[jbcohen]

Depends on whose list you are using to make your judgement, I am using David Weber's own list on his web site at davidweber.net/books. On that site look at the section labeled Honorverse and the series I am referring to is at the top of the list, thus I am referring to this as the honorverse series and Crown of Slaves is at the begining of the series next comes Shadow of Sagami. I typically preferr to use the author's own lists in order to follow the series through the whole of them. I have read probably 20% of Shadow of Sagami and its quite good, although Weber seems to be going off on a tangent at the point I left off. At that point I took a look at David Weber's lists and found that I had started the series with the second book in the series and not the first so I went back and got a copy of the first in the series.

Perhaps someone more familiar with the honorverse novels then I am can tell me if these books depend on each other or are they really independent of each other? Let me clarifiy what I mean by this, a book series that is dependent on one another is the Hornor Harringtion series, book two will assume that you have read book one and will referr to the events in that book. I have come across some series in my travels where the books are not dependent on one another and instead will not talk about the events in the other books. I believe the anthologies are like this.

I wish other publishers would follow Baen's model of giving away the first book in a series then charging for the rest. Doing this allows me to get a sense for the author's writting style and if I like their writting before I need to go ahead and pay the dollars. At a bare minimum I require at least a free page and typically amazon will give me one page free. I know that one should never expect anything for free however I think as a reader I can expect a free sample to see if I like the writting.

I will go back to John Ringo when I get done with David Weber, but I would like to read everything that he has written that I care to read before I push on with other authors. Fortunately for me baen is willing to give me for $0 the first in some series so that I can get my feet wet before charging me for the remainder. I know that's another example of a loss leader but I don't mind that if I can see what the publisher is doing in adavnce and I see that loud and clear in this case.

NetGalley looks like an excellent resource. While I am not a professional reader, this seems liek a great way to see what is forthcoming from different authors that do not typically post this sort of information on web sites like fantasticfiction. I might not request a sample there but its a way to get an idea of what is comming. So I would not be so hard on yourself for singing up.