Notice of forthcoming book publication
It has been announced that 7th July 2026 will see the publication of the fifth novel in the "Manticore Ascendant" Honor Harrington universe prequel saga, which will be "A call to deception" by David Weber, Timothy Zahn and Thomas Pope.
We are enormously looking forward to this as the "Manticore Ascendant" books have been some of the most entertaining in the "Honor Harrington" military SF series (or "Honorverse").
Originally the Honorverse companion book "House of Steel" stated that in 1538 PD (e.g. 3641 AD/CE) there had been an attack on the Manticore system by a force of mercenaries hired by a huge interstellar corporation called "Axelrod of Terra."
That book went on to say that, quote, "Examination of one of the ships captured after the battle" then "revealed the true reason for the attack: Axelrod had realised the Manticore binary system was almost certainly home to a major wormhole junction." It adds that "No-one in Manticore had ever anticipated that possibility."
Weber, Zahn and Pope have been enormously expanding and retconning that story in the "Manticore Ascendant" series. the attack by the Volsung Mercenaries who Axelrod had hired is described in detail in the second "Manticore Ascendant" book, "A call to arms." The attack has now been put back five years to 1543 PD.
With two exceptions, I'm not going to describe most of the more substantial retconns as that would inevitably involve spoilers for these books, but I'll forgive them as they make the story much better and more interesting.
At the end of the fourth book, Manticore knows that they have a mysterious enemy but still has no idea who that enemy is or what their motives for the attack are.
Although a scientist on Manticore HAS now independently realised that there may be a wormhole junction in the system and reported this to the Queen of Manticore, Elizabeth II, and her government, what hasn't changed is that nobody has yet put this information together with the mysterious attacks or has the least idea that a wish to acquire control of that potentially enormously valuable wormhole junction might be the motive for those attacks.
The description on the Amazon page for the forthcoming book reads as follows:
"To weather the storm . . .
The youthful Star Kingdom of Manticore is only a single, tiny star nation on the fringe of the explored galaxy. It has no Army, only a tiny Navy, and no merchant marine at all. By any interstellar measure, it is virtually insignificant.
Despite which, it has somehow acquired a very significant enemy. One which has engineered major attacks upon its territory. One which has worked long and hard to destabilize any alliances that might aid the Star Kingdom in its defense. And one which has struck from the shadows, weaving webs of secrecy and deception to conceal its identity, its resources, or even the reason behind its attacks.
Yet Queen Elizabeth II and her advisors know there must be a reason, whether they know what it is or not. They are digging deep for clues . . . and they have begun getting dangerously close to answers.
Their enemy knows that, and it has prepared a last ditch effort to decapitate the Star Kingdom, throw it into disarray.
A last ditch effort which may claim Elizabeth’s life.
But there are more players in the game then even Manticore's enemy realizes. Deception is about to meet counter-deception, fleets are about to meet fleets, and the tiny Star Kingdom of Manticore is about to open the door to future greatness.
Assuming it survives."
Not sure it was worth putting in those three last words to try to create any doubt about who is going to win, given that this is a prequel series and Weber and his co-authors have already published another thirty-one books about the future of the Star Kingdom of Manticore five hundred years on.
So almost everyone reading that description will be berfectly aware that the Kingdom does indeed survive for at least another five hundred years and then becomes an Empire! Never mind.
You can pre-order "A call to deception" at
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