3 Wine Glass #ARC #Review of Uncompromising Honor by David Weber

Title: Uncompromising Honor

Series: Honor Harrington #14

Author: David Weber

Genre: science fiction, space opera

Format: 784 pages

Expected Publication: October 2nd, 2018 by Baen
Links: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N 

Source: Edelweiss
Reviewer: Lexi

Rating: 3 out of 5 Wine Glasses

HONOR'S FINISHING WHAT SHE STARTED

The Solarian League's navy counts its superdreadnoughts by the thousands. Not even its own government knows how enormous its economy truly is. And for hundreds of years, the League has borne the banner of human civilization, been the ideal to which humanity aspires in its diaspora across the galaxy.
But the bureaucrats known as the "Mandarins," who rule today's League, are not the men and women who founded it so long ago. They are corrupt, venal, accountable to no one . . . and they've decided the upstart Star Kingdom of Manticore must be destroyed.
Honor Harrington has worn the Star Kingdom's uniform for half a century and served her monarch and her people well. In the course of those years, the woman the newsies call the Salamander has grown from a tactically brilliant but politically naïve junior officer to supreme fleet command and a seat on the highest military and political councils of the Grand Alliance.
Very few people know war the way Honor Harrington does. Very few have lost as many men and women, as many friends, as much family, as she has. Yet despite that, hers has been a voice of caution. She knows the Mandarins and the Solarian League Navy are growing increasingly desperate as the truth of their technological inferiority sinks home, but she also knows the sheer size of the League. And she knows how its citizens will react if the Grand Alliance takes the war to the League, attacks its star systems, destroys its infrastructure . . . kills its civilians. Today's victory, bought on those terms, can only guarantee a future war of revenge against a resurgent Solarian League and its navy.

Honor knows the Grand Alliance must find a victory that doesn't require incursions deep into Solarian space, doesn't leave a legacy of bottomless hatred, and the strategy she supports has been working.
The League is sliding towards inglorious defeat as it steadily loses ground in the Protectorates and the Verge. As its central government teeters towards bankruptcy and even some of its core systems opt to secede in the face of the Mandarins' corruption. As the Solarian Navy finally realizes it cannot face an Alliance battle fleet and win.
But the Mandarins have embraced a desperate new strategy, and in pursuit of that strategy, the SLN has committed atrocities such as the galaxy has not known in a thousand years. The League have violated its own Eridani Edict against mass civilian casualties, violated the Deneb Accords prohibition on war crimes.
And they have finally killed too many of the people Honor Harrington loves.
Hers is the voice of caution and compromise no longer, and the galaxy is about to see something it has never imagined.

The Salamander is coming for the Solarian League, and Hell is coming in her wake. 

Lexi’s Thoughts:

Uncompromising Honor has politics, spaceship wars, and Honor Harrington. It’s the conclusion to the series and will leave you hungry for more Honor.

This military-sci-fi series has followed the career of Honor and readers have come to expect a lot of action. While there is a good dose in book fourteen, there was certainly room for more. 

The beginning of the book gives us some pulse-pounding space battles. The Alignment is as bad as ever and one will never have enough of their sly operatives.  

The middle slows down with a lot of political talking, dinners, and meetings, and side story arcs that don’t cross Honor’s. Which means we don’t see much of her. There are tons of characters introduced throughout this section and some of them have great stories, there is depth and heart, but they don’t all seem to connect to Honor.

The end ramps back up with more battles and Honor returns in all her bloody glory. She takes on the Solarians and the explosions are amazing! But at the end…the Alignment, with their ultimate agents, aren’t extinguished. Could there be more to come in the Honorverse?

While there are a LOT of words, at times too many, and a lot of plots and characters that pop up unexpectedly, there are some greats in Uncompromising Honor. There will never be enough space battles or treecats. And this book has both of those things. For that, I found this book enjoyable and can close the cover on this series. Unless there is another one with more treecats, then I’ll be back.