How Firm a Foundation

Safehold #5

by David Weber

David Weber's How Firm a Foundation is the latest novel in the New York Times-bestselling Safehold series begun with Off Armageddon Reef, By Schism Rent Asunder, By Heresies Distressed, and A Mighty Fortress. The Charisian Empire, born in war, has always known it must fight for its very survival. What most of its subjects don't know even now, however, is how much more it's fighting for. Emperor Cayleb, Empress Sharleyan, Merlin Athrawes, and their innermost circle of most trusted advisers do know. And because they do, they know the penalty if they lose will be far worse than their own deaths and the destruction of all they know and love.For five years, Charis has survived all the Church of God Awaiting and the corrupt men who control it have thrown at the island empire. The price has been high and paid in blood. Despite its chain of hard-fought naval victories, Charis is still on the defensive. It can hold its own at sea, but if it is to survive, it must defeat the Church upon its own ground. Yet how does it invade the mainland and take the war to a foe whose population outnumbers its own fifteen to one? How does it prevent that massive opponent from rebuilding its fleets and attacking yet again?Charis has no answer to those questions, but needs to find one...quickly. The Inquisition's brutal torture and hideous executions are claiming more and more innocent lives. Its agents are fomenting rebellion against the only mainland realms sympathetic to Charis. Religious terrorists have been dispatched to wreak havoc against the Empire's subjects. Assassins stalk the Emperor and Empress, their allies and advisers, and an innocent young boy, not yet eleven years old, whose father has already been murdered. And Merlin Athrawes, the cybernetic avatar of a young woman a thousand years dead, has finally learned what sleeps beneath the far-off Temple in the Church of God Awaiting's city of Zion.The men and women fighting for human freedom and tolerance have built a foundation for their struggle in the Empire of Charis with their own blood, but will that foundation be firm enough to survive?Safehold Series1. Off Armageddon Reef 2. By Schism Rent Asunder 3. By Heresies Distressed 4. A Mighty Fortress 5. How Firm A Foundation 6. Midst Toil and Tribulation 7. Like A Mighty Army 8. Hell's Foundations Quiver 9. At the Sign of TriumphAt the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Military Fiction, Audiobook, Space Opera, Science Fiction Fantasy

608 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 13, 2011

About the author

David Mark Weber is an American science fiction and fantasy author. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1952.

Many of his stories have military, particularly naval, themes, and fit into the military science fiction genre. He frequently places female leading characters in what have been traditionally male roles.

One of his most popular and enduring characters is Honor Harrington whose alliterated name is an homage to C.S. Forester's character Horatio Hornblower and her last name from a fleet doctor in Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander . Her story, together with the "Honorverse" she inhabits, has been developed through 16 novels and six shared-universe anthologies, as of spring 2013 (other works are in production). In 2008, he donated his archive to the department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University.

Many of his books are available online, either in their entirety as part of the Baen Free Library or, in the case of more recent books, in the form of sample chapters (typically the first 25-33% of the work).

http://us.macmillan.com/author/davidw...

Reviews

[Jeffrey · Rating 2 out of 5]

David Weber's latest Safehold novel, titularly science fiction, has now swept straight into the alternative history segment of the field. True its an alternative history not shaped by events on Earth, but set in a far distant world, but its mostly a story about the conflict between a sailing empire and a religious empire who are coming to blows both at sea between their fleets and on land. Most of the action takes place at sea in the form of two richly detailed engagements and some terrorism on land by the Church's proxies. If compelled to read it by an allegiance to the past novels, you will find the talkative aspects of the prior books quelled a little, but still predominating the action.

At the same time, Merlin, the character who has set in motion many of the events of the book, has been relegated in many ways to a sideshow. Its his very advanced nature that compells this. These novels, to my mind, are almost like a what if episode of Star Trek's prime directive. What if, Kirk and Spock intervened on a medieval industrial planet and parsed out ideas to the smarter inventors and industrialists to use to advance military warfare and industry. But Kirk and Spock after doing so, are not going to get into a phaser engagement with others, and here too, Weber is constrained, by both that issue, but also by sticking some mysterious devise under the Church territories.

At the same time, we do see a little into Merlin's mind as to what he may contemplate to break the stalemate with the Church, and Weber has added some elements of a possible return of prior Archangels.

Overall, this book is mostly filler in a line of books. the plot seems to have advanced a tad, the lines are even more drawn between the sides, but the excitement of the early books in the series has faded to an extent. The cast of thousands of characters has grown -- even the death of a few, will ever be inevitable as will Merlin's superiority even with that World's weapons, but we can and should ask for more from this author.

[Larry Jeram-Croft · Rating 1 out of 5]

This series started off really well with an excellent premise for a series of books. But the author seems to think we need to know the biography and intimate detail of every character we meet (and there are far, far too many of them anyway). The plot is excellent and the only reason I am continuing to plough through it, although I skip most pages looking for something worth reading. In fact I didn't read the previous book because I got fed up with the style of writing and when I started this one found I could work out what had happened in the that massive tome in about three pages of this one. I'm afraid this seems to symptomatic of quite a few authors of this genre these days. Robin Hobb is just as bad and as for the Wheel of Time books..... I call it lazy writing as its mainly just useless padding but of course also allows the author to produce a book for his agent/publisher with B*****er all plot for its size.
Come on start writing stories not rambling, over complicated, padded out mush.

[Guy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Same strengths and weaknesses as the previous book (A Mighty Fortress), with one additional weakness: it read at times like a series of vignettes / set pieces that had been thought out beforehand and then glued together. I liked the vignettes, as well as the things I usually like about Weber's books, so it gets three stars, but it is not really worthy of the author of On Basilisk Station.

And I can't stop wondering if he gets paid by the word....

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb, the whole series is.

[Liviu · Rating 5 out of 5]

How Firm a Foundation has an interesting structure in the series and while a lot happens I found it the least satisfying novel to date because all the great moments - and it has a lot of them - are repeats from the earlier four novels - eg we find out what the key is and it is not as mind blowing as Merlin visiting Saint Zherneau in BSRA, or the martyrdoms/Charisian retaliation, wrenching and satisfying respectively still do not compare with Eryk Dynnis and the Delferak hangings to which they are very similar, but are again repeats, etc, etc.

The book has a high major characters body count though, and i was shocked at least at one of the main character deaths which was really unexpected, though again in emotionality it did not reach Harald's death in OAR, while it is also a clear first of the next stage of the series, so despite all, not much is decided in the end and we are left with a huge tbc sign.

Spoilers for the first four novels next, so read to your peril:





Now coming back to the structure and here i think the main problem with the novel lies - OAR had a clear arc and ended at the best point possible with the invasion of Charis shattered, the schism opening and Cayleb taking over; BSRA + BHD are one huge novel split in two and again they solve their arc - the Charisian imperial reach is achieved with the alliance with Chisolhm, the defection of Emerald and the defeat of Corisande, while the Church is preparing their counterattack.
A Mighty Fortress is also a one book story arc like OAR and it deals with the second naval war between Charis and the Temple and the Charisian overwhelming victory.

But now at the end of AMF we had reached a lull and the first 1/3 (about 200 pages) of How Firm a Foundation reflect that and the book is very, very slow there; then things get going of course but due to the military realities, it is mostly intrigue, terrorism and mop-up on the seas until of course the last part where the proverbial **** starts hitting the fan and we get to the next stage and total war, now on land too, but there the book stops since it is already almost 600 pages... So cutting the first 200 pages to 50 condensed pages of the same and expanding the last part would have done wonders imho

This being said I still turned the pages and stayed way too late to read the novel and I still loved it a lot. As scenes go, as mentioned lots of great moments but we've seen them before so their impact is more muted, though one stands out where Merlin dressed in Charisian uniform is in the middle of enemy territory on a rescue mission and when bad guys come in force to arrest his new friends, he goes to welcome them more or less as follows:

"**** are requesting asylum in Charis and I came to escort them, so pretty please can you let us pass and give us good horses and provisions for the 2-300 miles we have to go through your country until we can be picked up at sea"

That was just awesome and of course everyone's jaws (both friends and enemies) drop at this assertion - remembering that all this happens deep in enemy territory...
And Anzhelyk still rocks btw...

Overall an A+ and a little short of the awesome A++ I expected, but the next novel should finally clear up the scene and move the series on decisively

[Emms-hiatus(ish) · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little bit grimmer than the previous books and a little less info dumpy.

[Barb in Maryland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weber has a story to tell and who knows how many books it will take. So fair warning to new readers--this is NOT the place to start. You really need to start with Off Armageddon Reef.

Though at first it seems like all Weber is doing is moving people around, there are a few bits of story arc that are tidied up and brought to a conclusion. A couple of these endings will make readers happy and one will probably break their hearts. And it always nice to catch up with the large cast of continuing characters.
However, Weber, while not as willing to kill off characters as George R R Martin, still is willing to kill off secondary characters that we have come to know and enjoy. And several of those bite the dust in this book. It will be interesting to see whom he tags to step into those roles in following books.
Weber also loves to tell us lots of stuff (whether we want to know it or not), so parts of some scenes read like an info-dump. But these bits are easy to skip over without losing the point of the scene. And I found the book to be a page turner in the best possible way.
Fans of the series should not be disappointed.
And let's hope the next volume comes out soonest!

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

I missed out on reviewing David Weber’s fourth Safehold novel A Mighy Fortress. The audiobook just got lost in the shuffle at the time. However, when the fine folks MacMillan Audio offered me a review copy of How Firm a Foundation I jumped at the chance and am I glad I did. My initial feelings towards the first few volumes of David Weber’s Safehold novels were typically positive with some reservations. My major complaints for By Schism Rent Asunder were outlined primarily as follows:

Weber’s perimise, conceptually a pre-industrial Earth set about reclaiming and rediscovering technology is both a fascinating exercise in science fiction and a frequent narrative trap. The latter occurs through often lengthy dialogue, or worse internal monologue, passages where characters are forced to come up with or reconceive (sic) object, tools, and theories in a way slightly different, or wholly new, from what we the reader might be familiar with. At the same time these rediscoveries must deal with as yet undefined scriptures of the church that prevent certain undefined technologies. Weber frequently gets bogged down in these explanations which despite being interesting reduce the novel’s pace to a crawl.

With How Firm a Foundation (hereafter HFF) that quibble has by and large disappeared. As Merlin’s secret has been outed to more and more people over the course of the series the narrative has been able to open up and include more detail on the characters and political maneuverings across the surface of Safehold. HFF is for me the first time this series has moved beyond being good into being something great.

Note: Having listened to the audio and only listened to the audio I can guarantee that I have spelled some if not all the character’s names wrong. Weber’s decision to spell things oddly (Caleb as Cayleb, Merlin as Merlyn, etc.) doesn’t help at all either.


The opening of HFF sees the Empire of Charis in firm command of sea power in Safehold however the tiny empire struggles with manpower. When it comes to population the people of Charis are outnumbered 15 to 1 compared to its enemies and while the nation struggles to figure out a means to overcome that disparity its many enemies maneuvering against in unspeakably terrible ways. As new people are added into the inner circle of Charis, those who know the secret of Merlin, the Church of God Awaiting, and Safehold itself new complications are added. New information about mysterious power sources beneath the Temple at Zion, and a long held secret family tradition, shed light on potentially troubling developments regarding the plans the “archangels” set forth in the distant past. Elsewhere everyone’s favorite ship’s hand turned duke Hector Aplan-Armach gets a moment to shine and the somewhat traditional adventure-at-sea feel to his part of the story plays an excellent counterpoint to the more dire stakes seen elsewhere in the novel.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of HFF is the careful examination of hardline religious fundamentalism versus a more liberal and accepting take on religion makes for easy parallels to modern society. The ideological split between the Church of God Awaiting and the Church of Charis could be similar to that within various religions across the modern world. As a result the terrorist attacks seen in HFF from the destruction of a large powder store, to direct attacks on the population of Charis call up, perhaps mostly to the American mindset, memories of our own experiences with terrorism. Indeed more than ever the machinations and rantings of Vicar Jaspar Clinton eerily and chillingly echo the rhetoric of extremists like Osama Bin Laden or Fred Phelps. Jaspar Clinton, who might have easily slid into the realm of villainous caricature is instead made frighteningly real by that fact he so readily resembles real people. I don’t know why this comparison never really occurred to me before now but for some reason Clinton’s actions and his vitriolic and hate-filled take on religion really hammered home that connection bringing an otherwise fantastical novel of a distant future into present of our own world.

Similarly HFF takes another longer look at the nature of faith in Safehold. It has been looked at many times before in the series but as the circle of people who know the truth continues to expand that examination becomes more and more fascinating. People like Michael Stainaire, who know the lie behind the Church of God Awaiting yet continue to believe firmly in a loving benevolent God are fascinating and takes Weber’s story, what could have been an excoriating take on the dangers of religion, into a more rounded examination on the nature of faith and belief. The are three big sides side, at least that I can see, to this examination. On one side you have Michael Stainaire who has taken on a very individual based view on man’s relationship with God despite the known falsehoods behind the foundation of his former religious views, on the next you have Vicar DuCerne who has had a religious reawakening within the confines of the Church of God Awaiting, and lastly you have the Grand Inquisitor with his uncompromising (and potentially self-deluding) views on religion. The heart of the world sweeping conflict of the series is in essence about the relationships between these various views on faiths. Each side has several layered sub-strata and the exploration of faithful man’s exposure to the truth is examined in a little bit of detail as the novel progresses. This aspect of the series was brought more into the limelight in the previous volume and has come even more the fore here.

Readers will likely note that HFF is a much more sedate novel than previous entries. While some might take umbrage with the drop in pacing I rather enjoyed the more sedated tone and though that the novel provided an excellent means to take stock of just how the landscape has changed. It definitely feels something like a set-up novel laying groundwork for big things to come in future volumes. This series is, and always has been, something of a slow burn in terms of action and plot resolution but with HFF things sort of feel like they are closer than ever to really exploding. HFF also marks the second time the Safehold series has changed narrators this time to Charles Keating (Oliver Wyman and Jason Culp have narrated the other volumes). Keating does a passable job at reading but doesn’t inject the text with the emotion of previous narrators. In truth that didn’t bother me too much, but his consistent and even deliver might be wearing or even boring for readers look for a bit more vigor in an audiobook performance.

Despite its slow opening there was a certain emotional resonance to the events of HFF that elevated it above earlier volumes for me. The complete lack brainstorming ways to reinvent old technologies was a welcome change and, in an almost contrary fashion, seeing some new-old technologies put to use once again was still a thrilling read. I’ve almost come to expect each of these novels to have some sort of “Q briefs Bond on new gadgets” scene and that is still the case here but those moments are refreshingly brief. I feel like I’ve said this with every volume but HFF is the strongest entry in the Safehold series yet. While some might complain at the series length I for one am perfectly content to sit back and enjoy the ride.

[Lindsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty typical David Weber book. Slightly larger-than-life good guys, who come out ahead against near impossible odds; incredibly detailed battle scenes; some bad guys with a conscience, one bad guy who's mustache twirling evil... you know the drill. I do feel obligated to point out that Weber was much less info-dumpy than normal with this one, even if my eyes were glazing over at all the five-second characters. Thankfully, the book includes a glossary of characters.

Nonetheless, fun read. Despite Weber's love affair with constitutional monarchies, I do enjoy his philosophical takes on life and politics. Definitely don't start here if you're interested in the Safehold series. These are best read in order.

[Truls Ljungström · Rating 2 out of 5]

Läsning 2: jag mindes inte om jag hade läst denna eller ej, men inser mitt i att jag vet vad som kommer hända härnäst, och att författaren snart kommer att parafrasera B5, en av de bästa scifitv-serierna någonsin. Så skedde, och plötsligt minns jag resten av boken. Det innebär tyvärr att den där fräschören som kommer av att inte veta exakt vad som skall hända försvann. Det negativa med boken är att dialogen är illa hanterad. Karaktärerna låter som varandra, det finns ingen konsistens mellan figurerna och alla ondingar är också moraliskt svaga, på ett sätt som de inte var i de tidigare volymerna. Jag tror att jag kommer att läsa nästa också, eftersom jag ändå har den, men det känns motigare än lustfyllt.

[Deb · Rating 3 out of 5]

My favorite parts of this book and the series are all the ones that contain Merlin and his other identities. My biggest complaint is that the villains are ridiculously villainous. Nobody is that bad as far as I know. I'm also not a huge fan of the more violent bits.

This book is much like the four previous ones of the series. I don't love it, but I don't hate it. I'm only reading the series because my husband wants to read it. It is fun to have things we can talk about together.

On to book six.

[Mrshawn10100 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really liked the way the story advanced in this volume, with a combination of some nice action moving the story forward and some nice examination of how societal changes impact society, all within a SciFi context.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book thankfully left out much of the overlapping analysis that stripped away the suspense in the previous book. While I could see most of it coming, the relationships, action, and display of justice were satisfying.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, this book is a worthy addition to awesome series

This book was just another wild rollercoaster ride in what has been a wide series yet and it is only just starting to really heat up I look forward to the next wild ride in the series

[Anne Wise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whew! This one tired me out. I don’t even know what to say. It’s very reminiscent of the middle books of the Wheel of Time series. Just too many characters doing too much that doesn’t matter.

[Ove · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Church Strikes Back …

I like the Safehold series and How Firm A Foundation is another good installment. Familiarity is sometimes a good thing, reading an author you like writing something like what he has done before. I often go for that in reading series but it also can become a bit repetitive. This is what happened to me here. This is just more of the same, these medieval battles as entertaining as they are, are starting to bore me and even if we are moving into steam and iron. I do expect at least one more book with this slow technological progression until we hit something more advanced, which is something that I am looking forward to. We have the Gbaba aliens that almost exterminated humanity and made them run for Safehold to deal with.

Merlin, Cayleb and Sharleyan are like family now, extended family even and I love reading about them. Their dialogs are witty and often funny. This time it is a bit darker than before. The Group of Four and the Church are impotent at sea due to the new explosive ordnance of the Charisian Navy so they go for the terrorist response instead with terrible results.

Weber shows great historical knowledge down to a very detailed level as usually. The ongoing geopolitical struggle makes sense to me as a reader and it is quite entertaining. The bad guys don’t know what awaits them around the corner.

Merlin explores the limitations of the orbital weapon responses early in the book but later revelations fulfill the promises of the blurb about what is under the Temple. But that is all I am going to say about that.

Bottom line I liked How Firm A Foundation. It has great characters as always and there is progress. Things are starting to get interesting and tense on the mainland. There are things brewing that will be fun to see expanded in the next volume.

[Karina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finally fnished. I don't know what it is, this time the book was slow-going. There was a little discontinuity I noticed--one of the Archangels left a some type of video apparently, and the person talking about didn't mention anything about how odd the Archangel sounded, how difficult it was to understand him. The idea is that there were only written records, no spoken audio/video, and the pronounciation shifted. Merlin had to learn the new pronounciations, and this is indicated in the shifted names. So I wonder about it, how the person understood the Archangel -- what he thought about the pronounciation...

This book is turning into alternative history type... The sci-fi was only needed as a set-up to explain soome of the differences.

Iit's interesting how the progress is dictated by military needs. The advances on each side are all military developments or at least with military applications. Did it happen that way in our world? Maybe. One striking example that popped in my head was the atom bomb. But then I'm also thinking of space exploration which started as a competition between countries.

I also found interesting the episode where the truth about the way religion was used to deceive everyone on this world was revealed to a strong believer and how he dealt with it. He "decided" to still believein God.

Oh one little item that surprised me--I think the Church is based on the Catholic Church. But one time on a major holiday people were surprised by the choice of a "reading" taken from the Book of Chihiro(if I'm not mistaken), because of its stern message when they expected something about love and mercy or what not. It surprised me that they were surprised--meaning that apparently the particular readings are not set up beforehand for every day, and apparently the archbishop had the choice.

[Doc Opp · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really do like this series on the whole, and considered four stars, but ultimately felt that it didn't quite make that threshold. The book continues the saga of the realm of Safehold. Readers who have not read the other four books will have no idea what's happening - in fact, after waiting 8 months for this book to come out, I had trouble remembering various story elements, and Weber makes no effort to orient (or re-orient) readers who aren't on top of what's going on.

He also has a tendency to go into incredibly fine detail in his descriptions, which in some way increases the realism and in other ways can get dull. Early in the book there is a 3 chapter, 40 page description of a boat that gets caught in the storm - including every single alteration to sails and rigging, and descriptions of how that works. The problem is that this in no way furthers the plot, it's just a description to give a detailed feel of what life is like for sailors in a storm. That could appeal to some readers - but I was less interested in the details of how larboard rigging could be used to tack against a wind from the southwest of 30 knots.

Because of this, the plot crawls forward - 500+ pages later, and we're no closer to resolution than we were at the getgo. I'd hoped that Weber would actually try to finish this series, but this book made me feel like he's pulling another Honor Harrington on us - just writing a cash cow, with no intention of ever finishing the story. I eventually gave up on Harrington, but I'm willing to give this series another book or two. Hopefully he'll pull through.

[Neil Carstairs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay. Book 5 of the Safehold series. If you don’t know what’s going on by now then either look away or hunt down Book 1 (Off Armageddon Reef) and start reading.

In a nutshell this is more of the same. Politics, religion, war. The jihad launched by the Church of God Awaiting against the Empire of Charis has gone badly for the Church. Charis has survived, and not only that is now taking the war to the Church.

As with other books in this series Weber relies heavily on sometimes over long scenes of infodumps. Then throw in another 5% of the book being taken up by the Charisian galleon HMS Destiny battling against a ferocious storm. It’s well written and tense and technically expert as we learn how sailing ships survive in hurricane force winds, but 5%? Really? And then there are the scenes where different characters hold long conversations that tell the reader what is going on for the story progression. And that’s the problem, we are told not shown.

But, having said all that, and knowing what Weber is going to give us, the tension ratchets up with assassinations and terrorism as the Church launches Operation Rakurai and Operation Sword of Schueler against the Charisian Empire. There is a line in the book where a representative of the Church says “Extremism in the pursuit of godliness can never be a sin” which tells you everything about the lengths the Church and the Inquisition will go to destroy Charis and anyone else, man, woman or child who stands in their way.

If you can take the length of the individual books, and the entire series as Weber is currently up to Book 9, then read on, just don’t start here – go back to Book 1 or you will be completely lost.

[Annette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another thoroughly engaging, enjoyable, and occasionally thought provoking entry into Weber's growing "Safehold" series. (And, as this book covered only one calendar year in world, I see every reason to believe it will continue to grow!)
The Empire of Charis continues to dominate the seas, in large part due to their weapons development. And even Corisande, the most belligerent of their acquisitions, shows strong signs of calming down and accepting their rule. But they've still no realistic plan for bringing the war to the mainland. And the Group of Four, stymied in their attempts to overwhelm them by sheer force of numbers, turns to assassination, terrorism, torture, and fomenting insurgency in mainland realms who have been too slow to bow the knee. After incidents that can't help but call to mind certain real-life scenarios in the Middle East, the Charissians and Merlin struggle with the limitations of their high tech in fighting such an enemy.
"Foundation" lacks the enormous, decisive naval battles for which its predecessors are justly famed. However, a daring cross-country rescue / escape provides a suitable climax. At a mere 563 pages, the book is a bit on the short side for Weber, and despite starting very slowly with a truly gratuitous storm scene, its pace was actually rather faster (and better, IMHO) than others in the series. I am looking forward to the next one - although I am sure it's quite a ways off!

[William Bentrim · Rating 5 out of 5]

How Firm A Foundation by David Weber

Ok, I’m losing count, this is another book in the excellent Safehold series. Safehold is a planet lost from an alien intelligence that has wiped out mankind except for Safehold. Safehold’s founders founded a new religion to deter industrialization in hopes of not attracting the attention of mankind’s nemesis.

The aforementioned theocracy has become dominated by the gang of four. The gang of four, are four corrupt churchmen who will do anything, no matter how despicable, to remain in power. Mass murder, terriorism, torture and even instigating civil war and denying all progress, it still manages to trumpet it’s godliness.

As all of Weber’s works he has deplorable villains and laudable heroes. Weber works many of current society’s ills into his work. Fanaticism, jihad, corruption, facile politicians, evil empires; he manages to include or refer to through proxy.

Weber is one of those rare authors who can infiltrate your emotions with his characters and feel you full of empathy for their actions. This book shows the Charisian Empire, once more, co-opting a former foe into a stalwart ally.

Some reviews complain that Weber is wordy but each brush stroke can increase the depth and beauty of a work.

I highly recommend the book.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was David Weber at his best. The web he weaves in this story is awesome and is getting better with every book. This book was one of the better ones in the series in that everything is not all rosy, there's a number things that happen that disrupt the plans of the Merlin and team, which highlight that even with all their advantages, they are not omnipotent, that the other guy can be just a smart too.

The tempo seems to be picking up a bit and it's looking like things will come to a head in a few books (I'm guessing... I know it can't be the next, but I'd be surprised if there were 4 more books left in the main/original series).

My only problem with the book was a) it ended too soon (I just didn't want to leave yet! lol) and b) there was a storm sequence at the beginning that seemed to go on just a little long. The obvious knowledge of the author in this area was easily seen, but it just seemed to drag on a bit.

If you're into this series, this book is a no-brainer. If you like David Weber, this series is a no-brainer. If you like against-all-odds, good-vs-bad then this is a no-brainer...

sigh... I can't wait for the next book... ;)

[Brian Durfee · Rating 4 out of 5]

much improved on books 3&4. More action, less talking about stuff.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review to come! :D

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fifth book of the series is very enjoyable. I do wonder how long it will take Weber to wrap things up...if he ever does. He has a huge undertaking, but the stories are good.

[Tim Chappelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, this fifth book is similar in quality to the last four, though not quite as good. Like all of the others, there is a lot of meandering and, at times, incredibly dull scenes thanks to Webbers writing style and the things/events he chooses to devote page-time to (a lot of people have said it, but the beginning section about HMS Destiny was mind-blowingly tedious, bloated, and just plain uninteresting). It is worth noting that this book is really a lot closer to a 3.5 than a 3; I just chose to round down, seeing as I felt this one was weaker than the prior books.

In spite of the lower rating, this one--like the last few--had a lot of really great stuff in it. The gradual realization of the Corisandian characters in Delferahk as to the reality of their situation and just how bad of an ally the Grand Inquisitor is, as well as how far he is willing to go; all of this, by the end of the book establishes very well why they do choose to defect over to Charis.

The POVs from the church are also incredibly interesting, given the gradual shift in power over the course of the books. In the first book, Traynair (the chancellor, second in command of the entire church) is the one who held almost absolute power, especially seeing as the head of the church was just a figurehead who was controlled by him. Though, by this book, Clyntain (the Grand Inquisitor) is the one who holds that power. At this point, given the extent to which the conflict has escalated, he has near total control and has really started doing whatever he wants, as none of the other three can really do anything against him given the events of the previous book; everyone in the Chruch fears him immensely. We continue to get more character for him as well here and it becomes more and more clear how he has been able to gradually take over control and, of the people in the Church, he really is the most "evil" among them. As a result of his personality, and overall nature of distrust and anger, he continues to make decisions that just constantly escalate the situation and make things worse for everyone, though, especially for the Church. Despite their numerical superiority, their constant distrust, brutality, and overall disregard for human life has resulted in more and more factions beginning to take notice and see that Charis might actually have a point. They just fermented rebellion in one of the largest kingdoms on the planet (one they share boarders with on top of that), and, as a result of it not being entirely successful, have just handed their enemies an ally that could give them access to an army of sufficient size to actually have a chance of toppling the Church.

It is also worth discussing the set up for the possibility that some of the Archangels will return in a form that--I would assume--is similar to that of Merlin's. This is something I didn't see coming but is incredibly interesting; though, it was set up in a way in a way that was rather abrupt, so I would be interesting to look back and see if this was something that he actually set up in prior books.

In spite of all the interesting events that did happen, this book has literally all of the problems and peculiarities the last few have possessed. It is interesting that a lot of people constantly bring up the fact that scenes don't progress the plot at all, when I wouldn't exactly frame it that way. Not everything has to progress plot, but it really should do something to enhance the story overall, whether that be characters, theme, etc. A decent amount of the scenes in the book/s don't really do any of that and--what I think is the main reason why some of this doesn't really land--is because of how its written in this unengaging way that comes off a lot of time like info-dumps. All though, in spite of that, these still are really interesting and well-crafted books... at times. There are portions of this one that are incredibly engaging and thought provoking, but there are also passages which are the exact opposite (this applied to all of the Safehold books I have read).

[Jon]

This book is the fifth in the Safehold series by Weber, and it continues in the grand tradition. When I picked up the first book in this series, I had no idea I was in for a saga of this length. It will probably rival his Honor Harrington stuff when it reaches its conclusion...if ever.

Emperor Caleb and Sharleyan continue to oppose the infamous leaders of the Church of God Awakening, based in the city of Zion, who have declared their countries and their faith apostasy and declared a jihad against them. Merlin's pupils continue to introduce new innovations to the Charisian Empire's war machine, such as exploding shells for their cannons, rifled barrels and breech loading for their muskets, and more reliable fuses for both. They've continued improving their ship designs, as well, and are just approaching the point where their mines and forges will be able to provide sufficient metals to start going the ironclad route, as well. The steam engine is on the near horizon, and will soon provide motive power for their heavy industry, their transportation needs, and probably will drive their ships soon.

Sharleyan journeys to the recently conquered kingdom of Corisande, where she takes the responsibility of dispensing high justice against those caught and convicted of treason against the Empire. She manages to win the hearts of the Corisandians, for the most part, after surviving an assassination attempt (stopped by some of Merlin's special body armor) and continuing on with the trials as if nothing had happened. The true heir to the throne of Corisande is still staying with relations near the Church Lands, and his life will be worth little if the head of the Church ever decides it would be more advantageous to have him killed and blame it on Charis, as he did with the boy's father.

The Scheulerite order (secret police of sorts) decide that, since the conventional war isn't going all that well - Charis just destroys every fleet sent their way - it is time to resort to guerrilla methods. One of the church loyalists in Tellesburg arranges to divert a large amount of gunpowder from its proper destination and into the hands of agents of the Church. Those agents mount a series of suicide bombing missions which murder a number of Caleb and Sharleyan's nobles and allies, as well as hundreds of innocent civilians. No correspondence with current world events is intended, I am sure.

Weber weaves a lot of commentary about the nature of "proper" religion into this tale, with conversations between Archbishop Mikhael Staynair and his fellow clergy, and others between members of the Gang of Four in Zion. Some rather interesting philosophical points here, from a theist or deist outlook.

There's a lot of interesting intrigue going on in the land of Siddermark, as well, where the local merchants and nobles are basically ignoring the embargo against Charis, and therefore are one of the few provinces of the Church lands who are able to afford their tithe in these desperate times. Vicar Clyntahn has finally decided to move against them, and his undercover agents foment a rebellion against that land's Lord Protector. But Madame Anjelyka, formerly of Zion - instrumental in helping many of the innocent families of clergy accused of heresy to escape when Clyntahn began his purge - has been doing some plotting of her own, and things don't turn out quite the way the Church expected after all.

More great adventure in the inimitable Weber style.

[Rooks · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oblique to avoid spoilers:

I suspected, based on certain character and word choices, there there would come a time where the world-building would unambiguously lose significant internal logic. (Ex. Language retained the word “catamite”, but not the word “multi-task”. The hell kind of sense does that make, given the initial premise of the novels?) I also suspected that some very obvious plot solutions would be missed, though I’m not sure if it’s authorly convenience, oversight, or bias, known or unknown. (My money is on a combo of all three, though I don’t intend to impute malice.) This is the book where, for me, it finally happened.

I will continue to read these for the foreseeable because I am damn well invested now, but since this is possibly the only review I will post, a few other notes:

Reading this is like playing Civilization set on “Easy” with the religious affiliation of your society programmed to “batsh!t”. Also, it is a space opera that, thus far, takes place entirely on the ground. Most importantly, while I realize I might give the little, deconstructive clues in books more attention than most care about, for those that also do, it should say something that I initially thought this series of spirituality apologia cum mindbenders cum Adventure Books of Great Legends Who Basically Always Behave Legendarily was written in like, 1992. It feels like it comes from an early 90s view of the world or something. The future, it is so white/model minority, and so benignly patriarchal, and for absolutely no understandable reason. Coming back around to my initial comment, the premise, which is incredible, doesn’t support the nature of the actual society in these books. (To argue that it does would be to make/accept a recklessly essentialist point of view.)

So, clearly, YMMV.

Oh, and I don’t actually buy Nimue as a character concept, because of all the poorly developed women in these books, she might be the worst, and she is the *main character*, except for how she isn’t.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

This series is good, but very frustrating in style. I finally remembered what this type of writing reminded me of. Did you ever read any of Herman Melville's seafaring stories in which he got just a tad too involved in the technical aspects of things? Yes, it was like that in places. Easily 50 pages could have been removed from this volume without having any impact on the actual plot. For example, there is a long digression about a ship nearly running aground, and which goes into all sorts of details about sails, anchors, anchor cables, wind shifts caused by the approach of a seemingly impossible hurricane...and it had NOTHING to do with the main story, or any of the secondary stories. It was just a cool side story that added a bunch of pages.
Editors exist for a reason. One of them could have pointed out that perhaps this segment wasn't needed.
On the other hand, the central story in this volume was quite interesting, both in the political/military conflict and with the Merlin story, so I kept reading, and may get back to reading the next volume. On the other hand, it still doesn't feel as well-written as some of his other work, so I'm in no hurry.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are my kind of book, tightly written, fast moving plots with frequent shifts in the action. They are also all around 285,000 words or around 700 to 800 pages! Weber's created world is interesting, and just like in his spectacularly engrossing Honorverse series, he makes the characters real to you. You begin to expect things or find things satisfying because of how they begin to become real people you'd want to know, or truly hate! There is FAR too much going on in each of these books for me to give any useful summary that didn't go on for pages so I'll just suggest you try the first one. Either you'll be hooked (as so many Weber fans are) or you should try some of his other excellent work!