Changer of Worlds : Worlds of Honor

This is a collection of short stories that fill in some of the gaps in the Honor Harrington series. You must have read the series or else you will be lost. The first book in the HH series starts with Honor as captain of her own ship. This story tells of Honors "snotty" cruise as a Midshipman. We can see the beginnings of her development into a great naval officer. Glad that they kept Allyson Johnson narrating the story of Midshipman Harrington. Johnson is the voice of Honor Harrington. The short story about the tree cats tells about when Harrington returns to Sphinx and Nimitz takes Samantha to meet his clan and encourage some of them to follow him and his kittens to Grayson. In the series it never explained how they got the other tree cats to come with them.
"From the Highlands" tells the early story of Anton Zilwicki and daughter Helen. In the series we saw the death of Anton's wife Captain Helen Zilwicki who is escorting a convoy of Manticor ships (one carries her husband and child) when the PEEP hit the convoy.
Helen (daughter) is kidnapped in this story (often referred to in the series) and the Countess or Tor, Anton, Jeremy X and Victor Cachat rescue her. We are introduced to Berry and Lars who was featured in another sub-series.
The last short story is about Admiral McQueen"s over throw of Oscar St Just's PEEP government.
All stories fill in information to the main series and also leave room for lots more stories.
All the narrators did a good job.

This is another anthology in David Weber's Honorverse. If you are unfamiliar with the Honorverse, this is not the place to start. "On Basilisk Station" is the book to start with. I will review the stories individually:

"MS. MIDSHIPWOMAN HARRINGTON" by David Weber
This tells the story of Honor Harrington's midshipman's cruise. This is a cruise that acts as the final exam for students at Manticore's naval academy. The editorial review calls this a short novel, and it is rather long. I liked the first part where Honor is adjusting to life on board the ship. Then there is a longish middle section that I found quite dull in which we hear over and over again how stupid her supervisor is. Weber keeps telling us that he is supported by his friends in the aristocracy, but I had trouble believing that any help short of God's could have gotten someone this stupid through a supposedly challenging naval academy and then years and years aboard ship. And having read all the novels, I know that he will eventually become an admiral. My inability to believe in all that, made this section of the story irritating to listen to. But then at the end, Weber comes through with some great action again, so the story isn't a complete loss. My score: 2.5 stars

"CHANGER OF WORLDS" by David Weber
If you have read the books, you know that Honor's treecat finds a mate. This tells the story of what happens when Honor takes them back to Sphinx where they go to introduce Nimitz's new mate to his clan. It wasn't a long story, but it was all talk. No action. If you love the Honorverse, you want to know the information that is conveyed in this story, but frankly it's not all that thrilling a read. My score: 3 stars

"FROM THE HIGHLANDS" by Eric Fllint
It is worth getting this anthology for this story alone. It is a long story. It involves Anton Zilwicki, whose wife was killed in protecting her convoy from Havenites. And it involves Victor Cachat, the Havenite spy. In this story, Zilwicki's daughter is kidnapped. Will he be able to get her back? After listening to this, if you want to hear about the future adventures of Cachat and the Zilwickis, you will want to get and read: "The Fanatic," a story in THE SERVICE OF THE SWORD: WORLDS OF HONOR #4. Next, get CROWN OF SLAVES and TORCH OF FREEDOM. My score: 5 stars

"NIGHTFALL" by David Weber
This tells the story of Esther McQueen's attempted coup. I don't particularly like the long passages in Weber's novels which take place among the people of Haven, so I have chosen not to listen to this story.