I have had several people ask me about the books that Dave Yates and I discussed on LLL ep. 69, so I thought I would list the books that were mentioned and a brief description of them.

First, the Honor Harrington series. David Weber wrote a set of stories in the style of Horatio Hornblower, by C. S. Forester, which is the story of a British naval officer during the Napoleonic war. Weber takes this concept into space, and creates Captain Honor Harrington. a starship captain in Her Majesty’s navy of the star system of Manticore. Weber does a great job of setting up his universe and developing his characters. The following books comprise the series:

  • On Basilisk Station
  • The Honor of the Queen
  • The Short Victorious War
  • Field of Dishonor
  • Flag in Exile
  • Honor Among Enemies
  • In Enemy Hands
  • Echoes of Honor
  • Ashes of Victory
  • War Of Honor

There are also several anthologies, edited by David Weber.

  • More than Honor
  • Worlds of Honor
  • Changer of Worlds
  • The Service of the Sword

Finally, there are a couple of books from the Honorverse, which happened in parallel with the original books:

  • Crown of Slaves
  • Shadows of Saganami

The second series I mentioned was the Legacy of the Alldenata series. Quoting wikipedia, “The central premise is that in 2001, humanity receives greetings from a highly advanced, peaceable Galactic Federation. However, all is not well, for a species of aggressive aliens known as the Posleen are attacking the Galactics. Since the Galactics are almost entirely unable to fight, they are appealing to the proven military abilities of humanity for aid. However, things are rarely as simple as they seem, and humanity soon discovers that the Galactics are no friends at all. There are plots within plots, some going back to the dawn of humanity and beyond: plots that endanger the very survival of humanity.”

  • A Hymn Before Battle
  • Gust Front
  • When the Devil Dances
  • Hell’s Faire
  • The Hero
  • Cally’s War
  • Sister Time
  • Watch on the Rhine

Finally, I mentioned the Hammer’s Slammers series, by David Drake. It is a series of stories about a mercenary regiment commanded by Col. Alois Hammer. Like David Weber, many of Drake’s stories mold either historical events or other story concepts into his universe. The original series consists of:

  • Hammer’s Slammers
  • At Any Price
  • Counting the Cost
  • Rolling Hot
  • The Warrior
  • The Sharp End
  • Paying the Piper

Many of these books are not available as e-books.

Baen Books has a free library, in which the first few books of a series can be downloaded in a number of formats. However, Jim Baen also felt that giving away books in these formats would generate sales. He started releasing books on CD with hardback editions of new releases. These CDs were released as open source, so people have posted them online. One site is at the Fifth Imperium. Enjoy!