Space Opera Fans discussion

The October 2020 Themed Pick is A Beautiful Friendship by David Weber. The theme is Alien Point of View. Please use this thread to post questions, comments, and reviews, at any time.

Note: we read this in 2015. The discussion thread for that is available here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Official description:
Stephanie Harrington always expected to be a forest ranger on her homeworld of Meyerdahl . . . until her parents relocated to the frontier planet of Sphinx in the far distant Star Kingdom of Manticore. It should have been the perfect new home --- a virgin wilderness full of new species of every sort, just waiting to be discovered. But Sphinx is a far more dangerous place than ultra-civilized Meyerdahl, and Stephanie’s explorations come to a sudden halt when her parents lay down the law: no trips into the bush without adult supervision!

Yet Stephanie is a young woman determined to make discoveries, and the biggest one of all awaits her: an intelligent alien species.

The forest-dwelling treecats are small, cute, smart, and have a pronounced taste for celery. And they are also very, very deadly when they or their friends are threatened . . . as Stephanie discovers when she comes face-to-face with Sphinx's most lethal predator after a hang-gliding accident.

But her discoveries are only beginning, for the treecats are also telepathic and able to bond with certain humans, and Stephanie’s find --- and her first-of-its kind bond with the treecat Climbs Quickly --- land both of them in a fresh torrent of danger. Galactic-sized wealth is at stake, and Stephanie and the treecats are squarely in the path of highly-placed enemies determined to make sure the planet Sphinx remains entirely in human hands, even if that means the extermination of another thinking species.

Unfortunately for those enemies, the treecats have saved Stephanie Harrington’s life. She owes them . . . and Stephanie is a young woman who stands by her friends.

Which means things are about to get very interesting on Sphinx.

I have read this book several times (three according to Goodreads). Sometimes when I reread it I binge the trilogy, sometimes I just read the first book. I love First Contact books, and the struggle to try to communicate.

The treecat trilogy is in the Honorverse, but takes place a very long time before Honor Harrington was born so there is no need to have read the other books and no risk of spoilers.

I look forward to rereading it in October (or possibly sooner....).

I’ve never red any of the HH books, although I have read other Weber books. Are they as good as folks say?

The HH books usually have more politics than I prefer. I tend to look for characters that I can relate to, good dialog, and ingenuity in solving problems (or at least competence). I’ve read quite a few of the HH books but by no means all of them (according to Goodreads I’ve read 9 out of 14 of the books about Honor). They aren’t books that I reread regularly.

Teresa wrote: "They aren’t books that I reread regularly."

Since you are the undisputed Reread Queen, that tells me a lot.

OTOH, there are series you enjoy that I don’t like at all. People have different tastes, and my own tastes change fir that matter.

Trike wrote: "I’ve never red any of the HH books, although I have read other Weber books. Are they as good as folks say?"

I have really enjoyed some of the HH books. I have at this point given up, as the politics took over the characters and the story. (In my opinion.) The first 10-12 were fun, although some of the battle descriptions can be tedious. And the tree cats are fantastic.

Trike wrote: "I’ve never red any of the HH books, although I have read other Weber books. Are they as good as folks say?"

I on the other hand have read all of the Honor Harrington books multiple times. They do get bogged down in politics occasionally, and in technology dumps sometimes, but I find them very compelling. Complex world building; great characters; and even the politics can be interesting (especially as it changes over time). The last one, in my opinion, was the least compelling, but you need to read it too.

How do they compare to Bujold’s Vorkosigan books? Some of those I loved, but even the lesser ones I still enjoyed.

I haven't read the Vorkosigan books. I liked the ones about his parents, but I didn't like the first one about Miles, so I gave up on the series. However, I get the impression that the Honorverse is much more military oriented. Lots of military history and military battles and military technology.

I have read A Beautiful Friendship several times and enjoyed it every time. I think of this series as the young adult entries to the Honorverse. Not that there's anything wrong with YA. But it's very different from the other Honorverse books.

I've heard of HH praised so often that I put the first book in my queue to read sooner or later, but hearing this discussion makes me put it lower in my priority, because I absolutely hate politics and don't want it anywhere near the books I read. It doesn't go off my list entirely because it sounds like the earliest ones have the fewest politics.

I really enjoyed the earlier ones. Very much, actually, and have happily re-read them. I think a few of the latter ones could have done with more editing. Or editorial direction. I still have book ten or eleven unfinished.

The author wrote some spin off series as well, and they are referenced quite heavily in the latter books, and since I haven't read them...🤷‍♀️

I have read A Beautiful Friendship, and really enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to the discussion.

I generally don't like multiple POV books, but I did like it in A Beautiful Friendship and the rest of the trilogy. Maybe because I like the treecats so much and because the POV device is such a great way of really getting to know them. None of the other Honorverse books use a treecat POV in the same way, but they have different ways to let you know what the treecats are thinking.

The Star Kingdom trilogy, A Beautiful Friendship being the first, is very different from the HH novels. It is geared toward YA. It is much more about the opening of a new planet and discover of the treecats. I liked Honor. I don't mind politics to an extent and find the Queen and the war interesting. I just don't like detailed battlescenes that go on for pages or a chapter. My daughter suggested I skip those pages (which I didn't realize she did). Never occurred to me.

My daughter and I both like the Vorkosigan series and have read them several times. The individual books aren't on a grand universe scale - the stories are more concentrated on the immediate area. Cultural differences and the problems and sometimes mystery to be resolved, together with the characters and worlds are well done.

I found A Beautiful Friendship online (for those, like me, who don't own a copy): https://www.bookscool.com/en/A-Beauti...

Eager to dive into it, as I've never read it or any of the HH Series either.

Reading Reindeer wrote: "I found A Beautiful Friendship online (for those, like me, who don't own a copy): https://www.bookscool.com/en/A-Beauti...

Eager to dive into it, as I've never read it or any o..."
If they are offering it free online then it’s a pirate site. The ebook is $6.99 from all the usual vendors.

I started my reread yesterday. So good... I’m trying not to gallop through it. I’m about 25% in now. I really like when the treecats are trying to figure out whether the two-legs have a way to communicate with each other. Could they possibly be intelligent?

I’m about halfway. It always seems a bit odd that the story of Stray was just mentioned in passing, in pieces. I’m tempted to switch my reread to rereading that short story, or at least checking which collection it is in so that I can reread it next.

Edit: “Stray” is in Worlds of Honor. The short story was written by Linda Evans, which explains why it wasn’t placed fully in the middle of this book.

Finished my reread late last night. Definitely worth rereading every couple of years! For me anyway. I probably won’t reread the rest of the trilogy this year but I might reread Worlds of Honor which is short stories.

Teresa wrote: "Finished my reread late last night. Definitely worth rereading every couple of years! For me anyway. I probably won’t reread the rest of the trilogy this year but I might reread Worlds of Honor whi..."

Do you track your rereads? Is there a book that comes back around more than others?

I track rereads on Goodreads, but that just goes back to when they added the extra read records - plus there’s all those books I read before joining Goodreads. This weekend I’ll see if I can spot space opera that I’ve reread multiple times in the past few years and post it here.

I like political thought in science fiction, but the way Weber superimposes a libertarian paradise on a british type monarchy on a conservative view of twentieth century American cold war politics doesn’t quite work.

I just started reading this book. I wasn't going to since my to-read pile is huge. But, treecats....

I just came to the point where Stephanie comes face to face with Climbs Quickly. I keep having the thought that if the adult Honor had the same attitude towards rules that Stephanie does (will do whatever she wants as long as not specifically and pointedly forbidden), she would not have been survived more than a week in the Royal Manticoran Navy.

Agreed. However this is extremely common behavior of kids, in my experience (both myself and my own kids). Most of them grow out of it.

Since our theme is "alien point of view", I noted this quote as showing the treecat point of view regarding humans: "She cannot taste their mind-glows, which means she must fumble towards understanding them like one trying to run along a cross-branch when he cannot even see the sun, far less where he is going. The sheer bizarreness of that inability made him abruptly and jarringly aware of the differences between the People and the two-legs in an entirely new way. How do the poor things manage even to survive, much less grow up?"