SH>     I've read Weber's latest Harrington and he drops her in the deep 
end...
SH>very deep! He's about to complicate her love life beyond
SH>reason; the ship she's on is shot out of action [title: IN
SH>ENEMY HANDS]; Nimitz gets it in the tail; the treecats in
SH>general are just about ready to drop their cover as an
SH>"un"intellegent species; and, oh, yes... she's going to be
SH>dead to the universe at large for a while.
SH>     That enough for you?
SH>                                        Star Hawk, the EchoTrickster
        I just read "Honor Among Enemies", which I was told was the most
recent book.  There is no mention what so ever of Honor Harrington
being "dead to the universe" for any time.  I imagine that upon return
to manticore, she'll either wind up Fleet Admiral Mary Sue or
Heavy-Political-Operator Mary Sue.
        The Seafort books by David Feintuch are an even more blatant rip
off of Horatio Hornblower.
        On the one hand Honor Harrington is beautiful, rich, physically
powerful, influential, a master martial artist, a crack shot and the
most talented tactical starship commander in the whole fleet.  She has
few if any character defects to balance these.
        Nicholas Seafort OTOH is filled with absolutely dreary self
hatred that is really unearned.
        By contrast, Horatio Hornblower was not the physically best at
anything some commanders in the fleet were probably better tacticians.
HH had the talent of being in the right place at the right time with a
creative idea under pressure.
        HH suffered from a classic "Peter Pan" syndrome.  He takes
himself too seriously and honestly doesn't believe that he deserves the
accolades he recieves right at first.
        This relates to Trek... (Honestly, Mr. Moderator!)  When
constructing Star Trek  GR evidently went to Forrester for inspiration.
Captain Pike was supposed to be a character driven nearly to distraction
because he cared too much about his crew and felt it too keenly when
things went badly.
        No other Trek Captain has seriously talked about retiring
becuase he was "tired of deciding who lives and who dies".
        In my own Trek stories I am careful to keep my Captain character
from being the best at any given thing, because that's what the CREW is
for.  My Captain is just good enough to get by, and occasionally has
flashes of brilliance.  It makes for a better story IMHO.
Jay P. Hailey 
 * OLX 2.1 TD * Boy, you're playing with dice that don't have dots.
--- Maximus/2 3.01
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