Shout Out / Honor Harrington

• The planet Erewhon has the same name as a Samuel Butler novel.
  • Erewhon itself is a planet of shoutouts, being founded by hyper-capitalists/crime families. The nation's largest cities? Maytag, Sears, Suds Emporium, and Whirlpool Gulf.
    • This is stated to have been intentional in-universe. After all, after going straight the families needed some way to launder the money...
• Haven is also the name of a planet in the CoDominium universe with an oppressive secret police.
• The phrase "On the bounce" is used in the first novel.
• Grayson based much of their pre-technological society and warfare on Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai.
• Grayson's "classical" music is based on country and western, and Ashes of Victory features a couple of snatches of "Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Spacers".
• At one point in Honor Among Enemies, Honor enjoys a Horatio Hornblower novel, and the narration points out that she likes his initials.
  • In "A Short Victorious War", HMS Hotspur (named for Hornblower's ship in Hornblower and the Hotspur) is destroyed in combat with a Havenite cruiser squadron. The same book had a group of Havenite revolutionaries gathering in a tennis court, back when the series was thick with historical references.
• The PRH's Mars-class heavy cruisers are named after war gods; one of them is called Krashnark.
• Echoes of Honor mentions a "Heinlein Maneuver" where lunar rebels dropped rocks on Old Earth.
• In "A Whiff of Grapeshot," (the title itself a historical Shout-Out to Napoléon Bonaparte) to Citizen Admiral Esther McQueen finds herself trapped in a crashed vehicle dangling over a lethal drop. She calmly states "Here's my plan" then laughs and explains that it is a classical reference. For bonus points about the Napoléon Bonaparte reference, McQueen is the universe's Napoleon until Rachel Speer, acting under orders from Saint-Just in charge of the Committee of Public Safety, nukes her and the others involved, which throws the plot off in later books.
• The SS starship Tepes in In Enemy Hands is commanded by a Captain Vladovich.
• Late in the series, William Alexander is declared "Baron Grantville" — a reference to Wages of Sin sub-series author Eric Flint's 1632 series, portions of which Weber co-wrote.
• Honor's personal physician is the slim, short, auburn-haired Dr. Janet Frazier.
• In The Shadow of Saganami, while using a "borrowed" freighter to reconnoiter a potentially unfriendly star system, Commander FitzGerald identifies himself as "Captain Teach" and a subordinate as "Lieutenant Kidd".
• The children's book David and the Phoenix, prominently featured in At All Costs, is a real book and one of author David Weber's favorites.
• A recursive shout-out: Baen Designated Victim Joe Buckley is mentioned in Mission of Honor, as is a starship, Dahak, named for the website that the real-life Buckley runs — which was itself named for a starship from David Weber's own Empire from the Ashes series.
• In War of Honor, Zahn's husband Tim is said to be highly regarded by a Manticoran officer named Commodore Tharwan.
• Officers named Horn and Stackpole were serving aboard HMS Ajax at the Battle of Solon, referencing Michael Stackpole's X-Wing Series novels.
• The operation Oyster Bay.
• Kevin Usher is a real fountain of knowledge where classical cinema is concerned, and gave the same taste to his student, Victor Cachat. Their favorite movie is Casablanca.
• Crown of Slaves: "You are the walrus". Very carefully set up, no less.
• Darcy Lord's "Garrett Randall" psychic detective stories.
• Four members of the Mesan Alignment are named after famous directors: President Roman Hitchcock, Board Chairman Joan Kubrick, System President Anton Polanski, and Chancellor Robert Tarantino.
• In A Beautiful Friendship, the Harringtons have a meeting at a restaurant called "The Red Letter", owned by a person by the name of Eric Flint, with whom Weber has co-written books in this and the 1632 series. The restaurant and its owner/cook also have a minor presence in the sequel, Fire Season.
• A former politician and political commentator in the novella I Will Build My House of Steel is named Hillary Palin.
• Lois is the only habitable planet in the Clarke system. Doubles as a shout-out to Lois McMaster Bujold and Arthur C. Clarke. Triples as a pun on Lewis and Clark.
• In Flag In Exile, a Chief O'Brien is mentioned when Honor compares the religious diversity of a Manticoran superdreadnought to a Grayson one. For bonus points, he is described as a Shinto priest and the character who he is presumably a reference to has a Japanese wife.
• In Honor Among Enemies, Manticore System Command briefly considers the possibility of assigning the cruiser Amaterasu for escort duty. (It's not available soon enough, though, so another ship is sent instead.)
• Shannon Foraker's missile fire control system is called Moriarty. When the Grand Alliance happens, and Shannon and Sonja start working together, their new combined system is called Mycroft. As for why Shannon named the systems after characters from it, see quote ^note "Sir, why did Admiral Foraker call it 'Moriarty'? I've been trying to figure it out for weeks now."I wondered that, myself," Deutscher admitted. "So I asked Admiral Giscard the same question. He said one of Admiral Foraker's staffers had introduced her to some old, pre-space fiction. 'Detective stories,' he called them. Apparently this 'Moriarty' was some kind of mastermind character in one of them." He shrugged."Mastermind," the chief of staff repeated, then chuckled. "Well, I guess that does make sense, in a way, doesn't it?"

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