What Price Victory?

In the seventh anthology in the Honorverse, David Weber and a host of other excellent authors bring us new stories from various eras in time across the universe Weber hath wrought. In doing so they ask the sobering question What Price Victory? This new anthology gives us five new stories which span a long chronological period across the Honorverse timeline and so necessarily some slight spoilers will follow!

First up, we have the prequel story to the amazing Manitcore Ascendant series Traitor by Timothy Zahn and Thomas Pope. Exploring the background of one of the main antagonists to this series, we are taken back to the early days of the Andermani Empire. Gustav Anderman is still powerful and respected, but getting into his elder years and his eccentricities, in spite of his victories, are becoming difficult for even many of his most loyal followers to ignore. Into this mix a young and fiercely ambitious Cutler Gustavus von Tischendorf is trying to make his mark. However, he feels slighted by the Emperor after the Second Battle of Tomlinson, and when intrigue creeps up on him, he finds himself roped into a conspiracy darker than he can imagine.

Like in their excellent main series, Zahn and Pope are building on their insight into the larger Honorverse and tapping into the rich vein of stories that can be told in Andermani space. The action is focused and tight, centering on the Sorgenfrei Palace on the capital world of Postdam. Some characters from A Call to Inssurection make an early appearance, and their actions may surprise you! What this story does excellently is also show us Gustav Anderman himself. While he's certainly crazy, he remains a very, very dangerous man!

Secondly we have Deception on Gryphon by Jane Lindskold. This one takes us back to the early years of Manticore before the colonization of the third habitable planet in the Manticore Binary system took place in earnest. Stephanie Harrington and her friend Karl, as well as their treecats Lionheart and Survivor are with her parents for a big science conference. They meet, and sort of befriend, a strange geologist who suddenly ends up dead. Was it suicide, or murder?

The story itself is fun because it explores the largely unexplored world of Gryphon. Fans of the Star Kingdom series about Stephanie Harrington and the treecats will definitely enjoy this new short story. The banter between the cats is quite amusing, and how they explore their new location no less so. Lindskold using a murder as a backdrop works well and she manages to bring the story together in a satisfying way.

Third is Jan Kotouč's The Silesian Command which takes place in the opening days of the Second Manticoran-Haven War as Manticore is currently trying to digest the Silesian Confederacy alongside the Anderman Empire. The Royal Navy is overworked, overwhelmed, and stretched very thin, leaving room for opportunists to cause quite bit of damage to the still chaotic former Confederacy.

Evelyn Chandler is working her way through grief after the loss of her daughter, and so much death in the previous war. The new Silesian members are chaotic, corrupt, and not yet resigned to their new roles as subjects of Manticore. Even worse, unscrupulous warlords and pirates are taking advantage of the chaos.

This was probably one of my favorite stories in the whole anthology. Packed with the intrigue, combat, and dilemmas I have come to love the Honorverse for, Kotouč manages to roll together the rich vein of stories in this part of the universe into an excellently self contained story. The characterization is excellent, the tactics of our protagonists and antagonists clever, and overall we get a great look at the wider issues of the local universe at this time.

Next is If Wishes Were Spacecutters by Joelle Presby. This is a little 'slice of life' story from the Protectorate of Grayson. Noah Bedlam is a down on his luck member of Grayson society who is living on social assistance and always just one step away from financial ruin or being run out of social housing. He find himself swept up in the expansion of work in the outbreak of the Second Manticore-Haven War as things go off the rails.

Presby tells a really good story in Grayson society that gives us some expansion and insight into how the 'little people' in Grayson get along. While we've become familiar with the Protector, many of the great Steadholders, and the various armsmen and wives who make up this society we only ever had a few looks at life on the bottom. This was a wonderful exploration of that kind of life, even in the future, and how it can affect peoples choices and outlooks. Presby wrote poverty and social stigma in this society so well! How the various characters bumped into one another and helped drive the plot was quite clever!

Finally we have David Weber's First Victory. This is a story that stretches way back in time, mostly within the Harrington family. It's a touching family drama I think many people can relate to. That said, it is cute to see the younger life of the Harrington clan explored, especially with young Honor and more casual references to greater series events.

This is another excellent addition to the broader universe of the Honor Harrington series. I definitely reccommend it to fans, and more cautiously to casual readers if only because of spoilers! Otherwise, I encourage you to thoroughly immerse yourself in this space opera epic!

Balloons of War

With recent news about the transition of a Chinese spy balloon floating over the United States, my mind got turned to what balloons had done in war before. This was, surprisingly, an older practice than I thought!

The first time hot air balloons (rather than lanterns) were used in war was back in  1794, l’Entreprenant at the Battle of Fleurus by Revolutionary French forces to observe the Austrian movements. The Balloon Corps didn't get too much traction with the French forces, and Napoleon disbanded them in 1799. They would again be used by French forces in 1859 when France and Austria went to war over the fate of Italy and were extensively used for reconnaissance. They were again used in the Franco-Prussian War, most famously at the Siege of Paris, some for observation, but also to fly messages in and out of the city over the Prussian lines.

Most English historians are probably more familiar with the Union Army Balloon Corps in the US Civil War when the aeronaut Thaddeus Lowe used his own balloons to observe rebel movements for the US Army. The observation balloons were used at the battles of First Bull Run, in the various engagements of the Peninsula Campaign, Fredericksburg, and the Siege of Vicksburg. However, without political patronage and a military that did not readily adopt the idea of ballooning, Lowe's Balloon Corps languished and, effectively, ceased to exist in 1863.

Amusingly however, the United States can lay claim to the first use of an aircraft carrier, in a sense. A converted coal barge, the George Washington Parke Custis, was used to float the balloon Washington in the Potomac in 1861. 

The British army tinkered with the concept, and the army of the Empire of Brazil used observation balloons in the Paraguayan War, but it wasn't until the 20th century when ballooning for the military really took off (pun intended).

The most famous use of balloons for military purposes came in World War One. While observation balloons were common, the great zeppelins of the Imperial German military were the most conspicuous use of ballooning in that conflict. As observation vessels, bombers, and rough transports, they were used to good effect in the first years of the war, while also dropping bombs on cities to try and inspire fear.

It was then that the incendiary bullet was invented, bringing the hydrogen filled airships down in flames and generally making your survivability in one nil.

While observation balloons (and even spy balloons) have continued to be used, this is not the most common thing in war anymore. The true heyday was the 19th and early 20th centuries when the technology was emerging and we were not able to turn the most abundant fuel into fiery balls of death. So while the era of great military ballooning is long done, it is nice to see them make the news again once in a while!