Science Fiction

true to form, they're probably something I'd never spot on my own.

Well... only halfway? Haha, I am not always quick to spot things either; and my biggest "issue" is more a personal-taste thing.

But I did sort of notice the complete and utter lack of gay people anywhere (except for the existence of Beowulf... whose only actual citizen we've met is almost completely straight, as we're informed several times). And how Honor ends up in a threesome where there's two women and one man, and the relationship between the women is 100% nonsexual. By the time Harkness got married -- with NO setup, to a woman from a group he hates -- it was beginning to feel like a detail thrown in just to avoid any implication of Harkness/Tremaine. :P Maybe that's just my own slash-fangirl goggles, though?

My biggest issue, really, was the eleventh book, wherein Honor accidentally gets pregnant (in a high-tech world, in a situation where we haven't even been told -- to my recollection -- what the usual contraceptive practice is before we're told that it failed. So she's pregnant, after she and Hamish spent an entire novel trying to undo rumours that they were involved (I think that was the 9th book?), which at the time was true. So having proved her innocence, she then sleeps with the man. And becomes pregnant.

And decides she's going to keep the baby. She's pretty much a double general at this point; there's a new war building and she's going off to lead it; her parents have already provided an heir for her Steading; the father is single-spouse-only married to another woman (who as far as we know was not consulted on any aspect of Hamish/Honor's relationshi before they slept together and created this complication)... and, as mentioned above, this will undo everything she spent a large novel's amount of time trying to prove. But her mother's home planet disapproves of abortion! And I suspect the author does, too, because really, there's no other explanation for this nonsense.

This is supposed to be a tactical genius. Someone please tell me where the tactical advantage is in outing your relationship after campaigning intensively to disprove it; ousting your heir with no warning to her or her parents; and producing a child when you have a decent chance of not surviving till it's decanted from the tube. Has Honor suffered a severe blow to the head that I somehow missed reading about?

...Ahem. *blushing* Yeah, so, that's really my main issue, and it's mostly just me raging at what feels to me like characterisation!fail, with a side of I Suspect I'm Being Served An Author Tract On Reproductive Choice.

That's pretty much it, aside from the skeevy hide-your-gays thing, and the more personal "Wait, she's in love with whom? When did that get any foreshadowing?" failure in setting up Honor's relationship with Hamish. (Seriously: her first lover was a guy her own age, sociable, kind, and on the pacifistic side. Now suddenly she's in love with someone twice her age, in her chain of command, married, and her former instructor, whose own brother thinks he's a tough nut to crack? With not a hint in the narrative until suddenly they're both pining? I have whiplash!)