** 46th book of 2021: On Wish-Fulfillment Station **
On Basilisk Station promises to take an exceedingly competent protagonist through harrowing circumstances and overwhelming odds to inevitable victory, and does just that. The prologue starts out revealing the dastardly plan of the nazis-in-space villains and the first few chapters show us that the protagonist’s civilization is essentially interwar England. Armed with little more than Chekov’s gun Honor has to save the day and prevent world war 2 a galactic war.
Some might dislike the random interludes of exposition and scientific background, such as the dozens of pages spent explaining how hyperdrive works, if only to give sufficient context for the final naval battle, but I enjoyed the drier bits. The pieces of the universe all felt interesting, but the way that Weber moves them fell flat. In every organization mistakes were caused by ‘screwups’ from the brass. The author may have described himself in Honor: * She didn’t study politics, she didn’t understand politics, and she didn’t like politics. * Teambuilding scenes were basic wish-fulfillment, and in the final engagement I didn’t really understand why Honor didn’t disengage, considering that this was the strategy that Weber describes the antagonist as trying to prevent.
I’ll set the series down here, but don’t regret the read.