Field Of Dishonor - David Weber

Field Of Dishonor
David Weber
Baen Books
Copyright: 1999
978-0743435741

The amazon.com product description:

After boldly defeating the People's Republic of Haven, the Royal Manticoran Navy stands victorious, but a new political crisis and an old enemy once vanquished bring a new challenge for Honor Harrington.

The fourth book in the Honor Harrington series is a bit of a change from the previous three. Where the previous books had a focus on the big, critical space battles, the storyline of Field of Dishonor brings to life a very different aspect of the world of Honor Harrington: her personal life combined with the government of the Star Kingdom of Manticore. Just because the scale of the story is smaller though, doesn't mean that it's any less important. What happens here sets things up for the next books very well.

This book is the most emotional to date, as characters from the earlier books return - as they keep doing - and change. Honor's view of herself finally changes too. Finally, she loses the view of herself as the "ugly duckling". On the other hand, enemies return too. And that's what gives us, the readers, the view of Manticoran laws, government and politics.

Honor Harrington is a character that's "real". She's determined, does what she believes is the right thing, no matter the personal cost (and that can be quite high at times), but she's not perfect either. She has her flaws, but those just make her more "real". I find her (and all her cohorts) to be great reading, although I have to admit that there are times when I'm wondering what's happened to some of the secondary characters we met in the earlier books of the series.

For fans of military science fiction, this series is one that's definitely worth giving a try.