Talk:David Weber

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Contents

[edit] Passwords

Please stop reverting the text to include the password for all the websites. Not all are intended for general public use.

[edit] Talent

Could criticisms of the quality of his work be included here? The Honor Harrington series really suck pretty hard, they're total Mary Sue fests. RossTaben 12:32AM PST 12.29.05

Well, criticism of an author can be found on the pages of Isaac Asimov, so I would say it's not without precedent. FrozenPurpleCube 04:21, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Agreed he is poor at characterization and the writing style is flat, but the Honor books are also inventive and complex. I would argue that like Clancy's books, people are looking for action and military detail, and the rest is filler. Any criticism of talent should reflect the positive as well. - the guy on the couch 19:38, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

He's very 2-dimensional... North/South/East/West on a galactic scale makes little since, since he doesn't have a towards/away from galactic center... and the thickness of the galactic disk isn't much compared to its circumference or radius. North/South is a small dimension, so his works all appear to be set in an annulus/cylinder...


Weber mentioned a couple times that N/S/E/W are almost totally artificial terms for human orientation to political "geography" on 2D star maps. I vaguely recall he might have said something about the hyperwave currents (apparently based on dark matter) being strongest in one direction but he didn't make much of its in later books when jump point battles dominate.
Actually mathematically his handling of space is done very well. Any time you introduce worm-holes or other restricted ways to greatly shorten travel time along certain vectors or streams -- the 3D aspect of space "dissolves" into a problem better manipulated and described by 2D graph theory. The 3D aspect for travel rules only when you must cut across space in a mundane manner at all times without any shortcuts.
Also Weber's Honor universe doesn't span significant distances closer or away from the galactic center even with jump points. Less than a thousand light years across all human space (not necessarily straight inward) versus 10000 light years radius. Plus Weber continuously points out that travel time not the path of light is what rules.
And of course without surface gravity, interplanetary combat tends to resolve the same way. When you have only 2-3 maneuvers groups then approaches will appear to be within a line (2 points) or plane (3 points) because that is where everything important to approach happens. Even 4 groups may reduce to a plane given standoff weapons - especially since many other approaches are undesirable since 1 force is "left out of play".
For 3D combat to come into play you really need dogfighting conditions where ships can move and turn faster than weapons can aim and fire again.
 69.23.124.142 (talk) 10:48, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

i am a fan of his i admit but personaly i belive he is a very good author.HonorHarrington 02:05, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Professional and noteworthy criticisms (i.e., something that can be sourced and referenced, such as from a newspaper or trade journal) could be included in the article. However, the article is not a blog space for people to post their personal criticisms. croll 23:42, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I really enjoy his works (namely the Starfire series...talk about Epic), though his characters are all fairly cookie cutter. Personally I don't mind this at all as I'm not actually looking for deep introspective characters. Furthermore, a much more valid critique (IMO) is the way his characters speak -i.e. very long run on sentences. If you ever try to read out loud some of their passages, you will find yourself out of breath. Then again, I really don't care. I enjoy his books just the way they are. Just saying, I wouldn't expect them to be added to an English classes reading list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.233.41.11 (talk) 02:52, 5 December 2007 (UTC)


Most of this has nothing to do with talent. It has to do with type/class of story the author writes versus what the reader wants.
For instance, stories can center on events (at extreme stuff like narrative history or naval battle analysis) or on specific persons (at the extreme stuff like soap opera/romance material). Weber tends to tell the overall story about events -- and weave in a fair amount of material about a few special characters here and there. Because Weber names a huge cast of people for the events, there is little space to develop any but the most important.
Or SciFi readers looking for rapturous psychological-theological thrillers (e.g. Solar) putting down military SciFi just because it is the wrong material for them. The problem is the reader is an idiot who isn't too observant about the book summary or first 20 pages. True you can get bad poop about a book from reviewers and places like Amazon.com trying to hawk a book to another audience -- but that is not the author's fault or lack of talent.
On the other hand Weber is one of those writers who sometimes commit to books when they are out of ideas or enthusiasm. There have been some books where Weber needed to have a co-author shore him up from mechanically trudging through the outline (a mere 6.5 rather than 9 of 10 score for readability and excitement).

10:25, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Starfire

I ran across some information that David Weber worked on the Starfire game (Taskforce games,) but I could not confirm this. This was a pretty cool game in its day, if anyone could confirm that he worked on it (although it sounds like his association was not always to his liking,) it would be nice to see this mentioned on the page.

MichaelJHuman 03:07, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

  • This is true, and mentioned in several of his books. Especially the Steve White co-written novels. FrankB 22:19, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Themes

I removed the bit about him hating liberals, greens, religion, and oh, I dunno, puppies. Aside from the fact that the argument had flawed logic, his Honorverse books portray conservatives as selfish, corrupt, and incompetent. Rather than add that to the bit about the liberals I just removed all of it. If anyone disagrees, at least add the conservatives bit so we don't have to get partisan. - the guy on the couch 19:38, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Except it is common to Heir to Empire and Starfire series as well. My intent was to point out a very pro-military attitude, in that politicians of all sorts (I could have made that clearer) are raked over the coals over the slightest mistake, and are never given a chance to explain objectively sensible actions - while military commanders are repeatedly allowed to get away with the most amazingly stupid things. It's not so much that walking slowly towards to machine guns (in world war one) is the best, or least bad solution, but the only solution - and 'tank' is a four letter word. The only exception to this seems to be the Honourverse, where Buships acts this way instead of Captain Harrington. Is there a reasonable partisan way of saying this? ANTIcarrot 18:19, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Yeah, the trash he wrote with Steve White set in the starfire universe is the best example. His 'liberal' politicians are raving maniacs that serve as straw-opponents for his 'brave, noble, and downtrodden' military characters to crush. Oh, and they're also evil racists and drug addicts, because there's no such thing as going overboard...
Someone should definitly add a moderate version of that section back in. Therealhazel 04:39, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Someone doesn't pay much attention to all the scandals about real legislators across the world. Racist comments, cocaine, affairs with under-aged assistants, etc. And that is the better respected Democratic governments. Raving mad? If there is a fad there is a group that will elect them. But without saying anything bad about individual citizens -- you got to look at Italy's governmental problems to know that it is not always just a few stray problems in a legislature. Italy's had some bad years, even decades.69.23.124.142 (talk) 10:00, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that Weber is a Centrist given the complete form of his "good" governments in both the Heir to the Empire and the Harrington Books. In Heir this took the form of a very strong Executive Branch with a very complicated legislature that could be overruled during times of emergency but could also call for (successfully) for the ruling emperor to step down. In the Honor Harrington books the good government is clearly supposed to represent what he thinks 19th century Britain would look like if it took place on another planet. As such the form of the Government is strictly limited by his apparent desire to recreate the Horatio Hornblower environment. His political views do seem to show through in setting up the Liberals (libertarian position on the spectrum), Progressives (Left leaning redistributionists) and Conservatives (Reactionary) as the bad guys while Painting the Centrists and the Crown Loyalists as the good party. To claim that he favored either the Right or the Left as used in discussion of American Politics would be patently absurd. I imagine that there are elements of both sides that he likes and ones he thinks are absurd. Using the Empire of Man or Starfire series to judge his feelings would be difficult as they will both be heavily influenced by the other authors involved. Nalanthi 5 Oct 2006

Robert Heinlein said that there was a term that was descriptive of people who tried to determine the political position of fiction writers from the statements of their characters. He said that the correct term was "idiot." David is a very complex man and his political position can not be simply characterized. Rick Boatright 04:54, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

  • I certainly agree that it's unreliable (at best!) to assume any given character is the author's mouthpiece. On that note, does anyone know an interview source for the claim that George Lucas favors benevolent dictatorship, or has someone mistaken him for Anakin Skywalker? I realize the section is already marked for lack of sources, but that particular unsourced claim-in-passing seems oddly out of place in a passage emphasizing that people shouldn't make assumptions about Weber's politics. Persephone Kore 22:00, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
The source for Lucas was an interview in the NY Times back in (I think, don't quote me on this) 1997. He denigrated the value of democracy and favored an enlightened despot. He probably also referenced Plato as well, but it's been quite a while since I read it, so... --Gwern (contribs) 00:07 17 July 2007 (GMT)

While the majority of "liberal" characters in the books do tend to be portrayed in a negative light, it would be entirely speculative to say that those characterizations represent Weber's personal political views. Unless you can find a reliable source citing Weber's personal, "real world" opinions, it's entirely speculative and I can't see how it belongs in the article. croll 23:49, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

What? No one pointed out that Weber was creating the government the American Revolutionaries really wanted until George W. wimped out -- a constitutional Monarchy. British? Well a little. But it has a lot more Commonwealth features -- hierarchy of allies many of which are constitutional monarchies - even internally. Its also a very Catholic view as well. Divine rulership and all that. Heroes of breeding/training self-sacrifice and leadership. So basically it is either a fantasy element or that Weber believes that a certain moral elite will always rise to take charge in a crisis...against a general tide of incompetence rather than actual wide-spread evil. Optimistic pessimist is the term I think.
And yes real military tend to think poorly of political concerns in war which delay victory or intentionally trade lives for profit. The military tends to think such things should come after victory, i.e. their job is done. Just visit a few military forums if you don't believe.

69.23.124.142 (talk) 09:51, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reduce external linking

Entries like:

should be transformeded into

No need to link to blurb (or full text twice) if we have an article on the books, and many Weber's books have their own articles.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 19:53, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I've got most of them fixed. --maru (talk) contribs 23:53, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
I'd argue that having lots of links to the same (home) page is over-kill. That a single link to www.baen.com, for example, would be enough. - brenneman 11:17, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Sure, redundant links to the same place is bad. But they aren't linking to the same place - that's the point. If you want to go through and move the external link to the respective article (assuming it exists) and its external link section, feel free. --Gwern (contribs) 14:52 29 January 2007 (GMT)
They are linking to the same place, just different pages within the domain. It's massive overlinking. - brenneman 23:57, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Again, it isn't massive overlinking. Each link is relevant: the publisher's page devoted to that book is surely relevant, and there's no way linking to a page providing the book itself is not relevant. As I said, if you want to move the links to the articles, that's fine, but expurgating all the links from Wikipedia is not in the best interests of the articles! --Gwern (contribs) 01:15 30 January 2007 (GMT)

[edit] Character names

Worth mentioning, I suppose, is that aside from using (and re-using) the names of historical figures for their counterparts in his stories, Weber is also very prone to immortalize his fans by using their names or handles in the books. The fan communities ad Baen's Bar and alt.books.david-weber usually pore over each book to see who got the nod this time around. Also, some of the names used from history have been turned into rather groanworthy puns - for example, the leader of the Havenites through the second quarter of the series is called Robert Stanton Pierre, often shortened Rob S. Pierre... 213.114.138.6 00:24, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

The character "Dr. Jordin Kare" is based on a real person whom I've met. I think he won a contest or auction or something for which the prize was becoming a character in one of Weber's books. Kare first appears in War of Honor". ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:03, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Ah yes, Tuckerization. Jordin Kare is noted for wearing a t-shirt which says "Actually, I am a rocket scientist!". -- Arwel (talk) 19:03, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, he's a fun guy. :-) ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:57, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Photo added

I've added a photo of Weber and his wife at a recent convention. He's a really nice guy, and his wife is very nice, too. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 00:18, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for adding the photo. On the other hand, should this not be cropped to show him only - no disrespect to his wife intended? Ingolfson 09:03, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Both he and his wife were fine with her being in the photo. I don't think it's a problem having both of them in there. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:16, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Non-consenual move

I really doubt that the David Weber (clarinetist) is better known than the writer. At this point, with only two articles for "David Weber", I see no problem with the writer being the primary topic. All that is needed is a DAB header (hatnote) at the top of the page for David Weber (clarinetist). The original mover is welcome to propose a move properly if they still feel the primary topic should be the DAB page. Thanks. - BillCJ (talk) 00:46, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

The move has been corrected, and hopefully all the redirects are corrected as well. I think I got everything. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:51, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] It's gone!?

I don't know how someone's managed this but it seems David Weber's page has disappeared into the ether with no way of tracking back the old copy in the history! It's now a loop of redirects. For now I've pasted across a copy lifted from upto11.net which is a copy of the article as it used to be but obviously the links are going to suffer until someone with enough time could go through it. Apologies if this is a noobie mistake that could be rectified more simply. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.243.220.42 (talk) 01:06, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

It's back, no worries. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:51, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) Looks like it's been restored to the original version. "Thank You!" to the adimns who helped get this right. Hopefully we can go though the correct move-discussion process now, since this is obviously not a non-controveresial move now. - BillCJ (talk) 01:53, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Doing a quick search of Wikpedia, there are only two David Weber articles I can find, and the science fiction writer is by far the most well known one. With as many excellent selling books as he's had, it's not surprising (not sure if he's ever made the NYT Best Seller list). ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 02:31, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Aw man, I wasted a fair bit of time trying to re-build it from a google cache :P Cheers though! - 128.243.220.42 (talk) 02:51, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, since there’s no controversy to be had, the move-discussion process should go smoother. --DavidD4scnrt (talk) 03:57, 11 April 2008 (UTC)