Book Review: On Basilisk Station by David Weber

On Basilisk Station
Author: David Weber
Series: Honor Harrington (Book 1)
Publication: Baen Books (December 21, 2012)

Description: INTRODUCING HONOR HARRINGTON

Having made him look a fool, she's been exiled to Basilisk Station in disgrace and set up for ruin by a superior who hates her.

Her demoralized crew blames her for their ship's humiliating posting to an out-of-the-way picket station.

The aborigines of the system's only habitable planet are smoking homicide-inducing hallucinogens.

Parliament isn't sure it wants to keep the place; the major local industry is smuggling; the merchant cartels want her head; the star-conquering, so-called "Republic" of Haven is Up To Something; and Honor Harrington has a single, over-age light cruiser with an armament that doesn't work to police the entire star system.

But the people out to get her have made one mistake. They've made her mad.

My Thoughts: Honor Harrington finds herself captain to a ship recently "improved" by Horrible Hemphill and with an Executive Officer who resents her youth and that she jumped over him to captain the ship. Her tactical genius lets her win once in the war games designed to test the new weapon on her ship, but further games show the weaknesses of the weapon and her ship is killed again and again.

Having made Hemphill look bad, she is assigned to an out of the way outpost called Basilisk Station. Unknown to her, the People's Republic of Haven has designs on Basilisk Station and its very lucrative gate. But worse than that, Honor finds herself under the command of a man who tried to rape her when she was a midshipman at the naval academy and who was soundly beaten by her and forced to make a public apology. His powerful allies kept him in the Navy, but he has vowed revenge on Honor. 

Lord Pavel Young sees his opportunity for his revenge when Honor arrives. He declares that his ship is in need of vital repairs and leaves her in her single, oddly weaponed ship to protect the area. Basilisk Station is sort of a political football. A substantial percent of the government doesn't want to keep it at all. Its major industry seems to be smuggling. And the only habitable planet has aliens with a Bronze age culture. At least it did until outside influences introduced flintlocks and encouraged the production of a hallucinogen that ramps up aggression. 

Honor isn't going to fail at her command. She works closely with the governor of the planet and clamps down on the smuggling even though it angers the wealthiest man on Manticore. And she figures out Haven's plans for the area which leads to a pitched space battle. 

This was an excellent introduction to a series that has grown into more than 40 books if all the various subseries set in the same world are counted. It is the very definition of space opera filled with larger-than-life characters and fantastic weapons. It has lots and lots of space battles and political maneuvering. The stories are told from multiple viewpoints.

I bought this one before I began keeping track of purchases in 2008. More recently I purchased the Kindle book in 2011 and the audiobook in 2020.  You can buy your copy here or check get it at Baen Books Free Library.