H is for Honor Harrington - #atozchallenge

Today's post is about Honor Harrington.  Honor Harrington is a fictional character created by science fiction author David Weber.  Honor Harrington is a captain in the Royal Manticoran Navy.  She exists in a universe where mankind has colonized other parts of the universe.  Ships have practical faster-than-light drives.  The two big space powers, the Star Kingdom of Manticore (space Britain) and the People's Republic of Haven (space revolutionary France/Soviet Union), are engaged in a series of struggles and cold/hot wars.  Spaceships are huge destroyers that fire large salvos of missiles at each other.  My friend who recommended it to me described it as Napoleonic space navy combat.

Did I mention she has a psychic space cat?

I enjoy reading the Honor Harrington books.  They are usually full of explosions and spaceship combat.  The technology that allows ships to travel faster that light also gives them impenetrable force fields on two sides of the ship, so battles are full of tactical decisions as ships try to outmaneuver each other.  Whenever I am in the mood for some capital ship action I read a Honor Harrington book.  I have currently read the first six, plus one extended universe story.

There are a few criticisms of the Harrington stories out there.  Some say she is a Mary Sue.  One of the best criticisms that I have heard is by Luke Barrage, who puts out a sci-fi book review podcast.  Luke makes some good points in his review of the first Harrington book that I cannot dispute.  However, I am still a big fan of the books and the universe.

If I was going to run a game in the Honorverse, I would probably use a hack of Traveller.  Traveller already has a heavy military element and rules for characters who have been in the military.  I would probably run an espionage game, where the characters have to infiltrate the Republic of Haven and steal MacGuffins.  If you want to check out the series look at the links below to see how to read the first two books for free.

The Tales of Honor issue from Free Comic Book Day

You can read and download the first two books in the Honor Harrington series from the publisher's website.

The company Final Sword Productions currently sells a Honor Harrington wargame and has plans for a role-playing game.  

There are two issues of the Honor Harrington Tales of Honor comic that you can download for free from Comixology, issue #1 and the Free Comic Book Day issue.