In Enemy Hands by David Weber

I have previously only reviewed the first book in the Honor Harrington series, but I have continued to read the sequels to On Basilisk Station. In my opinion, the first few sequels are fairly decent, but number four in the series was absolutely abysmal. However, the following books were okay, so I kept reading. In my view, Weber can only tell one story -- that of the hero that triumphs against all odds, usually with spaceships and explosions. It's a great story, and he tells it well, but it gets a little repetitive.

In Enemy Hands, the seventh book in the series, finally tells a different story. However, it takes several hundred pages to get the plot moving, which weakens what would otherwise be a breath of fresh air in a stale series. During the war with the People's Republic of Haven, Honor Harrington and some of her senior officers are captured and shipped to a secret prison planet. Of course they plan an escape, but this book ends in something of a cliff-hanger, so readers will have to continue on to book eight, Echoes of Honor, to see the conclusion.

I liked that David Weber took his characters in new directions, but there are about 300 pages in In Enemy Hands that I wanted to skip because it was boring or mostly irrelevant. Additionally, this book really should go together with book eight because they have the same story arc. Weber has big ideas, but the story gets too unwieldy at times and he spends too much time developing minor characters. Still, the new story direction is probably enough for me to keep reading