David Weber made his debut with Insurrection
(1990), the first volume of a trilogy written with
Steve WHITE, followed promptly by Crusade
(1992) and, after a gap, In Death Ground (1997).
The trilogy is typical military science fiction involving an interstellar war, a subgenre in which
Weber quickly would specialize and which makes
up the vast majority of his output. Mutineers’
Moon (1991), the first adventure of Colin McIntyre, has an astronaut discovering an oversized,
sentient military spaceship on the Moon and
bonding with it. With its aid, McIntyre successfully defends Earth against alien aggressors in that
novel and the sequel, The Armageddon Inheritance
(1993). The series was extended into galactic
space in Heirs of Empire (1996), somewhat implausibly promoting a human to the highest post in a
multispecies civilization.
On Basilisk Station (1993) introduced Weber’s
most popular character, Honor Harrington, a military officer who annoys her superior and gets
posted to a backwater star system, where she is
able to use limited resources to foil an interplanetary plot and save the day. She becomes an envoy
to a male chauvinist world in The Honor of the
Queen (1993), foils a military attack in The Short
Victorious War (1994), but runs afoul of politics
among her own people in Field of Dishonor (1994).
Unfairly treated, she is forced to immigrate to another world in Flag in Exile (1995), battles space pirates and backstabbers in Honor Among Enemies
(1996), and is condemned and sent to a prison
planet in In Enemy Hands (1997). She organizes
her fellow prisoners and effects an escape in Echoes
of Honor (1998), returns home to find that the political intrigues are just as vicious as ever in Ashes
of Honor (2000), and retires and then returns to
active duty during a new war in War of Honor
(2002). Weber has also edited several anthologies
of stories by other writers set in the same universe.
Crown of Slaves (2003) with Eric Flint also shares
that common backdrop.
Weber’s nonseries novels have also tended to
be military adventures. Path of the Fury (1992) follows the career of a woman angered by pirate attacks who turns pirate herself in order to track
down those responsible for raiding her home world,
somewhat echoing the Star Kings series by Jack
VANCE. Earth gets caught in the middle of an interstellar war in The Apocalypse Troll (1999). The
Excalibur Alternative (2002) is a variation of The
HIGH CRUSADE (1960) by Poul ANDERSON, with
kidnapped humans getting the better of their alien
captors. Although most of his work tends to follow
predictable paths, Weber has a flair for exciting
plots and nefarious intrigues.