ThinksMarkedly wrote:Theemile wrote:While some of the SS in the Anthologies read like generic Sci-Fi with the names changed to fit the Honorverse, some (especially those written by Weber and Flint) are required background material for the Greater Honorverse. David has built undercurrents of plots that have slowly matured over a dozen books or more - some have yet to come to fruition.
I don't see how.
You could maybe skip Crown of Slaves (CS1), but that's the one that introduces the Kingdom of Torch. But they become important later in the series, so knowing how they come about is handy. And the very next book, Torch of Freedom (CS2), introduces the Alignment, so you can't very well skip it. And Cauldron of Ghosts (CS3) is all about Houdini.
In the SI series, could maybe skip the third (SoF), since it is interleaved with the fourth (SoV), but I wouldn't recommend. Those two are the hardest to read (IMO) because of the slow pace of development and the extent of phrases in Czech and Polish. It's very easy to lose track of who the good guys and who their adversaries are in which system. But some of the best battles are in those two books, like the Battle of Saltash.
I was speaking to the Anthologies.
"A ship called Francis", and "Let's go to Prague" are 2 stories that feel like they are Generic Sci-Fi with oodles of correction fluid used to make them (barely) fit into the Honorverse. "Miss Midshipman Harrington" and "Let's Dance" on the other hand gives us a glimpse of what HH was like as a young leader and the obstacles she faced prior to OBS.