war.  Now the Manticorians have to forge an alliance with their former enemies to stave off an even greater interstellar war.  However, the Solarian League makes way too many mistakes unless another enemy is pulling the strings.  In this book, the starting volleys of this war began.

This military science fiction story is a tale of politics, negotiations, backroom deals, Chicago corruption, a vast conspiracy, telepathic treecats using sign language.  There are also plenty of missile battles in space.  The characters, both good guys and bad guys, become your friends.  There are honorable people on both sides; however there are also many characters that are truly villains.  Some of the bad guys in previous books are good guys in this one.  There are even citizens of the Republic of Haven who have treecats on their shoulders.  This speaks of great attention to detail as too many authors ignore the bad guys or make them melodramatic villains.

This story is classic David Weber in his Honor Harrington series.  It is difficult to put the book down, so make sure you have plenty of time available.  I read the entire book in one sitting. For readers new to the Honor Harrington series, this book is not a good place to start the series, as a lot of the plot hinges around what happened in previous books.  However, many of the Honor Harrington hardcover books in the past came with a CD containing e-books of the previous books in the series.

I enjoyed this book and encourage you to read A Rising Thunder by David Weber.

Review: Endless Blue by Wen Spencer

The book is Endless Blue by Wen Spencer; published by Baen Books on May 26, 2009. The price is 7.99 US and 9.50 Canadian

Endless Blue is a unique story in science fiction. The story begins when a warp drive from a long lost ship warps in near Plymouth Station. The drive, covered in sea coral, is towing a fishing boat full of bodies that obviously were not prepared for vacuum.

Captain Mikhail Volkov, prince of the Novaya Rus Empire and clone of Peter the Great, is called to investigate. From the drives logs, it had misjumped, so it was the only ship or part of a ship that returned from such an event. Mikhail purposely misjumps his ship to find out where ships go when they disappear.

He finds an ocean world with floating islands, where humans and aliens travel by boat and live in the hulls of crashed spaceships. What he meets in this ocean world is closer to home than he expects, and what he does will have consequences back home. I enjoyed this book and encourage you to read Endless Blue by Wen Spencer.