Reading A Rising Thunder If You Haven't Kept Up
A Rising Thunder is the thirteenth novel in David Weber's Honor Harrington series, and it continues the storyline with Harrington facing a new threat while political tensions in the known universe escalate. The book came out in 2015 and is part of what Weber calls the "Manticore Ascendancy" era of the series. If you are picking it up without reading the previous twelve books, you will be lost pretty quickly. The politics alone reference events going back decades within the fictional timeline. Here is what you actually need to know before you start, and what most people skip over until it bites them. The book revolves around the Republic of Haven facing internal upheaval while the Star Kingdom of Manticore deals with its own institutional problems. Harrington gets pulled into diplomatic and military conflicts that feel fresh even though the basic setup hasn't changed since the first book. Weber does something interesting here by shifting some of the point-of-view characters. You get chapters from people who aren't Honor, which changes the pacing. It works better than it should.
I ran into an issue when I was trying to recommend this to someone who had only read the earlier books. They assumed the political landscape was stable enough to jump in. It isn't. The Mesan Alignment's role in the larger scheme becomes much clearer in this book, but if you haven't read-in the Grayson arcs or the earlier Haven conflicts, half the references go over your head. My workaround was straightforward: suggest they at least skim the summary of the prior books on Wikipedia before diving in. It takes twenty minutes and saves you from confusion that doesn't resolve for three hundred pages. The space battle sequences are detailed in a way that requires attention. Weber writes tactics that are technically coherent, which means you can't half-read them. One thing beginners miss is that the combat in this volume relies heavily on missile saturation tactics and countermeasures that evolved from the earlier books. If you don't track which fleet has which countermeasure packages, the battle descriptions just become noise. I keep a loose notes document when reading these books with each side's relative capabilities. It adds maybe five minutes per session but makes the battles actually readable instead of just loud. There are real limitations to the book though. The plot drags in the middle section. There are chapters that go nowhere for about fifty pages before something happens. Weber also leans on political intrigue as a crutch at times, and some of the conspiracy threads feel forced. The Mesan Alignment subplot, which sets up future books, is interesting in concept but underdeveloped here. If you are reading primarily for Harrington's character, you might find her arc somewhat passive compared to earlier volumes where she was driving events rather than reacting to them.
For someone looking to read this in order, the sequence matters more than most people admit. The first nine books establish the core conflict between Manticore and Haven. Books ten through twelve bring the Mesans into play. By the time you hit A Rising Thunder, the chessboard is set up for whatever comes next. Reading it as a standalone won't work. Reading it right after the preceding books in sequence is the minimum viable approach. If you want a copy, it is available as a trade paperback from most major retailers, as an eBook from Amazon and other vendors, and as an audiobook narrated by Grover Gardner and Julia Whelan. The paperback runs around 450 pages depending on the edition. The book itself is serviceable. It advances the series without resetting it, which is more than some long-running sci-fi series manage. The weaknesses are real but the strengths outweigh them for anyone already invested in the universe. For newcomers, start earlier in the series. Your patience will pay off.
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