SusannaG - Confessions of a Crazy Cat Lady
Just another GR refugee. Other than that, I had a stroke in 2004, and read almost anything I can get my hands on, though I have a particular weakness for history, mystery, and historical fiction.
Currently reading
On Basilisk Station
On Basilisk Station is the first Honor Harrington novel (which is a very long-running series at this point, I believe), and is an example of that species of science fiction generally known as "space opera."
It's also clearly modeled on the Horatio Hornblower stories (the author's note thanks C.S. Forester, so I doubt I'm imaging things). Only instead of the tale of the rise of a plucky cabin boy during the Napoleonic wars, our heroine is a female starship captain from "the Star Kingdom of Manticore," not yet at war with another realm, "The People's Republic of Haven," who are clearly up to no good. Honor's gotten her ship's armament butchered by a theorist at the Royal Navy, and despite being a tactical genius, her failure to make the new system work in war games has resulted in her getting a punishment stationing in the Basilisk system. There she finds natives like praying mantises, drug addiction, a massive amount of smuggling, and possible espionage by Haven.
There is a slight tendency to infodump (possibly due to being a "first in series"). Honor reminds me of some romance heroines in that she doesn't think she's pretty, but everyone else seems to. (Not that there is any romance in this novel.)
On the whole I prefer Horatio Hornblower, but it was an easy read, it kept me reasonably entertained, and it was free. (As is the second volume, The Honor of the Queen, which I'm reading currently. Both were free for kindle in the US, found while I was roaming the free section at Amazon.)
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