Classic book review: "The Short Victorious War" (Honorverse 3)

IN WHICH THE BALLOON GOES UP ...

"The Short Victorious War" by David Weber, first published by Baen Books in April 1994  was the third  book in the "Honorverse" series, featuring the far future space navy officer Honor Harrington.

The message of the book, strongly hinted at in the title, and even more so in two real-world quotes which Weber makes before the prologue, is particularly topical at the time of writing this review in April 2026, some 32 years after the book was first published.

The first of those quotes, often attributed to the Russian interior minister Vyacheslav Plehve on the eve of the 1905 Russo-Japanese war, is 

"What this country needs is a short victorious war to stem the tide of revolution."

The second, from the Irish journalist Robert Lynd, is

 

 

Among those currently wishing they had paid more attention to Robert Lynd's way of thinking must be the current Russian President, who is now into the fifth year of a war he started against a neighbour he expected to conquer in a few days. And although the current President of Weber's own country never admits to being wrong about anything, those members of his administration with two or more working brain cells may well be having similar regrets. 

The first two books of the series were set in a galactic future in which the starfaring nations of Manticore and Haven are experiencing a period of cold war and substantial major military build-up which all the main characters expected would lead to an all-out war for survival: it really isn't much of a spoiler given the book's title to say that in "The short victorious war," that conflict does indeed start.

This story is set four years after the first one, "On Basilisk Station" e.g. about two thousand years in our future: according to the calendar used in the novel it is begins in 1904 "Post Diaspora," which corresponds to 4007 AD (or Common Era, CE.) It is part of a series which has, since it was published,  grown to contain, more than forty books so far, set in a future universe in which mankind began to disperse over much of the galaxy starting in 2103 AD.

Honor Harrington has recovered from her wounds suffered the climactic battle at the conclusion of "The Honor of the Queen," which has made her bth enemies and friends.

A lot of people, particularly in the governments of both her own Star Kingdom of Manticore and their new allies in Grayson, think she is a hero for preventing the conquest of that system by Masadan lunatics by taking out a battlecruiser with a heavy cruiser, for which she has been rewarded with a peerage and made flag-captain of a battlecruiser squadron. For some others, she is a dangerous hothead.

But all of them have more serious things to worry about as provocations and raids from the People's Republic of Haven get more and more serious.

Several of David Weber's books, including some in this series, are masterclasses on how to write a novel about why and how wars start. "The Short Victorious War" is an example showing how a nation might decide to go to war and cynically plan to start it in the way that gives them the greatest possible advantage. 

Some of his other books, "War of Honor" being probably the best example, paint a picture of how two nations both of whom would have very much preferred to remain at peace can, through arrogance, complacency, and fatally misunderstanding each other, stumble into a devastating war which neither wanted.

"The short victorious war" introduces a number of characters who will be important for the continuing series. On the Haven side, it introduces particularly Robert Stanton Pierre, who will be the story's primary antagonist for the next half-a-dozen books. Weber makes sure no historically literate reader can be in any doubt who this character represents by having him  sign his name as "Rob S Pierre" on the first arrest warrant he issues on behalf of Haven's Committee of Public Safety.

On the Manticore side, the Zilwicki family is introduced, initially in the first of several "Jervis Bay" stories of sacrificial defence of a convoy which appear in this series.

In real history Captain Edward Fegen of the HMS "Jervis Bay," an armed merchant cruiser, was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross for putting his ship between the convoy he was escorting and the German pocket battleship "Admiral Scheer" to give the convoy time to scatter. Jervis Bay was a converted liner armed with seven six-inch guns: Admiral Scheer was an exceptionally powerful heavy cruiser with a main armament of six 11-inch guns and in fact her secondary armament of eight 5.9 inch guns would have been enough to outgun the Jervis Bay. 

Edward Fegen knew he and his men didn't have a chance against the more powerful German ship but he also knew that if they could hold Admiral Scheer off for even a short time it might give most of the convoy time to get clear. Jervis Bey engaged the enemy for nearly an hour before being sunk, and that was indeed long enough for most of the convoy to get clear: 31 of 38 merchantmen made it home.

In this book, Captain Helen Zilwicki is commanding the escorts for a Manticoran convoy, 2which is attacked by superior Haven forces, and finds herself outnumbered and outgunned in much the same way as the Jervis Bay.

I'm not going to spoil the story by saying exactly what happens, let's just say that this kind of story appears several times in the Honorverse. In one or two cases the escort commander pulls off a miracle but more often the escorts are killed or captured while buying time for the convoy to escape.

Captain Helen Zilwicki's husband, Anton Zilwicki and their four year old daughter, also called Helen, are helpless witnesses to events on board one of the fleeing convoy ships. Both of them will be important characters in later books in the series.

As events of the novel develop, it becomes increasingly clear that what is happening is not just a series of provocations but an all-out war for survival, and either the People's Republic of Haven in its' present form, or the Star Kingdom of Manticore, is going down.

This is an extremely well-written book, with some great imagining and explanation of what a far-future war in space might look and feel like. I can strongly recommend "The Short Victorious war" and indeed the whole series.

You can find this book on Amazon at

The Short Victorious War by David Weber: Honor Harrington series book 3, Amazon.co.uk: Books