Flag in Exile (Honor Harrington Series #5) Book

At this point in the Honor Harrington franchise, the question for readers is: "Can Weber maintain the momentum of his previous novels, or is this the start of a spiral down to formulae and predictability?"

If the following is what has kept you a reader, then you will find more of it in Flag in Exile:
"The two formations slid broadside towards one another at just under forth thousand kilometers per second while the missiles went out with an acceleration of eighty-five thousand gravities. At their closure rate, the two formations had only two hundred and twenty-six seconds before they interpenetrated. Not passed each other but interpenetrated, for Honor had deliberately turned directly across TG 14.1's base course to give her energy weapons the best possible field of fire for the bare twelve seconds it would take the Peeps to shoot clear across their effective range envelope."

Flag in Exile starts with Harrington having become a steadholder on the planet Grayson as both a reward for saving their leader from assassination and as a way to provide her with time and space to recover from the injuries she suffered while doing so.

One of the annoying aspects of Weber's series is his contrived drama between two political world views: the monarchists and the "communists." He could have chosen to create more realistic issues for the far future but his Republic of Haven is almost entirely two-dimensional from its painful "entitlements" to its new leader, Robert Stanton Pierre (or Rob S Pierre), chairman of the Committee of Public Safety.

The novel is further bloated by Weber's determination to give us his thoughts (only slightly veiled) on communism, liberalism, progressivism and their deleterious effect on: freedom; the true function of the military; and, the dignity of the individual in society.

If you can stagger through over 100 pages of this at the beginning, you are rewarded with some thoughtful, complex and interesting plot and strategy as Harrington, now a Grayson admiral, takes a raw fleet out to save the bacon for Grayson, Manticore and mankind in general. There are a myriad of subplots that Weber delights in, ranging from plots on Grayson to discredit/disenfranchise Harrington to plots among the military and politicians of the Republic, to the actual strategies and tactics of fighting a massive war in many places at the same time.

Weber creates and maintains a many-layered plot that is astoundingly well-laminated. But, in adding more bits and pieces (at each opportunity) throughout these books, he is creating a behemoth. Just like the Seawise Giant that was almost a third of a mile long, this plot has such mass and momentum that it has lost any ability to maneuver gracefully. The deft plot shifts that were present in the earlier books are no longer possible. We plunge onward but more pages are needed to describe everything going on at each level and more pages must be devoted to providing a plausible way to fit them together.

Rather than an exhilarating ride over the seas of fortune we are left ponderously plunging and striving to rise ahead of the next swell of plot. A bit sad.