Honor Harrington
Template:TOC-right Honor Harrington is the central character of a science fictional Honorverse created by David Weber, which he acknowledges is inspired by the character of Horatio Hornblower.
She is an exceptional naval officer born in the Star Kingdom of Manticore, which has somewhat resembles the role of the United Kingdom in the Napoleonic Wars. In the progressing series, she rose from naval cadet to the highest military and aristocratic ranks.
Honor herself
She is the child of "yeoman" stock in a constitutional monarchy, although her parents are both distinguished physicians. Her parents remain active in many plots, as the society makes use of "prolong", an evolving family of life extension technologies that can give humans lifetimes of centuries. She was born on the high-gravity planet Gryphon, part of the Star Kingdom of Manticore, and also has genetic modifications enhancing both intellectual and physical abilities, at the cost of a high metabolic rate and the inability to respond to then-current therapies that allow the regeneration of body parts.
As with the Hornblower series, the books did not come out in an order matching the chronology of the character. When stories and novels do address her as a midshipman at the Saganami Naval Academy, she thinks of herself as ugly, and struggles, even though her tactical insight is strikingly obvious to the faculty, with mathematics. In contrast, Hornblower, who also considered himself unattractive, demonstrated early mathematical ability — but it would have been inconceivable for an 18th century to even consider the idea of tactical insight in a midshipman.
In the first book, where she commands a light cruiser, she has an initially resentful executive officer, Alistair McKeon, who will become her devoted subordinate, as William Bush is to Horatio Hornblower.
Politics in the Honorverse
Conflict in the Honorverse is not limited to the Napoleonic model, but the chief opponent of her home kingdom is the (People's) Republic of Haven, a number of whose leaders' names are very obviously derived (e.g., Rob S. Pierre) from leaders of the French Revolution.
It is by no means a bilateral conflict or a strict model of the Napoleonic Wars. The Solarian League is roughly analogous to a modern United States, in having the largest economy. It probably has the highest technology base of all the interstellar empires, but Manticore has the greatest combat experience and uses its Navy to greatest advantage. There are a number of lesser but important empires, and also, paralleling Hornblower's time, with piracy.
A less straightforward comparison to Hornblower is that slavery is a concern, but the slavery in the Harrington books is principally the result of advanced genetics and slaves engineered for rols. Anti-slavery politics, and an underground of escaped slaves that engage both in terror and in admirable actions, are an increasingly important plot element.
A major ally of Manticore, and Harrington's dual citizenship, is Gryphon, a planet established by a religious movement, and more of an working monarchy than Manticore, which has a parliamentary government. Several reviewers suggest that Manticore is modeled on England, with Gryphon more like Scotland. Gryphon begins as very much a male-dominated society, partially for genetic reasons, but, in her first assignment there in Honor of the Queen, upsets their social order and forces them to recognize a woman can lead at the highest level. The theme of her parallel development in the Manticore and Gryphon political and military systems is constant from that book onwards. She is the mother of what becomes the potent Grayson Space Navy (GSN).
Treecats
One major plot element with no Hornblower parallel involves the treecat species. Native to her birth planet of Gryphon, treecats selectively "adopt" human; it was accepted, generations before Honor, that they form a lifelong empathic bond with humans, and an adopted Queen makes it clear that no human-treecat pair will ever be separated in Naval service. Nimitz, Honor's treecat, has a distinct personality, and a vital fighting partner and, for want of a better term, a wizard's familiar — throughout the books, a subplot is the steady revelation of the very substantial intelligence of treecats — still a plausible alien intelligence.
The books and stories
Weber now has other science fiction writers working, under license agreement, in the Honorverse framework. The first list, however, deals with those written by Weber alone. Weber's work starts with her as a commander; the information on her earlier life is more in stories or flashback.
| Order in character life | Publication date | Character rank |
|---|---|---|
| On Basilisk Station | Commander, Royal Manticore Navy (RMN), special-purpose light cruiser HMS Fearless | |
| The Honor of the Queen | Mid-level captain (heavy cruiser HMS Fearless (new ship); joint RMN-GSN squadron command ) | |
| The Short Victorious War | Senior captain, battlecruiser HMS Nike | |
| Field of Dishonor | inactive senior captain, Manticore; takes political role on Grayson | |
| Flag in Exile | Becomes Admiral, Grayson Space Navy (GSN) | |
| Honor among Enemies | Commanding Q-ship squadron, RMN | |
| In Enemy Hands | Commodore, RMN; Admiral, GSN; on Haven prison planet | |
| Ashes of Victory | Admiral, RMN;§ Fleet Admiral, GSN | |
| Echoes of Honor | Admiral, RMN; Fleet Admiral, GSN | |
| War of Honor | Admiral, RMN; Fleet Admiral, GSN | |
| At All Costs | Admiral, RMN; Fleet Admiral, GSN |
§ For plausible plot reasions, she jumps from commodore to full admiral, RMN, in this book