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QLI gets license to do Honor Harrington with T20 engine
- Thread starter Psion
- Start date
trancejeremy
Adventurer
I'm still hoping for an H. Beam Piper license (much closer to Traveller, IMHO)
MrFilthyIke
First Post
Does anyone know anything ABOUT this "Honorverse"?
Hypersmurf
Moderatarrrrh...
MrFilthyIke said:
Uh, anyone who's read On Basilisk Station, The Honor of the Queen, The Short Victorious War, Field of Dishonor, Flag in Exile, Honor Among Enemies, In Enemy Hands, Echoes of Honor, Ashes of Victory, War of Honor, More Than Honor, Worlds of Honor, Changer of Worlds, or The Service of the Sword?
-Hyp.
It's a series of military SF books. I gave the first one a read, confirmed that I don't like military SF in general, and let it go with my blessings to those who liked it.
As a book series, it didn't grab me. As a roleplaying game, it might be fun. It'll be interesting to see how well they map the strategy and tactical elements, which had some clearly delineated do's and don't's.
As a book series, it didn't grab me. As a roleplaying game, it might be fun. It'll be interesting to see how well they map the strategy and tactical elements, which had some clearly delineated do's and don't's.
Hypersmurf
Moderatarrrrh...
takyris said:
... but...
... but you...
... I don't know what to say!
It'll also be interesting to see how much of the technical evolution of the series they try to cover.
The tactics in The Short Victorious War are pretty much redundant by the time of Ashes of Victory due to technological advances... but if I were going to play as a wargame, I think I'd prefer the start of the series. And there're more advances to come...
-Hyp.
Wombat
First Post
Like many war-based series, it assumes that war and conflict are everything, with no thought to the consequences of the actions. There is lots of death, some gritty action, and a lot of superficial political angling. The writing is pretty basic, nothing awful, but certainly nothing to write home about, and Honor is a female only because she has breasts.
Then again, I didn't like the Hammer's Slammers series when it came out either, for pretty much the same reasons ... except the male-masquerading-as-female aspect...
Then again, I didn't like the Hammer's Slammers series when it came out either, for pretty much the same reasons ... except the male-masquerading-as-female aspect...
Hypersmurf
Moderatarrrrh...
Wombat said:
I'll happily buy anything Slammers... or Harrington, for that matter. (Just looking at the list of authors in Service of the Sword... I don't know Jane Lindskold, but Zahn, Flint, Ringo, and Weber are easily enough to overcome my wariness of shared-world anthologies...)
But I must admit, my favourite Slammers story is The Sharp End - a full-length novel concentrating on a small isolated team, rather than a company- or platoon- strength unit.
-Hyp.
trancejeremy
Adventurer
MrFilthyIke said:
Despite having read a couple of the novels, er, no.
While I don't dislike it, I sometimes have trouble telling the difference between various military SF stuff. About the one novel of that type that sticks out in my memory is David Gerrolds wolf books.
Hypersmurf
Moderatarrrrh...
MrFilthyIke said:
A lot of the setting revolves around the impeller drive. Basically space travel works in four ways: impeller drive, which is sublight; impeller drive in hyperspace, which is effectively faster, since everywhere in hyper is "closer" to everywhere in normal space; Warshawski sail in a grav wave, which is really really zippy, but only travels along the lines of grav waves; and wormholes, which instantaneously travel between two fixed points an arbitrary distance apart.
So trade routes and military strategies involve grav waves and wormholes heavily.
The books cover four major powers and assorted minor ones.
The Solarian League is really big, really old, and complacent in their technological superiority. Basically, the Solarian League is bigger than the rest of humanity put together.
The Republic of Haven is the second-largest empire around. They've been staving off complete financial collapse via wars of conquest, gobbling up smaller star systems.
The Star Kingdom of Manticore and the Manticoran Alliance is where the main character is from. Manticore is an incredibly wealthy system due to an abundance of wormholes and hence a particularly vigorous trading economy. Most of the series is about the war that takes place when the Republic of Haven thinks they should be able to quickly snap up Manticore with their vast numerical superiority... but it turns out that Manticore's R&D is far in advance of Haven's, and for much of the series, their tech (military, at least) has actually advanced beyond that of the League.
The fourth major power is the Andermani Empire, who we haven't seen much of, but who look to become more prominent in the next few books. They've butted heads with Manticore for decades over the trade in the Silesian Confederacy, a loose-knit region of systems with virtually no serious government and riddled with corruption and pirates.
At the start of the series, warships come in a variety of classes - the smallest 'serious' warship is the destroyer, used for escorting merchants, antipiracy, and scouting/picketing/screening; cruisers are used for just about everything; and real battles are decided by the 'ships of the wall', the quivalent of wet-navy 'ships of the line'; dreadnaughts and superdreadnaughts. Combat involves missiles for long range and beam weapons for short range, and in most of the engagements that we see throughout the series, salvo-volume for missiles is a major factor in deciding outcomes. The more missiles you can launch in a single go, the better chance you have of getting significant damage past a ship's defences.
-Hyp.
