The Savior

The General #10

by Tony Daniel, David Drake

Sequel to The Heretic, Book 10 in the nationally best-selling General series.

FROM HERETIC TO SAVIOR

Duisberg is one of thousands of planets plunged into darkness and chaos by the collapse of the galactic republic, but where other worlds have begun to rebuild a star-travelling culture, Duisberg remains in an uneasy balance between mud-brick civilization and bloodthirsty barbarism.

The people of Duisberg have a god: Zentrum, a supercomputer from the ancient past. Zentrum has decided avoid another collapse by preventing civilization from rising from where it is. This is known as the Stasis. And because even a supercomputer and the powerful religion which it founded cannot block all progress, Zentrum has another tool: every few centuries the barbarians sweep in from the desert, slaughtering the educated classes and cowing the peasants back into submission. These are the Blood Winds, and the Blood Winds are about to blow again.

This time, however, there's a difference: Abel Dashian, son of a military officer, has received into his mind the spirit of Raj Whitehall, the most successful general in the history of the planet Bellevue—and of Center, the supercomputer which enabled Raj to shatter his planet's barbarians and permit the return of civilization.

One hero can't stop the tide of barbarians unless he has his own culture supporting him. To save Duisberg, Abel must conquer the very land of his origin and attempt to destroy the computer A.I. “god” who has doomed his world to an everlasting Dark Age. Abel is a heretic, but now he must go beyond and become—THE SAVIOR.

At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Science Fiction Fantasy, Ebooks

417 pages, Hardcover

First published August 15, 2014

About the author

Tony Daniel is an author of science fiction novels, short stories, and radio dramas.

For the comic book author, see Tony S. Daniel.

Reviews

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book, overall. I thought it had good character development of both primary and secondary characters. It has some pretty good action in it. It had a 'moment' in it that I never expected to happen, but I felt the aftermath of this 'moment' and the moment itself definitely added to and improved the overall narrative. I thought it was a decent sequel [that still could have been better] and a 'worth addition' to the series.

I think its biggest weakness is that the author chose to transition back-and-forth 'through time' while telling the story. It starts off in the "present" [eight years after the events chronicled in The Savior, then starts jumping around into the past and back to the present. The book is broken into fifteen "major sections" with each section generally having three-to-four chapters per section. It breaks down like this:
Section 01 - year 476 - the present - eight years after The Heretic
Section 02 - year 470 - two years after The Heretic
Section 03 - year 476 - the present
Section 04 - year 470 - two years after The Heretic
Section 05 - chapter one - year 472 - four years after The Heretic
Section 05 - chapter two - year 473 - five years after The Heretic
Section 06 - year 476 - the present
Section 07 - year 475 - seven years after The Heretic
Section 08 - year 476 - the present
Section 09 - year 476 - the present
Section 10 - year 477 - the present - nine years after The Heretic
Section 11 - year 477 - the present - nine years after The Heretic
Section 12 - year 477 - the present - nine years after The Heretic
Section 13 - year 477 - the present - nine years after The Heretic
Section 14 - year 477 - the present - nine years after The Heretic
Section 15 - the "future"
- the first half of chapter one is set in either late year 477 or early year 478 - between nine and ten years after The Heretic
- the second half of chapter one is set in year 482 - fourteen years after The Heretic

I am not quite sure if the author was trying to 'highlight' moments mentioned in the "present" sections by having subsequent "past" sections, but each of the "past" sections still read as if a part of the "present" narrative. I felt if he wanted to emphasize the moments in the past, he should have just done what he did in the first book - have the sections read chronologically in order and built it up from there, not jump back-and-forth like he did in the first half of the book and then the second half deals with the "ongoing present" of the narrative. But that is just my opinion.

I thought it was pretty funny, how Abel was depicted as being a Christ-like character. "First," Abel was severely beaten and his back whipped to shreds, just as Jesus was prior to His crucifixion [394]. Then, Abel had to be helped to his feet to reach his "execution site" just as Jesus had to be helped to His feet to reach Golgotha [395]. The parallels do not stop there. He is then portrayed as "hanging just" like Jesus, except Abel was plastered against a crystal as opposed to hanging from a cross [404]. His arms are spread wide, his feet are together beneath him, and he has a bloody bandage hanging from his lower torso due to a bloody wound in his side - very reminiscent of Jesus on the Cross. That, and how, after Abel was done transferring the "files" of Raj's personality into the computer formerly known as Zentrum, he says, "It's finished." [405] - also reminiscent of Jesus' final words on the Cross before dying [when He said, "It is finished."]. Then, one could see Mahaut standing in for Mary in that Mary has been portrayed as holding her dead Son after He is taken down from the cross; Abel falls forward and is caught by Mahaut before he strikes the ground after stepping away from the crystal [405]. Some interesting symbolism and and parallels created there. It goes on with Abel having a miraculous recovery as he nearly dies; one of his friends and companions is able to create penicillin to give to Abel to save him; it is given to Abel just in time to keep him alive and prevent him from dying [410-411]. So, yeah, there are a lot of religious parallels and symbolism being used at the end of the story. Granted, the title of the book is The Savior, but I did not expect the author to equate Abel with Jesus. It was both interesting and amusing to me.

I forgot to mention after reading The Heretic, but the continual comments about "Thursday School" and how children were taught at an early age that Zentrum was "god" and Zentrum's "creation story" [among other 'religious teachings'] was interesting to me. Some pretty obvious parallels to Sunday School. I did find myself wondering what days of the week were still used; some of the military units were called "Friday" and "Wednesday" and, I think, "Monday." So it made me wonder what the other days of the week were called, if Thursday was now used for religious teachings and services.

Two things surprised me in this book.
[01] I could not believe that Center and Raj were "killed" like they were about halfway through the book. It shocked me when I read it, and I felt it was a strong point of "character development" for Abel as he had a choice to make. His good friend, General von Hoff helped him out of his funk over his depression over the death of his friends and helped push Abel back into the land of the living and out of the slow death in which he was indulging himself. It forced Abel to make some hard decisions at this point on how he was going to continue living and how he was going to "ensure" the desired future of the planet [its future salvation] would come about [with the overthrow of Zentrum and allowing humanity to begin to turn into an industrialized, modern society]. I thought it was a 'powerful' moment in the book and a period of 'real growth' for Abel as a character.
[02] That Mahaut became the "ruler" of human civilization and humanity's efforts to modernize itself so that they could hopefully be rescued before the next 'celestial calamity' destroyed all life on the planet. It had been theorized the planet had already been struck three times by asteroids floating around the system, and Center had predicted another asteroid strike relatively 'soon' [in terms of celestial time]. Everybody expected Abel to become the 'ruler' of Duisberg, but he declined as he knew he was not the right person for the job and not best suited to act as a 'king' or 'ruler' or 'benevolent dictator.' Instead, he recognized that his lover, Mahaut, was the best choice for the position due to her wealth of experiences as a civilian, military leader, business leader, and head of a large 'First Family' household.
[03] I liked the phrase "He was the general now" [319] used to describe Abel. He had a choice to make after his friends had died [Center and Raj] - does he continue to attempt to influence the future for the betterment of Duisberg's population of humanity and possibly lose his life in the attempt, or does he just 'give up' and let Zentrum has its way? He chose to either defend the Land and save it or die in the attempt.
[04] I was equally surprised [while still somewhat expecting it] when Center and Raj "finally" reappeared to 'save the day' and turn things around at the end. I thought [and expected] that Center and Raj would reappear before the end of the book to somehow 'save the day' either with or for Abel. I just did not know how or when, and the longer the book progressed [got closer to the end], the less certain I was that they would reappear. When they did finally 'appear' it was a bit of a surprise to me and truly a "Dues ex Machina"-moment in the book -hahahah!

I know I mentioned in my review for the 'first' book how I liked the concept of two "super computers" 'dueling it out' for the future of humanity [even though one of the computers did not know it was dueling with a second computer]. I thought it was a great idea, and I really enjoyed how the story progressed. I had NO idea that Zentrum would somehow locate the transport vessel carrying the original program copies of Raj and Center and "kill" both of them like "he" did in the book! That was completely crazy to me, and I never even saw it coming! I mean, Center would periodically mention the danger to the three of them if Zentrum ever discovered the existence of Center and Raj inside of Abel's mind. That was crazy!

I liked how Center 'saved' "himself" and Raj by creating copies of their files inside of Abel's mind. Center said there were plenty of 'gaps' inside of Abel that Center was able to use to store information; it sounded like "he" did so on some kind of quantum level, which allowed ALL of the files consisting of Center and Raj to be downloaded and saved inside Abel's . . . mind? psyche? biology? Regardless of how it all went down, I 'loved' that copies of the two characters had been saved inside of Abel and were awaiting upload at the proper moment [if that moment happened at all]. it was a risk that had to be taken, and what a risk it was!

I also felt like Center's abilities were expanded in these last two books of the series. I had never previously felt like Center was reading other people's minds when he made his predictions like he did. In this book, it was revealed that he was able to read the minds of other individuals, which allowed him to further refine his calculations and subsequent predictions. As often as he referenced
"Seldonian calculus" and "Seldonian physics" it seems pretty obvious that Asimov's Foundation series of books pretty heavily influenced the abilities of Center in terms of predicting the future as accurately as he does. Still, though - the ability to read the minds of others would definitely slide the balance favorably in 'his' direction.

I did like that Mahaut was "finally" able to speak with and communicate with both Center and Raj by the end of the book. I do not remember any other supporting characters being able to speak with these two "individuals" in prior books, so that was an interesting 'first' to occur in this series.
Granted, she was speaking with them through a type of "terminus" directly whereas Abel had been speaking with them in his mind [before "those copies" were killed/destroyed. He was apparently no longer able communicate with the two of them in his thoughts like he had before, even though copies of their files were still imprinted in the biological material of both his brain and his psyche. So, it was interesting to me that Abel ceased speaking with these two individuals he once considered to be his friends; perhaps, because the 'copies' that he was actually friends with were killed and he did not have the 'same relationship' with the copies of the copies?

I also liked how Mahaut came into her own in this book. This book definitely built upon the foundation laid in the first book, and she definitely grew as a character. She definitely was a 'stronger character' by the end of the story.

I also found it amusing that Abel and Mahaut had such a violent sexual relationship. I do not know why, but it struck me as crazy-amusing. No 'sweet-and-loving' was lost between them; they did have their 'soft' moments, but when it was time to copulate, they would both draw blood in the process. It was quite an oddrelationship, in my opinion.

I did enjoy the book. It had some twists-and-turns I did not expect like Mahaut killing her (ex-)husband in self-defense when he attacked her with the intent to kill her. Truly, 'hard core' to the core! Or, when Abel's father and childhood priest were both arrested and tortured - I probably should have expected that but it was still a surprise to me which added to the story. It had love, triumph, disillusionment and disappoint, the shattering of one's faith and struggling to adjust to a new world-view, anger, hate, lust, questions, doubt, courage, support, and faith. I liked that more characters than just Abel had their own respective "crises of faith" and had to respond accordingly in some fashion to what had happened to them that shook them to their core. I felt that was more believable than just Abel having to go through some "self-doubts" and "moments of weakness" over the course of the story. I would probably rate this book between 3.4 and 3.6 stars rounded down; it is not quite 'good enough' to be four stars, but I feel it was better than 'just' three stars. I am glad I finally got around to reading this book.

[Beau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, are we already at Raj Whitehall #10? Where did the time go?

I read The Heretic, and then the sample chapters at BaenEBooks, and then had to wait like 6 months to finish the book at my local library. But it was worth the wait.

But it didn't disappoint. I liked the battles, the people, and the story. I felt bad when the characters I liked got hurt, and at the end I felt like they had all the hope that people look for in the future.

That's as good as it gets. Shoot 'em up. Ride like crazy. Fight the bad guys, get the girl, live happily ever after.

There are lots of other worlds that need saving, so I suspect we're done with Duisberg, but that's a story that could use just a bit more of the telling.

There were a couple of plot lines I would have enjoyed seeing play out.
I didn't see the head of house jacobsen come on stage at all in this book. Did I miss his demise? Timon's quest to find the lost children was a story worth following through. The long-term balancing of the scales between Eisenach and Jacobsen would have an impact on the future of Duisberg, no? And of course, the Blaskoye are people too. How would they be incorporated into the New Era? But I can just use my imagination, it fills in the blanks nicely.

[Dale (Aus) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have always enjoyed this series and this one was no exception. Keep bring more of these, Raj is a great character and good to see him follow through in this form without taking over the story.

[Michael Rutkowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first 200 pages were slow paced and dragging while setting up the rest of the book ! Then the battles and military action began and it was very satisfying till the conclusion ! The ban on modern weapons reminded me a lot of David Weber's Safehold series !

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not enjoy this book. It seemed to jump around and have no consistent flow. Normally I really enjoy David Drake co-authored books but this one just was not good. It is not worth the time.

[Kelly]

Many of us talk to ourselves and consider ourselves lucky if the voices in our head don’t talk back. Major Abel Dashian relies on the fact his voices will talk back, offering information, projection, strategy and advice. His voices have names, too. Center is a computer intelligence and Raj Whitehall is a stored personality. Together, they make Abel’s life interesting. By age thirty, however, Abel has stopped questioning his sanity (mostly) and is fully committed to their mission, that of saving the planet Duisberg and perhaps humanity.

At the age of six, Abel Dashian was unaware he lived on a planet. He lived in the Land and his people warred with the desert people, known as Redlanders. Periodically, the Redlanders invaded the Land. History recorded these invasions as the Blood Winds. They were Zentrum’s punishment of the wicked.

In The Heretic, we learn that Zentrum is not actually a god, he’s a computer with an earlier, less flexible intelligence than Center. Abel learns that his home is actually a planet called Duisberg and that it, like many other planets, has been orphaned by a technological plague. Zentrum’s mission is to prevent another collapse. It does this by declaring all technological advances heretical, the instruments of such known as nishterlaub. Heretics die horrible deaths.

Human beings are curious by nature, however, and advancement does occur, even under threat of death. There is always an easier way to do something, a better machine. Better medicines save lives. Better weapons win wars. Zentrum snuffs these sparks by initiating a Blood Wind. But what Zentrum in its finite wisdom does not know is that the planet Duisberg needs technological advancement or the population it supports will be rendered extinct by impending asteroid strike. This is where Abel Dashian comes in. The heretic must become the saviour and Zentrum proves itself to be a vindictive bastard.

In The Savior, the Blood Winds are blowing. Outnumbered, outgunned and repressed by the edicts of Zentrum, the forecast for the Land looks grim. Their only hope is to out-think the enemy, which is exactly what Abel and his compatriots do. Relying on the voices in his head, Center for intelligence and projected outcomes and Raj for strategy, Abel pokes holes in enemy. Flanks them, finds back doors into their encampments. Turns their weapons on them as they flee, always destroying the heretical advances afterwards. He is winning the war. Accordingly, Zentrum strikes where Abel least expects it.

Robbed of an important resource, the young major pushes on. Relying on what he has learned and the people he has gathered about him, his engineer, his closest friend, his lover, his father,and the men who follow him into battle. Abel takes the war directly to Zentrum, attacking the very foundation of his planet’s culture.

The Savior is a sequel worth waiting for. There is more of everything inside; military strategy and war, backstory and human drama, all at higher stakes. The story doesn’t meander off into pointless sub-plots and yet no thread is forgotten. Tony Daniel and David Drake pick up where they left off and run, without stumbling, toward a fantastic conclusion. They don’t run a straight line, however. Yes, we want Abel to win and Zentrum to die…er, lose. But as much as I like military Science Fiction, I don’t want to read battle after battle. The Savior delivers so much more. The stories of Abel’s many allies are just as compelling. Mahaut wields her intelligence, while never quite forgetting how to use a blade. Timon questions his faith, but never his friendship with Abel. Landry follows his curiosity and Joab Dashian does what fathers do best. He believes in his son. I found the conclusion of the book to be immensely satisfying.

While The Savior does end this chapter in the greater story, I feel there is mileage yet in the series. I’ll be definitely be on the lookout for the next tale of Raj Whitehall. In the meantime, there are eight previous novels to keep me busy.

Written for SFCrowsnest.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such a great series, and this was another great installment. Man has spread out across the universe, then disaster cast him back to barbarism. How will he climb back out? This is really the 2nd half of book #9, and has all the same great characters and action, along with new characters, and the satisfaction of a conclusion to the entire tale for THIS world. The underlying concept allows these authors to spin endless tales of the reversion to barbarism, and then the battle to climb back out. Each time on a different world, with different challenges. Good stories, good characters. I hope there are another pair of stories in this universe. I'll certainly read them.

[Andreas · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the second and final part of the tale of Abel Dashian on the planet Duisberg, things come to a head as Zentrum manipulates the Redland barbarians into invading The Land. Center and Raj have other plans.

While a satisfying conclusion that contained many great action sequences, this book is like its predecessor not quite up to the standard of the earlier books in the Raj Whitehall series. A fair part of the novel is made up of flashbacks, which in this case are both unnecessary and confusing. Many parts are not as fleshed out as they should be either, and I kept feeling that this book should have been longer. The last quarter in particular felt very rushed towards a conclusion. Having said that, it is still a fun and easy read in the military science fiction genre.

http://www.books.rosboch.net/?p=1815

[Phyllis Griffiths · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had trouble putting this book down, every chapter had to be read to it's end. As the second part of this adventure of Raj Whitehall and Center this book does not disappoint. The plot does not go along the well worn paths of "and that's the way it always goes..." but instead takes unexpected turns that builds that tension that leads the reader to want to read on just a bit more to find out what happens next.

[Kerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Published 2014. This is part of a large series called The General Series. I found this particular volume interesting but disjointed. The timeline is jumbled and not straight forward. The association between the computer entities and the protagonist, Abel, isn't clear at first but then perhaps coming into this series at #10 doesn't help either.
The battle scenes are the majority of the book and perhaps have been given the most detail. Everything else, even the climax seems subdued.

[David Harriss · Rating 3 out of 5]

A weak finish

The Heretic was solid, well paced, and interesting. This is a jumble, bouncing through three phases, and boring for a surprising length.
Despite that, the core story is good and ends satisfyingly.

[Ron Nurmi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Duisberg a planet lost to civilization is controlled by a computer god Zentrum. Able Dashian must try to break history of barbarians sweeping over the peoples of Duisberg and setting them into a dark age as they have done many times in the past.

[Mark Burnham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not bad

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent sequel to The Heretic and a worthy successor to the earlier books.

[Gus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good but not great addition to the series.