A Beautiful Friendship (novel)
Hardcover cover
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| Author | David Weber |
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| Cover artist | Daniel Dos Santos |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Honor Harrington series |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Published | 2011 (Baen Books) |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 361 |
| ISBN | |
| LC Class | Pz7.W38747Be |
| Followed by | Fire Season |
A Beautiful Friendship is a 2011 young adult science fiction novel by American author David Weber. Set in the fictional Honorverse, the book serves as a prequel to the main Honor Harrington series, which takes place hundreds of years later in the fictional timeline.
It features Stephanie Harrington, an ancestor of the main character Honor Harrington who has been mentioned a number of times. The book is in fact based on a short story of the same name first published in 1998 as part of the anthology More Than Honor.
In the early 37th century, the Harrington family moves from the planet Meyerdahl to the newly founded Star Kingdom of Manticore. Their eleven-year-old daughter, Stephanie, is unhappy with this change as their new home, the planet Sphinx, seems to have little to offer, especially with seasons lasting much longer than the Earth's. However, she changes her mind when the hunt for an unknown force that keeps stealing celery from the colonists' greenhouses leads her to an encounter with a new sentient species: a treecat, a six-limbed arboreal mammal going (unknown to Stephanie) by the name of Climbs Quickly. The two beings instantly share a physic connection that future generations will come to call "bonding." This empathic/telepathic linking is involuntary and nearly instantaneous; like love at first sight. Climbs Quickly runs away back to his clan in the forest, which are revealed to be sentient beings that communicate through telepathy. Despite their sentience, they are still at the civilized level of hunter-gatherers, with no advanced machinery and only the early beginnings of agriculture. They are wary of revealing themselves to humans, which they realize are much more technologically advanced, but cannot be understood due to their lack of telepathic ability. Stephanie goes hang gliding several days later, unknown to her parents, as her way of scouting out the vast forest where she suspects Climbs Quickly lives. They sense each other, and Climbs Quickly realizes that she is tracking him through their bond. He runs away from his clan's home in an attempt to prevent its discovery by humans. Stephanie crash-lands, caught by a storm, and Climbs Quickly realizes their bond compels him to protect her. They are approached by a hunting hexapuma, a six legged puma native to the planet. Climbs Quickly calls for aid from his clan, which could overpower the hexapuma through sheer numbers, but he realizes that they will arrive too late. He fights the hexapuma and is stunned, and Stephanie rises to defend him despite her injuries. She buys enough time for the clan to arrive, and the clan literally rips the hexapuma to pieces. Her father arrives soon after, having tracked her wristband, and he takes both her and Climbs Quickly to heal and recover at their estate.
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