Trivia / Honor Harrington

• Accidentally-Correct Writing: In Flag in Exile, Grayson swordsmanship is explained to be largely inspired by samurai movies, except the Graysons, not knowing any better, sharpened the upper edge of the katana as well, which Honor uses to lethal effect in her duel with Steadholder Burdette. While traditional Japanese swords are single-edged, there are known examples of early swords especially where the front third of the spine was also sharpened.
• Ascended Fan Nickname: The names "podnought" and "SD(P)" for missile pod-laying superdreadnoughts were originally Fan Nicknames used on David Weber's web forum. They got made official.
• Science Marches On: Impeller signatures can be detected FTL. Since a widely reported experiment in 2002 supported the idea that gravitational waves travel at light speed, War of Honor explains that this works thanks to an echo off of hyperspace and not via direct detection. And then the direct detection of the gravity waves in late 2015, which without doubt proved their compliance to the lightspeed limit, definitely moved the matter into the realm of fiction, requiring a retcon of the FTL tech from direct detection into the gravitational waves giving off the "echo" along the edge of hyperspace, which does propagate FTL.
• Shout-Out:
  • Dr. Janet Frazier in At All Costs is an obvious nod to Dr. Janet Fraiser of Stargate SG-1. Weber confirms this in an interview and explains that he was upset when the character was killed off in the show and decided to bring her back.
  • Some of the leaders of the Mesan Alignment have last names that match those of well-known movie directors: Anton Polanski, Joan Kubrick, Robert Tarantino, and Roman Hitchcock.
  • The revolutionary leader of the People's Republic of Haven is Rob S. Pierre - and that is far from the only referential link between the Peeps and The French Revolution. In particular, he establishes a Committee of Public Safety as a "temporary" government after his coup.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The Honorverse was originally going to be timeskipped several decades, following the death of its namesake character during the climax of At All Costs. Her children would have continued the action. The Eric Flint collaboration Crown of Slaves nixed this plan; its espionage plot ended up fast-forwarding the conflict by putting pressure on the Mesans to enact their plan early. As a happy side effect, Honor was spared, cutting off what would probably have been the greatest fan rebellion in modern Sci-Fi literature.^note As Weber himself has said half-jokingly, "I would have had to move to Montana and raise rabbits under an assumed name."
  • David Weber announced on 27-Sept-2011 that a movie deal had been closed, starting with an adaptation of The Honor of the Queen. At HonorCon 2014, it was announced that the production company involved, Evergreen, was considering doing an episodic format instead, comparing it to Game of Thrones, to general acceptance from the crowd. Evergreen also announced a probable adventure game taking place alongside the events of OBS. However, all of that became moot when Evergreen Films collapsed in mid-2015.
• Word of Gay: Word of Weber is that Admiral Mark Sarnow is gay (and happily married), though the mention of it never makes its way onscreen.
• Write Who You Know: In A Beautiful Friendship, the Harringtons have a meeting at a restaurant called "The Red Letter", owned by a person by the name of Eric Flint. The fictional Flint is said to hail from the world of New Chicago, described as "a dumping ground for radical anarchists, socialists, and - especially - every member of the Levelers’ Association the government could round up after Old Earth’s Final War". The Real Life Flint, an occasional co-author with Weber in this and the 1632 series, is a self-admitted socialist, and currently lives near Chicago. Also qualifies as a Shout-Out.

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