damerell: NetHack. (Default)
damerell ([personal profile] damerell) wrote2002-07-04 06:44 pm

Baen

[This is trivia, but I have to write something, right?]

OK, I'm enjoying Weber's Honor Harrington novels, although they are in many respects a shocking clone of the Hornblower books (we are meant to notice this, it's homage rather than rip-off) to the extent that the hardware is perversely distorted to be more like 18th century naval combat, but it's all good clean new-style space opera fun, and in the best tradition of drugs the first one's free - thank you, Baen. (Baen Free Library, on their Website - excellent idea.)

However, I notice Weber makes the mistake of having her read Hornblower - never a good idea. No-one in MegaTokyo has seen _Bubblegum Crisis_; no-one in EarthForce has seen _Babylon 5_; and David Bowman never read _2001_.

But my real curiousity - who at the publisher took enough crack to put a flick-book style animation of a spaceship exploding along the top right-hand corners of _Honor Among Enemies_? Eh?

[identity profile] alister.livejournal.com 2002-07-09 06:43 am (UTC)(link)
I've got the whole set of Honor Harrington (and the 4 'Starfire' books set in a similar universe).

I've not actually read Hornblower, but I do remember that it was also mentioned in Star Trek (Quarterdeck-breed).

On an individual basis, she may be much the same - but on a larger scale (the conflict with the peeps and the Silesian confederacy) is right out of 18th Century European politics.

[identity profile] damerell.livejournal.com 2002-07-09 06:47 am (UTC)(link)
18th century politics... but Hornblower himself is a naval officer during the Napoleonic wars.

I'm half-way through reading

[identity profile] alister.livejournal.com 2002-07-10 05:43 pm (UTC)(link)
an interview with David Weber on http://www.computercrowsnest.com/sfnews2/02_july/news0702_1.shtml - 'Hornblower' in it, about 2/3rds the way down.