Vaginal Fantasy Book Club discussion

In order to encourage more participation and to keep the discussion in one thread, I've decided to make the main discussion thread spoiler free. You can hide spoilers by typing the html shown in the infographic above. I know it's 2018 and this should be a simple matter to select text and push a button, but Amazon has chosen not to upgrade the user interface in these forums for at least seven years, so this is the process we're stuck with. Just replace "your spoiler text" with "I am your father" or "He was dead all along" and you're good to go. Also, don't forget to leave a space before and after the brackets so the words don't all mash together.

Our pick for July is On Basilisk Station by David Weber. It is the first book in the Honor Harrington series. You can use this thread to discuss the entire collection.

Honor Harrington in trouble: Having made him look the fool, she's been exiled to Basilisk Station in disgrace and set up for ruin by a superior who hates her. Her demoralized crew blames her for their ship's humiliating posting to an out-of-the-way picket station. The aborigines of the system's only habitable planet are smoking homicide-inducing hallucinogens. Parliament isn't sure it wants to keep the place; the major local industry is smuggling, the merchant cartels want her head; the star-conquering, so-called "Republic" of Haven is Up to Something; and Honor Harrington has a single, over-age light cruiser with an armament that doesn't work to police the entire star system.

But the people out to get her have made one mistake.

They've made her mad!

Is the Kindle edition free for everyone else on Amazon? It's listed for me at $7.99 but on sale for $0.00. I'm asking cause I can't tell if it's just a weird 100% off this particular book to entice people into the series or it's oddly triggering some special promotion.

It was free in Canada, Australia, the US, and the UK stores when I checked a few days ago. I believe it's just a case of giving away the first book free to get people into the series. It's not uncommon for older series with a large catalog.

Gotcha makes sense.

The irony is that I thought I'd try to get back into this reading group so I'd start to read actual books from the library in front of my child (leading by example trying to get her into reading). I normally read ebooks but figured that doesn't look much different to her than me checking facebook or watching youtube. But then my library doesn't have this book and the ebook is free sooo....... more ebook reading for me lol. Maybe next month

I live in Australia and the first 2 books in the series were free for kindle / ebook format when I ordered them yesterday.

I love this whole series. I love Honor so much as a character. Really excited to re-read it for about the 100th time.

Still into the first chapter and I’m getting a little Firefly vibe.

I am only about 16% in and so far I like it but little to much military for my liking. This being said I have to say if not for the book club I wouldn't have ever picked this book up at all, or learned that I actually like it a little.

(Not really a spoiler just an observation of the main character Honor) but for those who might not want to know anything before reading I figured I would hide it.
(view spoiler)[Anyone feel like they see Honor as a cross between the soldier on Wreck it Ralph and Samus off Metroid? I'm only a couple chapters in and this is what I see when I read the details about her lol tell me I'm not wrong? (hide spoiler)]

It's the middle of the month but may I still join this?

Join in anytime.

Finished my re-read, still liked it. :)

Things I really appreciate about this book - it's not just "here's a single solitary example of a woman as a captain, how unusual!" there are both women and men throughout all levels and stations of this military system, in both combat and support roles. Because there are many, no one character feels like they're carrying all of woman- or man- hood on their shoulders, even if we see very little of some of them. Likewise, the behaviors and mindsets they have here are shown as *military* vs. *civilian* behaviors, not *masculine* vs. *feminine* behaviors.

Also, this came from the US, in the 90's, while we had the Tailhook scandal, and people getting rabid about women trying to qualify for military academies, and a lot of uproar over gay men in the military, etc, etc. I didn't notice any mention of LGBT+ characters, although a subtle mention could have slipped past me. Being 30 years down the line now, I'd like to be expecting the same open acceptance there that we see here on the m/f level, but I haven't read far enough on to see if any of that ever changes over the series.

Honor is very qualified, and talented at what she does, but she has weak points that are believable and reasonable. (view spoiler)[ She is a little too proud to not use the one-shot tactic that lands her in trouble in the first place. She can intuit when she's on the right path with a mathematical problem, but she can't do the steps to check if she's right. She and her first officer have trouble relating, and they both feel at fault for it. When she doesn't know something or needs help managing something, she pulls in her team or outside resources and everyone relies on everyone else's strengths together, like a believable spaceship crew should. And they don't celebrate it as if it's the first discovery of teamwork in the history of ever! (hide spoiler)]

That said, there are times, especially in action scenes, where there's a lot of viewpoint changes very fast, and in the e-book version, they aren't as well formatted as we've all come to expect. I think they should really think about going back and touching up the spacing in a few areas, but that might be unrealistic of me. :)

And it is a style where character development is saved mostly for Honor, maybe one or two others per book, so it's not what to read when you're looking for deep dives into everyone's motivations and feelings. It's for when you want space fights that feel a little like a chess match, a side of political plotting, and the comfort of knowing who's going to win, no matter what.

I absolutely love Honor. This book while long just speeds by. I adored it!