 |
Jayne's Intelligence Review: The Havenite Republican Navy | Rating | |
| B | |||
| David Weber, Ken Burnside, and Thomas Pope | |||
| Series | Related Books | ||
| The "Honorverse" | Jayne's Intelligence Review: The Royal Manticoran Navy, Jayne's Intelligence Review: The Havenite Republican Navy, On Basilisk Station, The Honor of the Queen, The Short Victorious War, Field of Dishonor, Flag in Exile, Honor Among Enemies, In Enemy Hands, Echoes of Honor, Ashes of Victory, War of Honor, At All Costs, More Than Honor, Worlds of Honor, Changer of Worlds, The Service of the Sword, Crown of Slaves, The Shadow of Saganami | ||
David Weber's "Honorverse" is enormous, and he's gone through a lot of effort to include details of the ships and weapons that are so central to his stories. And Ad Astra Games has gone through a lot of effort to turn those details into a workable miniatures game. There's a book full of statistics and figures for the Royal Manticore Navy, and now there's a companion book for the other side, the Havenite Republican Navy. And that would be this.
Interestingly, this volume contains more ships than does the one for Manticore's navy. There's more classes to cover, such as armed merchant vessels and battleships, which would certainly require the extra space. Manticore doesn't employ those types. But it also covers some that they do, such as courier boats and assault transports, and I'm a bit puzzled why they're included only for Haven's side of things. Still, it has the distinctly positive effect of making this a slightly broader reference book.
There's a bit more text, as well. Most of it details Haven's political history and how they got into the economic quagmire that they were in when the series began. It also briefly summaraizes some of the opening stages of the war with Manticore.
But if the book is a little broader in scope, it fails to go into much depth. The authors spent so much time on Haven's history that they forgot to go into any detail about the planet istelf, or its solar system. The map of the local area of the galaxy fails to show two very important systems to the series, one of them being Haven itself!
Worse, in a way, the text that detailed Haven's history was written in a less-than-neutral manner. Readers get the definite impression that the authors feel Haven was politically stupid and deserves all the problems it's having now. And while the "notable units and battles" section for most classes in Manticore's book are filled with ships that won against overwhelming odds, Haven's are mostly notable for being delivered late, or with cost overruns, or detailing some critical quality control failure. While perfectly in keeping with Haven's character, it is remarkable that in a half-century of conquest there are so few ships well-known for the actual battles they've fought. The commentary didn't really fit in with the overall feel of the book, much less contribute to the fiction that this is an evenhanded reference volume from the future.
Overall, though, this might actually be a better book than its companion. Despite its flaws, it does seem to have a bit more in the way of content. I can't speak for how well it works for its primary audience — gamers — but for fans of the series it makes for some very interesting reading. At $29.95, though, it is very definitely expensive reading.
| By Title | By Author | By Rank |