About whether or not to continue the series, this is a tough question. Let me address your complaints here.
About the Havenites, I can see why the lack of Black-and-White Morality in a story like this may be off-putting. And this trend will definitely continue. There will be more sympathetic Havenites, unsympathetic Manticorans, Honor will continue to make mistakes and make morally murky decisions. The are no instances of ridiculous Idiot Ball like here, but she will continue being flawed. So yeah, the story is going to be far from black and white.
As for the conflict between her and Grayson\'s sexism, don\'t worry, this will be central to the plot of book 5.
As for stacking the decks, it\'s going to be something of a mixed bag. There will be situations where she\'s at a disadvantage and there will be situations where she has the advantage. In the latter situations, the focus will be on the personal cost of her victories and how they affect the characters, rather than merely the tension of the battle.
Also, from the next book onward, there\'s going to be a bigger scope. She\'ll still be the protag, but there will be a lot going on in areas that are important to the bigger picture of the series, but have little relation to Honor directly. If you want to know if it\'s for you, I suggest at least giving the next book a try. Then you can tell how well this works for you.
That\'s all i have for now, from there, you decide.
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"The Honor of the Queen:" A Disappointing Hero
This review is directed at the second book of the series, The Honor of the Queen. It was a disappointment. I enjoyed the first book, Basilisk Station — as another reviewer notes, it's not high literature, but it's fun. In Basilisk, Honor Harrington was a strong, proactive leader, always ready to spring into action with a clever plan. In this sequel, however, she is a thoroughly unconvincing hero who makes silly, costly mistakes and then spends ages moping about them while the audience is heavy-handedly invited to sympathise with her. Of course Harrington triumphs in the end, but it feels less like her winning, and more like her enemies losing — the villains of the book are carrying a planet-sized Idiot Ball.
Some of the villains are well-written and sympathetic — the Havenite officers, who carry the other villains, the backward (and truly evil) Masadans like the mother of all Loads. But the Havenites are a bit too sympathetic — by the end of the book the impression is that they are actually smarter and better than Harrington, and that they deserved to win. They are simply too weighed down by allies who practically hand the victory to Harrington — again and again.
In Basilisk, Harrington triumphed against the odds because she was smart and tough and competent. In this book, her Havenite enemies are the smart and competent ones, and Harrington triumphs only because the odds are stacked in her favour.
The other conflict in the book is between Harrington and her own allies, the extremely sexist Grayson culture. This could have been a very interesting aspect of the plot — but the author really wants us to like the Graysons. Thus, much of the friction happens behind the scenes, with the reader hearing about it second-hand. All the Grayson characters we actually get to know in any detail happen, of course, to be very open-minded, practically eager to realise their error of their ways and accept women as equals. All the really sexist Graysons are flat background characters we barely see. What could have been a very interesting conflict ends up being unconvincing.
In short, this book has unconvincing characters, an unconvincing plot, and a hero you don't want to root for. It made me unsure whether I want to continue with the series.