Beating the Author to the Punch

Since Monday I talked about nasty reviews and misconceptions, here's a nasty review I wrote for On Basilisk Station by David Weber:

The way I felt reading this was similar to reading a police procedural that has far too much procedure in it, like one of Ed McBain's books. And like that, there weren't any characters I cared about. Honor Harrington is basically a Mary Sue, her only flaw being that she can't do highly advanced math in her head. The others are all cardboard; when several of them die I couldn't have cared less.

Like I said it was too heavy on procedure and also backstory. When Honor's ship is trying to chase down an enemy ship at about 80% into the book, the author decides that's the perfect time for a lengthy lecture on the history of interstellar travel. Between that the strategy meetings, and then gratuitous musing about those strategy meetings, it pretty much sucks all the drama from the book. As well, if the author had mentioned Honor's "soprano" one more time I'd have wanted to contact the Sopranos. The reader isn't an idiot; you don't have to mention the same detail fifteen times for them to get it.

And the final battle, I'm sitting there for page after page after page thinking, "Why don't they use that lance thing from the training exercise at the start of the book?" Finally, after the ship is just about blown to pieces and a third of the crew is dead, Mary Sue Harrington says, "Hey, let's use the lance thing!" Bravo!

I definitely won't be reading the rest of the series.

That is all.

I'm sure the author would have a reason for why they didn't think to use the lance weapon earlier in the battle.  But shouldn't it have been mentioned?  Like one of the flunkies could have said:  why don't we use the lance?  And she could have said:  we're not close enough yet.  Or whatever bullshit reason.  But you go on and on and lose 1/3 of your ship and crew and then expect me to think she's clever for thinking of something I thought of a long time ago?  It's like if two guys are kung-fu fighting and then one guy suddenly realizes he has a gun and shoots the other.  Why the fuck didn't you realize that from the start?  It's so stupid!