It's hard to give peace a chance when the other side regards war as the necessary prelude to conquest, and a sneak attack as the best means to that end. On the planet Grayson to participate in diplomatic talks between the Kingdom of Manticore and the Republic of Haven, Honor Harrington discovers that she is stuck on a fiercely patriarchal, misogynist planet.

"Growing up, Travis Uriah Long yearned for order and discipline in his life...two things his neglectful mother couldn't or wouldn't provide. So when Travis enlists in the Royal Manticoran Navy, he thought he'd finally found the structure he'd always wanted so desperately. But life in the RMN isn't exactly as expected. Boot camp is rough; his first ship assignment lax and disorderly; and with the Star Kingdom of Manticore still recovering from a devastating...

"Lieutenant Travis Long of the Royal Manticoran Navy is one of those rare people who likes rules but has a talent for thinking outside of them when everything starts coming apart. That is why he is now a mustang and also why he has enemies. At the moment, there are powerful forces in the young Star Kingdom's Parliament who don't think they need him or the navy for that matter. Unhappily for them, the edge of the explored galaxy can be a far more dangerous...

The new government of the Star Kingdom has brazenly ignored the wishes of Queen Elizabeth--threatening to end a shaky ceasefire agreement and destroy the very fabric of the Manticore Alliance against the terrorist Committee of Public Safety. As a senior political advisor, Honor has seen the cost of war on her people and vows to restore the Republic of Haven's ancient Constitution--or die trying. No one wanted another war. Thomas Theisman didn't....

"The Mesan Alignment has a plan--one it's been working on for centuries. A plan to remake the galaxy and genetically improve the human race--its way. Until recently, things have gone pretty much as scheduled but then the Alignment hit two bumps in the road: one called the Star Empire of Manticore, the other named Honor Harrington. In order to undercut Manticore's galaxy-wide reputation as a star nation of its word, it launched Operation Janus--a false-flag...

In the period of peace following the Human-Orion War, a ship from a half-forgotten history emerges from a warp point notorious for sevouring ships and opens fire on the Orions, in Crusade, while five thousand years after Sun Tzu writes The Art of War, his advice is followed during the Fourth Instellar War between the terible Bugs and the humans, who are aided by their catlike Orion allues, in In Death Ground.

Michelle Henke, Queen Elizabeth of Manticore's first cousin, Honor Harrington's best friend, and the commanding officer of Manticore's Tenth Fleet, is just a bit surprised when a messenger arrives from the Mobius System to inform her that the Mobius Liberation Front is prepared to rise in rebellion against the hated regime President Svein Lombroso. She has no orders from her government to assist any rebellions or liberation movements, she's short...

"For more than fifty years, the Terran Republic and the Terran League have been killing one another. The death toll has climbed ever higher, year after year, with no end in sight. But the members of the Five Hundred, the social elite of the Republic's Heart Worlds, don't care. Their star systems are light-years from any threat of attack. Their children are sheltered from the "mandatory service" that falls so heavily on the Fringe Worlds' backs. Their...

Having made him look the 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...