A Call to Duty cover art

A Call to Duty

Book I of Manticore Ascendant

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A Call to Duty

By: David Weber, Timothy Zahn
Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
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About this listen

Growing up, Travis Uriah Long yearned for order and discipline in his life...the two things his neglectful mother couldn’t or wouldn’t provide. So when Travis enlisted in the Royal Manticoran Navy, he thought he’d finally found the structure he’d always wanted so desperately.

But life in the RMN isn’t exactly what he expected. Boot camp is rough and frustrating; his first ship assignment lax and disorderly; and with the Star Kingdom of Manticore still recovering from a devastating plague, the Navy is possibly on the edge of budgetary extinction.

The Star Kingdom is a minor nation among the worlds of the Diaspora, its closest neighbors weeks or months away, with little in the way of resources. With only modest interstellar trade, no foreign contacts to speak of, a plague ravaged economy to rebuild, and no enemies looming at the hyper limit, there are factions in Parliament who want nothing more than to scrap the Navy and shift its resources and manpower elsewhere.

But those factions are mistaken. The universe is not a safe place.

Travis Long is about to find that out.

©2014 Words of Weber, Inc. & Timothy Zahn (P)2014 Audible Inc. Fantasy Fiction Hard Science Fiction Science Fiction Space Opera Royalty
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As a book it's place in the honorverse is as a contrast. Readers familiar with the previous series books will recognize attitudes and issues. But that navy with it's polish and sophistication is absent. A very much smaller organisation, fewer ships and people, less support and less confident.

This story offers a fresh view into an established universe. Using a seemingly ordinary, somewhat boring character as a fulcrum to explore political, social and personal issues. By simplifying the technology and geography the emphasis shifts to behaviour.

Overall I would recommend this book to any reader. Especially those already invested in the Honorverse.

Counterpoint to the "modern" navy.

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