Travis Uriah Long craved order, something his neglectful mother made no effort to provide. When he comes of age, it seems like the most logical thing in the world to join the Royal Manticoran Navy, the military is built on the concepts of structure and order. So without even a farewell to his mother, Long becomes the newest volunteer in the RMN.

For Travis Uriah Long, order is a mixed blessing. Long desires order and he quickly becomes a very strict rules and procedures navy man, only to discover that not everyone is as dedicated to following the rules as he is, nor is everyone appreciative of a team member who knows the rules inside and out and expects them to be fully honored.

Adding to Long’s difficulties is the fact that he has enlisted in a time when various political factions are viewing the Royal Manticoran Navy as increasingly obsolete and are working behind the scenes to shift the focus of the Star Kingdom of Manticore’s budget to areas domestic, rather than foreign.

David Weber, creator and author of the best-selling Honor Harrington series, teams up with award-winning author Timothy Zahn to explore a time period in the Honorverse several hundred years earlier than time time in which Honor lives. In so doing they create a great jumping-on point for new readers while giving fans of Honor Harrington a new set of characters to root for.

A Call to Duty is an accessible, engaging military science fiction novel with interesting characters, political intrigue, and the kind of life-in-space adventure that makes fans of science fiction long for a future in which mankind ventures out among the stars.

9/10 stars

It has only been in the last few years that I discovered for myself just how entertaining the Honor Harrington books are, when I read the first in the series, On Basilisk Station. In reading the novel I discovered a fully-formed science fictional future in which Weber envisions a political and military structure in which women and men advance and hold positions of authority without having to lace the story with heavy-handed reflections on the social climate of the reality in which we live. That is not to say that this future is free of prejudice or sexism, human beings are, after all, still human.

In this first novel in the Manticore Ascendent series, Weber and Zahn bring us a young male character as a primary protagonist, and an interesting one at that, while also exploring a greater cast of characters and situations. There is, to be sure, a degree of the “young man with a destiny” aspect to the novel, and yet the authors turn that on its head to some degree. Travis Long is not a child with latent super powers, nor is his path to greatness easy…or even guaranteed. Travis Long can actually be quite annoying, as anyone who knows a strict and unwavering by-the-book person can be. He also has a hard time adapting to a world in which rules form a foundation but are not the only path to success. It is also apparent that Weber and Zahn realize they have a series on their hands and are not in a big hurry to wrap everything up with a neat little bow, especially in regards to the place that Travis Uriah Long will hold in this universe.

That is not to say that A Call to Duty leaves the reader with a lot of unsatisfying loose ends. There is a lot of story packed into the novel’s 382 pages and the authors succeed in giving the reader a defined beginning, middle and end while providing larger threads of story that will stretch on into subsequent novels. I picked up this just-released novel on a whim while at Barnes and Noble Friday and spent any free time I could find this weekend wrapped in its pages. Like On Basilisk Station, I found myself reaching a point where I truly could not imagine putting the book down, turning my Sunday night into a suspense-filled, page turning affair that ended just past the witching hour.

For those who like political gamesmanship, Weber’s novels are filled with the kind of intrigue that excites. This is especially true when the reader is given information that is happening so far behind the scenes for the main protagonists that they have no idea what is truly going on. A Call to Duty is set in a time when the Star Kingdom of Manticore is recovering from a devastating plague and the Royal Manticoran Navy is in decline. This is a time period in which there is no apparent enemy that justifies the need for enormous warships and the Navy’s future may be decided by members of Parliament whose agendas are not yet clear.

There is also plenty of action and suspense in A Call to Duty as well as an examination of what life might be like in a military that operates in ships that fly through space. I couldn’t help but think of the juvenile novels of Robert A. Heinlein while reading this, as the authors’ handling of scientific and engineering details engaged my interest the way that Heinlein has in the past.

When the weather turns cold, my reading desires turn towards books that are science fictional in nature, and over the last handful of years that desire has been met with a great deal of military science fiction. I have taken a great liking to it, which is why it was not surprising that a quick glance at A Call to Duty led to my purchasing the book and beginning it as soon as I arrived home. Travis Uriah Long is not a perfect character as he presents readers with the kind of angst and frustration that we no doubt all remember from our own teen and early adult years. He is, however, an authentic character that you cannot help rooting for, and Weber and Zahn surround him with many other engaging characters while also providing the reader with a large amount of story in the greater universe that is not focused on Travis Long. In so doing they create a novel that is both intimate and sweeping in its focus, leaving the reader both satisfied at the end and longing for more.

I won’t be surprised if this experience inspires me to return to Honor Harrington’s timeline, but in the meantime I want to cast my voice out over the interwebs to beg David Weber and Timothy Zahn to please hurry up and give us book two of Manticore Ascendent. I need to know what will happen next.