Honor Harrington manages to basically wreck every piece of machinery she puts her hand on; but you should see the other guys!

Spoiler

Oh, wait! There's nothing left! :)

It starts on her home planet, and we get to meet Honor's family as well. We get to meet people important people in her life, talk a bit about sexuality as well, and Weber handles this topic in an acceptable manner.

The mission is now to join one of her ex-teachers, admiral Courvoisier, as a military component to a diplomatic mission on Grayson, a colony established by some religious fundamentalists. The complication comes from their enemy, Masada, the other inhabited planet in the system, that is a more fanatical branch of Grayson, who contract the services of the Republic of Haven to squash their long-time enemy.

It's not only military sci-fi; it goes well into treating some serious issues like women discrimination, and the religious fanatism. Weber manages to handle these topics relatively well, although at times it feels a bit overdone.

But that might happen also because sometimes Weber's writing sucks. It shoves a ton of characters down your throat, it breaks the action fast and you start to care less about the myriad of characters he adds in the discussion. The middle of the book lacks focus precisely due to this reason, and that's where everything becomes hard to follow.

But the finale is redemptive; you finally feel like you're back in a military sci-fi, and you feel better about it. Honor gets a classic ending

Spoiler

with the ship wrecked, but also with a hero's reward - a kingdom and a title.

, but what will live on is her mutilated figure as a result of an assassinate attempt that failed.

So the story feels a bit tropey yet not really. I think the story holds quite well, and if you can skip through the filler characters, there's a good, serious story worth reading. Convinced me to buy the whole series, after all.