What do you think?
Rate this book
Starfire #4
The Shiva Option
The Barnes & Noble Review
David Weber and Steve White's popular Starfire military science fiction series (Insurrection, Crusade, and In Death Ground), which takes place in the Starfire role-playing game universe, continues in The Shiva Option.
David Weber and Steve White's popular Starfire military science fiction series (Insurrection, Crusade, and In Death Ground), which takes place in the Starfire role-playing game universe, continues in The Shiva Option.
After the events of Operation Pesthouse, the "most overwhelming disaster in the history of the Terran Federation Navy," humankind and its alien allies must regroup to fight the carnivorous Arachnids, seemingly unstoppable invaders bent on galactic domination -- and consumption.
The Arachnids (more commonly referred to as Bugs) are easy to hate. Reminiscent of Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Trooper insectoid antagonists, they are relentless, merciless killing machines. "The radially symmetrical being bore neither relation nor resemblance to any Terran lifeform. But the six upward-angled limbs surrounding and supporting the central pod, the whole covered with coarse black hair, made it easy to see why the term 'arachnid' had been applied. Those limbs rose to pronounced 'knuckles' well above the central pod before angling downward once more, and two other limbs ended in 'hands' of four mutually opposable 'fingers' while above the eight limbs were eight stalked eyes, evenly spaced around the pod's circumference. And if all that hadn't been sufficient to show that this thing had evolved from nothing that ever lived on Old Terra, there was the mouth -- a wide gash low in the body-pod, filled with lampreylike rows of teeth and lined with wiggling tentacles. Everyone present knew what those tentacles were for: to hold living prey immobilized for ingestion."
In this, the Fourth Interstellar War, humankind has joined together in a Grand Alliance with several other alien races (including the catlike Orions) in a desperate attempt to defeat the swarming Arachnids once and for all. Together, the races try to figure out a way to stop wave after wave of attacking Bug spacecraft armed to the teeth with antimatter missiles and warheads.
But when the Federation Fleet finds one of the Arachnids' home worlds (Home Hive Three) and destroys it using overwhelming force and the element of surprise, a flaw in the Bugs' defense is discovered. When thousands of "civilian" Bugs are killed en masse, their communication system throughout the whole system is temporarily slowed and the ships are aimless without instructions. But with the Bugs' superior numbers and very quick learning curve, will the Alliance be able to capitalize on this weakness?
Long forgotten in the epic galactic war is Fleet Survey Flotilla 19, believed destroyed in Operation Pesthouse years earlier. Rear Admiral Aileen Sommers and the rest of her crew have been missing for five and a half years. After fleeing through a warp point into the unknown, the humans thought they were safe. But the Bugs tracked the fleet down and were in the process of wiping them out when they were attacked and destroyed by a mysterious force -- a new alien race with new technology! Will Sommers and her new friends (the Star Union of Crucis) be able to get back in time to help the Alliance before the Bugs defeat them?
The role-playing game origins of this series are evident in this novel. The Starfire universe is filled with warp points -- shortcuts to other systems -- which make military strategies even more complex. The discovery of a warp point into the Bugs' Home Hive One, for instance, is a huge break for the Alliance -- that is, if it isn't another trap.
Hard-core military science fiction fans will thoroughly enjoy this series: There's literally nonstop action, great subplots involving the tenuous relationships between humans and other races in the Grand Alliance, and an enemy that you can't help but despise. (Paul Goat Allen)
688 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 2002
55 people are currently reading
620 people want to read
About the author
David Weber
322 books4,551 followersDavid 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...
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...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 63 reviews
August 4, 2013
The Shiva Option is the sequel to In Death Ground. It’s a bit of a long slog, considering that you really have to read the two novels together to get a cohesive picture of the Bug war, but it’s a good one.
First of all, in The Shiva Option the Grand Alliance isn’t as impotent against the Bugs as they were in much of In Death Ground. As such, The Shiva Option is perhaps not as tense as its predecessor. But, the action has certainly been upped as far as fleet sizes are concerned, with literally thousands of ships engaging in massive battles over vast distances. Points scored for spectacle. We also get a glimpse of the war from the point of view of the fighter pilots, which I enjoyed. The Shiva Option introduces new players in the Bug war, and the fresh perspective is a welcome one, although I thought it could have been exploited a bit more. The extra page space is taken up by a little character development and world building. Not too much, mind. We wouldn’t want these to distract from the epic space battles.
Again, quite a bit of explanation goes into the engagements themselves, with detailed descriptions of the armaments and ordnance used. This is more important than you might think, since the basis of the tactics are often the differences between weapons and doctrines used by the different races. Readers of the Starfire series will know exactly what I mean.
If you are new to the series, I will strongly urge you to read In Death Ground before you read this, since The Shiva Option is a direct sequel. In fact, it would make a lot of sense if you started with Crusade, as there are some recurring characters and many references to the war with the Thebans.
This series is highly focused on the military aspects of Military SF. If you are looking for something leaning more towards Space Opera, this might not be your fix. As for me: I like it!
First of all, in The Shiva Option the Grand Alliance isn’t as impotent against the Bugs as they were in much of In Death Ground. As such, The Shiva Option is perhaps not as tense as its predecessor. But, the action has certainly been upped as far as fleet sizes are concerned, with literally thousands of ships engaging in massive battles over vast distances. Points scored for spectacle. We also get a glimpse of the war from the point of view of the fighter pilots, which I enjoyed. The Shiva Option introduces new players in the Bug war, and the fresh perspective is a welcome one, although I thought it could have been exploited a bit more. The extra page space is taken up by a little character development and world building. Not too much, mind. We wouldn’t want these to distract from the epic space battles.
Again, quite a bit of explanation goes into the engagements themselves, with detailed descriptions of the armaments and ordnance used. This is more important than you might think, since the basis of the tactics are often the differences between weapons and doctrines used by the different races. Readers of the Starfire series will know exactly what I mean.
If you are new to the series, I will strongly urge you to read In Death Ground before you read this, since The Shiva Option is a direct sequel. In fact, it would make a lot of sense if you started with Crusade, as there are some recurring characters and many references to the war with the Thebans.
This series is highly focused on the military aspects of Military SF. If you are looking for something leaning more towards Space Opera, this might not be your fix. As for me: I like it!
November 2, 2017
As I was reading this I thought it was a lot like what my father called "training films". You know, those John Wayne movies (and others) that were made during and about WWII. The book isn't actually ultra-patriotic like those movies, but it does focus almost exclusively on the space battles between the Alliance and the Bugs.
Before and after we get a list of the numbers and types of ships that are going into battle or that were lost in the battle. Pulling random numbers from a hat for these lists would have been just as impactful since I had no frame of reference about what might be a big number of such ships. Maybe if they'd included crew numbers for each type, it might have made the point about what was lost, but it would have just been more numbers for my eyes to glaze over about.
Plus, all the battles seemed to be the same as all the others in the book: Alliance members jump to the next system via warp point, the Bug's defenses are encountered and overcome, then the Allied force makes it's way to the inhabited planets of the system to wreak more havoc. There were a few differences (launching asteroids at the planets rather than just barreling in with guns and missiles blazing) and some new allies joined the fray. I would have loved more time and investigation in to these new races that had a history against the Bugs, but not here.
There was barely any character development. The few characters that had something of a recurring role were mostly there to plan the next system raid or to (briefly) consider the losses that the just completed battle had inflicted. Really, no significant remorse for all the losses was on display throughout the book, even when a close relation was killed.
We cheered on John Wayne while he fought the enemy and were sad when he bought it near the end of the film. I didn't have anywhere near that same level of interest in the Allied fleets or the people that flew the ships against the Bugs as I did for John Wayne's characters. A much better and more interesting story (to me) would have been the ground war to clean out a Bug-infested planet. Weber and White tease this story in the middle of the book, but soon abandon pursuing that when they came up with a way to kinetically bombard the planet surface and take out a majority of the Bug's strength. *meh*
Before and after we get a list of the numbers and types of ships that are going into battle or that were lost in the battle. Pulling random numbers from a hat for these lists would have been just as impactful since I had no frame of reference about what might be a big number of such ships. Maybe if they'd included crew numbers for each type, it might have made the point about what was lost, but it would have just been more numbers for my eyes to glaze over about.
Plus, all the battles seemed to be the same as all the others in the book: Alliance members jump to the next system via warp point, the Bug's defenses are encountered and overcome, then the Allied force makes it's way to the inhabited planets of the system to wreak more havoc. There were a few differences (launching asteroids at the planets rather than just barreling in with guns and missiles blazing) and some new allies joined the fray. I would have loved more time and investigation in to these new races that had a history against the Bugs, but not here.
There was barely any character development. The few characters that had something of a recurring role were mostly there to plan the next system raid or to (briefly) consider the losses that the just completed battle had inflicted. Really, no significant remorse for all the losses was on display throughout the book, even when a close relation was killed.
We cheered on John Wayne while he fought the enemy and were sad when he bought it near the end of the film. I didn't have anywhere near that same level of interest in the Allied fleets or the people that flew the ships against the Bugs as I did for John Wayne's characters. A much better and more interesting story (to me) would have been the ground war to clean out a Bug-infested planet. Weber and White tease this story in the middle of the book, but soon abandon pursuing that when they came up with a way to kinetically bombard the planet surface and take out a majority of the Bug's strength. *meh*
June 17, 2012
This is another great book in the StarFire series. I’m really happy that I started, or rather continued, to read this series despite the fact that the first book vas only okay and has very little to do with the rest of the series.
This book continues the Alliance’s battle against the alien invaders who got a taste for human flesh and an utter disrespect for individual live, theirs or their enemies. In this book the Alliance have recovered from the initial onslaught and are starting to get the upper hand. As in the previous book, the focus of this book is space ship combat and strategy. There’s a little ground fighting at the end but not really much. As usual, David Weber’s depictions of big fleet battles are simply excellent.
There’s even less politics than in the previous book. The authors blasts the utterly stupid left-wingers on a few pages and there’s the case of a, equally utterly, incompetent fleet admiral appointed by previously mentioned political morons which wastes another few pages but it really feels like side notes rather than parts of the overall plot.
To add some spice a first contact situation with an alien species is introduced. I found this part a wee bit lacking though. Not that what was written was bad but I felt there could be a few more pages. You get to read about the initial contact then there’s nothing for a good chunk of the book and then battle ready aliens jump onto the scene and introduces themselves as new members of the alliance. In my mind there could have been some more material on what went on between these two points in time.
Anyway, this book is just my cup of tea. Excellent read.
This book continues the Alliance’s battle against the alien invaders who got a taste for human flesh and an utter disrespect for individual live, theirs or their enemies. In this book the Alliance have recovered from the initial onslaught and are starting to get the upper hand. As in the previous book, the focus of this book is space ship combat and strategy. There’s a little ground fighting at the end but not really much. As usual, David Weber’s depictions of big fleet battles are simply excellent.
There’s even less politics than in the previous book. The authors blasts the utterly stupid left-wingers on a few pages and there’s the case of a, equally utterly, incompetent fleet admiral appointed by previously mentioned political morons which wastes another few pages but it really feels like side notes rather than parts of the overall plot.
To add some spice a first contact situation with an alien species is introduced. I found this part a wee bit lacking though. Not that what was written was bad but I felt there could be a few more pages. You get to read about the initial contact then there’s nothing for a good chunk of the book and then battle ready aliens jump onto the scene and introduces themselves as new members of the alliance. In my mind there could have been some more material on what went on between these two points in time.
Anyway, this book is just my cup of tea. Excellent read.
July 10, 2018
13 of 36 Chapters in. Jesus Queen Bug God Murphy Fuck. This space war porn just goes on and on like the mindless, unfeeling and uninteresting bug antagonists. The bug chapters could be made interesting but they are always disappointing in that the authors never capitalize on opportunities to make the bugs feel real or like anything other then a space going, genocidal, hive mind calculator. I read the previous books in the series when I was a teenager and thought they were great then but 17 years later this writing's total lack of any science or details about how or why things work really grinds my gears. This is just pulp space war porn where the good guys are always righteous and the bad guys and occasional humans who work against the navy are unmistakably and irredeemably malevolent. Also the narrator's attempts to speak Kzinti...I mean Orion are very painful and that alone almost make me put this book down in the first two chapters. If this were not an audiobook I would have already quit the story. STUPID but fills the time while I commute.
Finished the story. It's rubbish and would not have been finished were it the hard copy I were reading. Audiobooks do let you power through even long, bad books just because you can being doing productive things while you listen to them. I had this book on my shelf for 15 years before I finally listened to the audiobook now I wish I had just let it sit. Pretty bad story. It never got any better than my comments from chapter 13 intoned. I wanted to stop listening every single chapter. The ending was quite stupid too.
Finished the story. It's rubbish and would not have been finished were it the hard copy I were reading. Audiobooks do let you power through even long, bad books just because you can being doing productive things while you listen to them. I had this book on my shelf for 15 years before I finally listened to the audiobook now I wish I had just let it sit. Pretty bad story. It never got any better than my comments from chapter 13 intoned. I wanted to stop listening every single chapter. The ending was quite stupid too.
November 17, 2021
This book is a little too predictable, but it is still a good read if you like military science fiction where the military is on a bug hunt... so to speak.
Shiva is the Hindu God of Destruction so the Shiva Option is the destruction of worlds. In this case it is the utter destruction of the bug worlds. The Arachnids (the "bugs") in this story are evil, senseless eaters of human beings. The bugs cannot be reasoned with. They respond not at all to negotiations or threats. They simply conquer and eat anything, including each other.
I jumped into the middle of the Starfire series and was engrossed with the story immediately. This is a story about the struggle for existence. It is them or us. I didn't need much more back story than that. Largely this is a battle for warp portals. There are also "closed" portals that are hidden entries into a system. Thus one could suddenly show up with a fleet of ships in a system with complete surprise. Finding the "open" end of these closed portals was a large part of the mission of the Fleet Survey team.
This is a long story. I was never bored.
Any modesty issues? Yes. The F-word is used about 10 times, usually in the context of space fighter pilots who are giving up their lives for the human race. I'd give them a break. Sex happens in this story. Nothing is described that I recall.
The ending is predictable, but satisfying. There is plenty of room for a sequel, and that sequel is, "Exodus".
If you like this type of storyline, a desperate fight with remorseless aliens, then I suggest reading, the Posleen War series by John Ringo. The series begins with "A Hymn Before Battle," and yes. The aliens eat humans.
Shiva is the Hindu God of Destruction so the Shiva Option is the destruction of worlds. In this case it is the utter destruction of the bug worlds. The Arachnids (the "bugs") in this story are evil, senseless eaters of human beings. The bugs cannot be reasoned with. They respond not at all to negotiations or threats. They simply conquer and eat anything, including each other.
I jumped into the middle of the Starfire series and was engrossed with the story immediately. This is a story about the struggle for existence. It is them or us. I didn't need much more back story than that. Largely this is a battle for warp portals. There are also "closed" portals that are hidden entries into a system. Thus one could suddenly show up with a fleet of ships in a system with complete surprise. Finding the "open" end of these closed portals was a large part of the mission of the Fleet Survey team.
This is a long story. I was never bored.
Any modesty issues? Yes. The F-word is used about 10 times, usually in the context of space fighter pilots who are giving up their lives for the human race. I'd give them a break. Sex happens in this story. Nothing is described that I recall.
The ending is predictable, but satisfying. There is plenty of room for a sequel, and that sequel is, "Exodus".
If you like this type of storyline, a desperate fight with remorseless aliens, then I suggest reading, the Posleen War series by John Ringo. The series begins with "A Hymn Before Battle," and yes. The aliens eat humans.
September 27, 2016
The Shiva Option
Author: David Weber and Steve White
Publisher: Baen
Published In: Riverdale, NY
Date: 2002
Pgs: 753
REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Summary:
The Bugs were eating their way through the other sentient species of local space. Implacable, unstoppable, they swamed out of warp points and crushed resistance and finding inhabited planets set about devouring the intelligent species on those worlds. They find sentients delicious. Human children are just the right size for… A Grand Alliance between Human, Orion, Gorm, and Ophiuchi, an alliance formed in desperation. The Alliance wins a victory...only to have the seemingly unstoppable force of the Bugs sweep forth again tearing a Task Force apart with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Ivan Antonov and the Sky Marshal Hannah Avram onboard. The Bugs are out there, one transit from Alpha Centauri, two transits from Sol. The Grand Alliance has reactivated General Directive 18 which calls for the racial extermination of all Bugs wherever the Fleet finds them. Millions have died. Millions more will die. The Shiva Option is the sentients of the Grand Alliance’s only hope. “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
Genre:
Aliens
Fiction
Military
Science fiction
Space opera
War
Why this book:
Military sci fi. I’m all in. And a re-read of a favorite book.
______________________________________________________________________________
Favorite Character:
I do love the characters herein, but that largely comes from their appearances in other novels in the series and all their legacy, both descendant and antecedent.
Least Favorite Character:
Mukerji, Wister, and Waldeck, the polticos and their pet admiral who sought advantage in the war through political maneuvering in the Terran Federation. And Mukerji’s cowardice before the enemy. Hated all three.
The Feel:
Shiva isn’t structured to stand alone at all. Too much happened in the previous book that has to be harkened back to.
Favorite Scene / Quote:
The scenes comprising Survey Floatilla 19’s run for its life are the cream of the early part of this novel. But once they encounter the Others, they disappear from the early novel as the camera focus shifts squarely onto Zephraim and Home Hive Three.
The scenes where Prescott slaps Mukerji down. And my wanting them to go further.
When Rear Admiral Aileen Sommers signals her return to the Terran Federation with new allies in the ongoing war with the Bugs.
Prescott and Zhaarnak’s chat before the overwhelming Bug fleet bore down on them.
Pacing:
The pacing is slow but inexorable. It pulls me forward through the book.
Plot Holes/Out of Character:
Too much explanation of Orion honor and the intricacies of warp point defense and assault. At times, it shows that this universe is based on a game. The author seems to be reading from or paraphrasing the rules book and using the characters’ inner thoughts to communicate those rules. This happens more with Raymond Prescott and Zhaarnak’telmasa than I’ve noticed with any other characters in the entire series. Although this issue did not present in the previous books...or didn’t become as glaring as it does in the as Prescott and Zhaarnak rudiment on the defense of Zephraim and the incursion into and attack on Home Hive Three.
As much as I love these Starfire Universe books, I’ve never played the game it was originally based on.
Hate that the System Which Must Be Concealed was left on the table at the end of the story. The Bug War already ran two full, long books deep. And I haven’t read the later additions to the Starfire book series...I mean to, but haven’t yet.
Wish ISW-1, 2, and 3 were in novels.
Hmm Moments:
After Andrew Prescott and his crews took the hero’s journey, the story of his brother Raymond improved. The story became more about character, the ships, and the battles than about the mechanics that were, obviously and largely, about the game that the universe is based on itself.
The forced political rehabilitation of Admiral Mukerji is a slap in the face. It is exactly the kind of political interference that you would expect though. Very Royal Navy before and during World War 1 and the interregnum before World War 2. Admiral Raymond Prescott should have had Mukerji shot.
Meh Moments:
The mirroring of the affection in a military relationship between higher ranking female officer and lower ranking male officer with Sommers-Hafezi and Murakuma-LeBlanc is a bit much. The love in wartime/extreme circumstances trope could have been foregone or retuned, maybe not having two instances of it happening like this at the same time. IDK. Maybe it’s just me being a curmudgeon.
Why isn’t there a screenplay?
I don’t know that this series could be done justice on the big or small screen. Probably too military for many viewers. Afraid it would suffer the same fate as Space Above and Beyond, which I loved.
______________________________________________________________________________
Last Page Sound:
Damn it. I hate it when a good book ends.
Author Assessment:
Love Weber and White. Will always pick up and give a look at anything written by them.
Editorial Assessment:
Well done.
Knee Jerk Reaction:
real classic
Disposition of Book:
Re-read shelf
Would recommend to:
everyone
______________________________________________________________________________
Author: David Weber and Steve White
Publisher: Baen
Published In: Riverdale, NY
Date: 2002
Pgs: 753
REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Summary:
The Bugs were eating their way through the other sentient species of local space. Implacable, unstoppable, they swamed out of warp points and crushed resistance and finding inhabited planets set about devouring the intelligent species on those worlds. They find sentients delicious. Human children are just the right size for… A Grand Alliance between Human, Orion, Gorm, and Ophiuchi, an alliance formed in desperation. The Alliance wins a victory...only to have the seemingly unstoppable force of the Bugs sweep forth again tearing a Task Force apart with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Ivan Antonov and the Sky Marshal Hannah Avram onboard. The Bugs are out there, one transit from Alpha Centauri, two transits from Sol. The Grand Alliance has reactivated General Directive 18 which calls for the racial extermination of all Bugs wherever the Fleet finds them. Millions have died. Millions more will die. The Shiva Option is the sentients of the Grand Alliance’s only hope. “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
Genre:
Aliens
Fiction
Military
Science fiction
Space opera
War
Why this book:
Military sci fi. I’m all in. And a re-read of a favorite book.
______________________________________________________________________________
Favorite Character:
I do love the characters herein, but that largely comes from their appearances in other novels in the series and all their legacy, both descendant and antecedent.
Least Favorite Character:
Mukerji, Wister, and Waldeck, the polticos and their pet admiral who sought advantage in the war through political maneuvering in the Terran Federation. And Mukerji’s cowardice before the enemy. Hated all three.
The Feel:
Shiva isn’t structured to stand alone at all. Too much happened in the previous book that has to be harkened back to.
Favorite Scene / Quote:
The scenes comprising Survey Floatilla 19’s run for its life are the cream of the early part of this novel. But once they encounter the Others, they disappear from the early novel as the camera focus shifts squarely onto Zephraim and Home Hive Three.
The scenes where Prescott slaps Mukerji down. And my wanting them to go further.
When Rear Admiral Aileen Sommers signals her return to the Terran Federation with new allies in the ongoing war with the Bugs.
Prescott and Zhaarnak’s chat before the overwhelming Bug fleet bore down on them.
Pacing:
The pacing is slow but inexorable. It pulls me forward through the book.
Plot Holes/Out of Character:
Too much explanation of Orion honor and the intricacies of warp point defense and assault. At times, it shows that this universe is based on a game. The author seems to be reading from or paraphrasing the rules book and using the characters’ inner thoughts to communicate those rules. This happens more with Raymond Prescott and Zhaarnak’telmasa than I’ve noticed with any other characters in the entire series. Although this issue did not present in the previous books...or didn’t become as glaring as it does in the as Prescott and Zhaarnak rudiment on the defense of Zephraim and the incursion into and attack on Home Hive Three.
As much as I love these Starfire Universe books, I’ve never played the game it was originally based on.
Hate that the System Which Must Be Concealed was left on the table at the end of the story. The Bug War already ran two full, long books deep. And I haven’t read the later additions to the Starfire book series...I mean to, but haven’t yet.
Wish ISW-1, 2, and 3 were in novels.
Hmm Moments:
After Andrew Prescott and his crews took the hero’s journey, the story of his brother Raymond improved. The story became more about character, the ships, and the battles than about the mechanics that were, obviously and largely, about the game that the universe is based on itself.
The forced political rehabilitation of Admiral Mukerji is a slap in the face. It is exactly the kind of political interference that you would expect though. Very Royal Navy before and during World War 1 and the interregnum before World War 2. Admiral Raymond Prescott should have had Mukerji shot.
Meh Moments:
The mirroring of the affection in a military relationship between higher ranking female officer and lower ranking male officer with Sommers-Hafezi and Murakuma-LeBlanc is a bit much. The love in wartime/extreme circumstances trope could have been foregone or retuned, maybe not having two instances of it happening like this at the same time. IDK. Maybe it’s just me being a curmudgeon.
Why isn’t there a screenplay?
I don’t know that this series could be done justice on the big or small screen. Probably too military for many viewers. Afraid it would suffer the same fate as Space Above and Beyond, which I loved.
______________________________________________________________________________
Last Page Sound:
Damn it. I hate it when a good book ends.
Author Assessment:
Love Weber and White. Will always pick up and give a look at anything written by them.
Editorial Assessment:
Well done.
Knee Jerk Reaction:
real classic
Disposition of Book:
Re-read shelf
Would recommend to:
everyone
______________________________________________________________________________
May 4, 2020
A lenghty story featuring a war between alien Archnids and the humans and their allies. Personal relationships are also explored as the humanmilitary forces flee across space.
September 13, 2019
My main point about the previous volume in the series, In Death Ground, still applies to this one: This story shouldn’t need 1300+ pages to tell.
I’m glad I read it, if only to finish the story I began over two decades ago when I first read In Death Ground, but I doubt I’ll ever read it again.
For the most part, this is more of the same as the first part, with the difference being that the tide has turned, and now it’s the story of the Grand Alliance’s eventual victory over the Bugs instead of the story of desperately trying to stop the Bug onslaught. Lots of battles, lots of agonizing over loss, lots of hyper-competent military personnel, and a handful of ridiculous caricatures of people the authors don’t like.
The biggest example of this is a potshot they take at the press, creating a ridiculous caricature of a war reporter who hates the military. Apparently he’s bad because he dared to write articles critical of the military before the war. Never mind that a military that’s been at peace for 60 years is bound to have accumulated some graft and corruption, and that investigative reporters are actually good for the military in those situations as they can expose things that would damage the military if left unchecked.
Of course, just in case we might make the mistake of thinking that this might just be someone doing his job, the authors make him a point of view character so we can read his thoughts and realize that he’s just a stupid caricature who hates the military for no reason.
We also get the usual shot a politicians at the end as well, just in case we forgot that the authors don’t like them.
Fortunately, this volume apparently wraps up the prequels to the first volume, which makes it a good stopping place.
I’m glad I read it, if only to finish the story I began over two decades ago when I first read In Death Ground, but I doubt I’ll ever read it again.
For the most part, this is more of the same as the first part, with the difference being that the tide has turned, and now it’s the story of the Grand Alliance’s eventual victory over the Bugs instead of the story of desperately trying to stop the Bug onslaught. Lots of battles, lots of agonizing over loss, lots of hyper-competent military personnel, and a handful of ridiculous caricatures of people the authors don’t like.
The biggest example of this is a potshot they take at the press, creating a ridiculous caricature of a war reporter who hates the military. Apparently he’s bad because he dared to write articles critical of the military before the war. Never mind that a military that’s been at peace for 60 years is bound to have accumulated some graft and corruption, and that investigative reporters are actually good for the military in those situations as they can expose things that would damage the military if left unchecked.
Of course, just in case we might make the mistake of thinking that this might just be someone doing his job, the authors make him a point of view character so we can read his thoughts and realize that he’s just a stupid caricature who hates the military for no reason.
We also get the usual shot a politicians at the end as well, just in case we forgot that the authors don’t like them.
Fortunately, this volume apparently wraps up the prequels to the first volume, which makes it a good stopping place.
April 12, 2011
This is my favorite series of sci fi novels. The world building is excellent, though the books take place almost completely in space. The rules of the universe are realistic and consistant.
This book had many challenges being the sequal to In Death Ground, which is arguably the strongest novel of the series. The main challenge is that the war that those two books chronicle has reached a tipping point such that it feels like we are mainly in mopup mode. The Bugs have very limited ability to strike back from very early in this book.
That doesn't mean the story isn't interesting. Several plot threads from the first book, including the first contact with several new races that are survivors of previous wars with humanities current enemies.
Also the book spends a fair amount of time on the pathos created by the availibility of certain military options. What price is worth paying for recovering hostages that have been enslaved for generations? Is it ever ok to bombard a planet, destroying innocents along with military targets?
I think some of this pathos failed to connect completely with me, because there was so little evidence that the bugs could ever be saved. They seem so single-minded, and unable to communicate that leaving them alive would create problems down the road. I don't feel like it is quite as strong as the pathos generated over the debate to use nuclear weapons for the first time, for instance. But that critique aside, this is a very, very strong book.
I recommend this book to anyone that read "In Death Ground". If you haven't read that book, I recommend you start there.
This book had many challenges being the sequal to In Death Ground, which is arguably the strongest novel of the series. The main challenge is that the war that those two books chronicle has reached a tipping point such that it feels like we are mainly in mopup mode. The Bugs have very limited ability to strike back from very early in this book.
That doesn't mean the story isn't interesting. Several plot threads from the first book, including the first contact with several new races that are survivors of previous wars with humanities current enemies.
Also the book spends a fair amount of time on the pathos created by the availibility of certain military options. What price is worth paying for recovering hostages that have been enslaved for generations? Is it ever ok to bombard a planet, destroying innocents along with military targets?
I think some of this pathos failed to connect completely with me, because there was so little evidence that the bugs could ever be saved. They seem so single-minded, and unable to communicate that leaving them alive would create problems down the road. I don't feel like it is quite as strong as the pathos generated over the debate to use nuclear weapons for the first time, for instance. But that critique aside, this is a very, very strong book.
I recommend this book to anyone that read "In Death Ground". If you haven't read that book, I recommend you start there.
December 8, 2018
I would rate this book at 3.5 stars. There are some **spoilers ahead**. Just fair warning.
This is my second read of The Shiva Option. My original was just after its initial publication. As soon as I finished my most recent read of In Death Ground, I immediately started on the sequel. While Mark White is credited as a co-author, this feels much more like a David Weber novel. There's plenty of great characterization, lots of vivid description, and some of the lesser characters are memorable, even if they only appear for a scene or two.
On the other hand, the pace drags at times, unlike its fast-paced prequel. There are *so many* meetings and conferences. Someone will stop in the middle of a conversation to ruminate on the situation, which turns into five or more pages of exposition, then we are returned to the same conversation in progress. It's easy to lose the thread of what was being said, or why. If it had just happened once, that would be one thing, but that's practically a staple of the early chapters. I also found that it was more difficult to navigate the myriad worlds of bug space. The map is considerably more complicated than the more straightforward one in In Death Ground. It was easy to lose track of where events were taking place, or how they related to the action playing out on other fronts.
At times battles are reported to the reader than told. We get a brief recap of what happened along with a tally of ships lost and destroyed. After a while, they just became a list of numbers without the crushing emotional impact that I felt in other Starfire novels. I found the Star Union of Crucis to be far less involved in the war than I remembered. They have a big role towards the end, but we meet them at the start of the book. And even reading it again, Murakama's plan to create an asteroid mass driver seems to take much longer and cost far more lives and ships than the more straightforward fighter strikes we see throughout the rest of the book. If there was a solid rationale for why that was necessary to attack that particular Home Hive, I missed it.
Even with some parts that drag or were a chore to read, these characters are near and dear to my heart. Raymond Prescott, Vanessa Murakuma, Marcus LeBlanc, and the Orion characters whose names I can't spell--they are some of the best space heroes in print, and some of my all-time favorites. It's a pity that current releases in the Starfire series only continue the time line into the future. I would love the chance to read more adventures just after ISW-4, or even earlier with novelizations of Howard Anderson's exploits.
This is my second read of The Shiva Option. My original was just after its initial publication. As soon as I finished my most recent read of In Death Ground, I immediately started on the sequel. While Mark White is credited as a co-author, this feels much more like a David Weber novel. There's plenty of great characterization, lots of vivid description, and some of the lesser characters are memorable, even if they only appear for a scene or two.
On the other hand, the pace drags at times, unlike its fast-paced prequel. There are *so many* meetings and conferences. Someone will stop in the middle of a conversation to ruminate on the situation, which turns into five or more pages of exposition, then we are returned to the same conversation in progress. It's easy to lose the thread of what was being said, or why. If it had just happened once, that would be one thing, but that's practically a staple of the early chapters. I also found that it was more difficult to navigate the myriad worlds of bug space. The map is considerably more complicated than the more straightforward one in In Death Ground. It was easy to lose track of where events were taking place, or how they related to the action playing out on other fronts.
At times battles are reported to the reader than told. We get a brief recap of what happened along with a tally of ships lost and destroyed. After a while, they just became a list of numbers without the crushing emotional impact that I felt in other Starfire novels. I found the Star Union of Crucis to be far less involved in the war than I remembered. They have a big role towards the end, but we meet them at the start of the book. And even reading it again, Murakama's plan to create an asteroid mass driver seems to take much longer and cost far more lives and ships than the more straightforward fighter strikes we see throughout the rest of the book. If there was a solid rationale for why that was necessary to attack that particular Home Hive, I missed it.
Even with some parts that drag or were a chore to read, these characters are near and dear to my heart. Raymond Prescott, Vanessa Murakuma, Marcus LeBlanc, and the Orion characters whose names I can't spell--they are some of the best space heroes in print, and some of my all-time favorites. It's a pity that current releases in the Starfire series only continue the time line into the future. I would love the chance to read more adventures just after ISW-4, or even earlier with novelizations of Howard Anderson's exploits.
February 9, 2025
Lu en anglais
Tome 4 de la série Starfire
En fait, le tome 3 et 4 ne forment qu'un seul roman.
L'humanité est en choc. La puissante flotte de la fédération, lors de sa pénétration dans l'espace ennemi, a presque été anéantie par les arachnides qui l'ont prises en tenailles et on déplore la perte de deux amiraux légendaires de la fédération. L'humanité doit se ressaisir et capitaliser sur ses alliés extraterrestres et sa capacité industrielle. Mais la défaite a démontré que l'on avait sous-estimé la puissance de la flotte, ainsi que l'innovation et la puissance industrielle des arachnides. En plus, la fédération vient de se rendre compte que, non seulement les arachnides considèrent leurs adversaires comme de la nourriture, mais qu'en plus ils les élèvent comme du bétail pour s'en nourrir. Face à cette situation, et en plus du fait qu'aucune communication n'est possible avec les arachnides qui considèrent les autres espèces seulement comme des adversaires à éliminer, la fédération décide de mettre en action la directive 18, c'est à dire l'élimination complète et totale des arachnides.
Des ennemis implacables, extrêmement puissants, qui n'hésitent pas à recourir à des stratégies de kamikaze ou à sacrifier, sans retenue, des compatriotes pour se donner un avantage tactique. Mais l'analyse des épaves ennemis a permis d'appendre qu'il n'y a probablement que 5 grands centres industriels et de population pour l'ennemi. Petite différence entre les adversaires, les arachnides capitalisent sur les gigantesques vaisseaux de ligne alors que les alliés mettent plus d'emphase sur les minuscules et rapides chasseurs.
Et c'est reparti. La fédération et ses alliés sont acculés et doivent reprendre l'offensive et éliminer l'ennemi. C'est une question de survie. Mais l'ennemi ressent la même chose et se bat avec acharnement. Les flottes sont gigantesques et les affrontements dantesques. Un souffle épique constant à mon grand plaisir ! L'écriture est serrée et on ne s'embrouille pas avec des discussions politiques comme dans d'autres livres de Weber. Un peu de longueur, car les multiples combats finissent par se ressembler. En tout cas, l'écriture à deux est réussie dans cette série.
Bien sûr, j'ai beaucoup aimé . Une série qui porte la science-fiction militaire à son top niveau.
Tome 4 de la série Starfire
En fait, le tome 3 et 4 ne forment qu'un seul roman.
L'humanité est en choc. La puissante flotte de la fédération, lors de sa pénétration dans l'espace ennemi, a presque été anéantie par les arachnides qui l'ont prises en tenailles et on déplore la perte de deux amiraux légendaires de la fédération. L'humanité doit se ressaisir et capitaliser sur ses alliés extraterrestres et sa capacité industrielle. Mais la défaite a démontré que l'on avait sous-estimé la puissance de la flotte, ainsi que l'innovation et la puissance industrielle des arachnides. En plus, la fédération vient de se rendre compte que, non seulement les arachnides considèrent leurs adversaires comme de la nourriture, mais qu'en plus ils les élèvent comme du bétail pour s'en nourrir. Face à cette situation, et en plus du fait qu'aucune communication n'est possible avec les arachnides qui considèrent les autres espèces seulement comme des adversaires à éliminer, la fédération décide de mettre en action la directive 18, c'est à dire l'élimination complète et totale des arachnides.
Des ennemis implacables, extrêmement puissants, qui n'hésitent pas à recourir à des stratégies de kamikaze ou à sacrifier, sans retenue, des compatriotes pour se donner un avantage tactique. Mais l'analyse des épaves ennemis a permis d'appendre qu'il n'y a probablement que 5 grands centres industriels et de population pour l'ennemi. Petite différence entre les adversaires, les arachnides capitalisent sur les gigantesques vaisseaux de ligne alors que les alliés mettent plus d'emphase sur les minuscules et rapides chasseurs.
Et c'est reparti. La fédération et ses alliés sont acculés et doivent reprendre l'offensive et éliminer l'ennemi. C'est une question de survie. Mais l'ennemi ressent la même chose et se bat avec acharnement. Les flottes sont gigantesques et les affrontements dantesques. Un souffle épique constant à mon grand plaisir ! L'écriture est serrée et on ne s'embrouille pas avec des discussions politiques comme dans d'autres livres de Weber. Un peu de longueur, car les multiples combats finissent par se ressembler. En tout cas, l'écriture à deux est réussie dans cette série.
Bien sûr, j'ai beaucoup aimé . Une série qui porte la science-fiction militaire à son top niveau.
July 23, 2024
Direct sequel to In Death Ground, because 630 pages just wasn't enough to finish the story so they wrote 750 more. 750 pages of war porn, (Space) Navy battles, troop movements, ambushes, technological development, atrocities, survivor's guilt, hate, and lots and lots and lots of splosions. The hooman alliance fought the bug eyed alien monsters to a standstill in the last book and this one is about the offensive to wipe them out. And it's all just battles and battles and battles. They fight for a while, then one side comes up with a tech advancement and the front changes. Then one side comes up with a new tactic and the front changes. Then one side finds the goat path around Hell's Gate to attack the enemy from the rear and really changes the front. We get people being made heroes and people being made cowards and people being made martyrs. We get force creep, where in the beginning a big fleet had 50 ships but by the end there are thousands in a fleet.
As a wargamer I enjoyed the description of the battlefront and the tactics of space warfare with their surrogates for wet navy battleships and submarines and fighter planes and strategic bombers and such. The plot was extremely simple and the characters stereotypical, and the enemy was nothing but the intractable mindless advancing horde that destroys all in its path. But I was mainly interested in the tactical battles and the strategic planning so I found it enjoyable in the same way that John Wicke movies are enjoyable. It's just a lot of shooting and killing with one really big shootout at the end.
Addendum: Though I liked the book I think maybe the authors missed a fine opportunity. The first book was all from the Hooman Alliance pov and the BEMs hardly have more than 20 pages total of screentime. The second book could have been the opposite, with the entirety devoted to the pov of the BEMs as they tried to defeat the inscrutable aliens instead of leaving them as an amorphous blob with no personality. It would have been difficult but could have been really good if they had pulled it off.
As a wargamer I enjoyed the description of the battlefront and the tactics of space warfare with their surrogates for wet navy battleships and submarines and fighter planes and strategic bombers and such. The plot was extremely simple and the characters stereotypical, and the enemy was nothing but the intractable mindless advancing horde that destroys all in its path. But I was mainly interested in the tactical battles and the strategic planning so I found it enjoyable in the same way that John Wicke movies are enjoyable. It's just a lot of shooting and killing with one really big shootout at the end.
Addendum: Though I liked the book I think maybe the authors missed a fine opportunity. The first book was all from the Hooman Alliance pov and the BEMs hardly have more than 20 pages total of screentime. The second book could have been the opposite, with the entirety devoted to the pov of the BEMs as they tried to defeat the inscrutable aliens instead of leaving them as an amorphous blob with no personality. It would have been difficult but could have been really good if they had pulled it off.
May 8, 2019
I must begin by noting that I enjoyed this book, and it deserves the 4 star rating I have applied. Nevertheless, I fear most of my observations will appear somewhat contrary to that rating.
This is clearly the second half of the story begun In Death Ground. In several places, it assumes you know characters and events from the first book. I also found the book too long. I did like the lessening of battle detail as the book progresses, but I found the soul searching and moral ambiguity of some characters tedious.
This is clearly the second half of the story begun In Death Ground. In several places, it assumes you know characters and events from the first book. I also found the book too long. I did like the lessening of battle detail as the book progresses, but I found the soul searching and moral ambiguity of some characters tedious.
June 2, 2021
Outstanding follow-on to "In Death's Ground." What does one do when the utter and complete destruction of one's enemies is the only option available? Highlights the difficulties of inter-species communication, as well as irreconcilable cultural impasses between opposing civilizations. How does one negotiate with an enemy who doesn't understand what "negotiation" is? How do you bring an enemy to bear who sees outcomes in only a "win-lose" scenario? Can such an enemy even be reasoned with?
November 8, 2022
Once I had finished reading In Death Ground, I had no choice but to finish the series. This book is for those military science fiction aficionados who like incredibly detailed accounts of futuristic military tactics and technology, and who like their wars free from moral ambiguity. For those few of us, this book is a delight indeed!
January 5, 2020
Well crafted military SF - Bug bashing at it’s best
I highly enjoyed this series. The authors crafted a feasible world with an implacable enemy and kept me guessing as the series progressed.
I highly enjoyed this series. The authors crafted a feasible world with an implacable enemy and kept me guessing as the series progressed.
July 2, 2021
Wow, characters! One thing I'm realizing this series reminds me of is the pulp sci-fi novels like the Barsoom and the Lensman series.
For anyone seeking anything even closer to David Weber's Honorverse, this series is definitely not it.
For anyone seeking anything even closer to David Weber's Honorverse, this series is definitely not it.
August 7, 2023
Best sifi book I’ve reads it’s an epic book of massive space battles and the fate of humanity and it’s Allies the story of admiral kuscovo and the ending to all 5 home hives and the stories of Prescott and zhaarnik end so well as long as the fighter pilot imra
April 11, 2025
Amazing space opera
This book is well written. The plot is interesting. The characters are three dimensional and the antagonists are the stuff of nightmare. The weapons ,ships and battles are very well described. I highly recommend this book.
This book is well written. The plot is interesting. The characters are three dimensional and the antagonists are the stuff of nightmare. The weapons ,ships and battles are very well described. I highly recommend this book.
July 19, 2017
Good read. Good book. Some of the technical and internal monologues go on too long.
December 4, 2017
It was a good story but it became a little repetitive with their ship counting.
March 8, 2018
Great book and well read by the reader. He did great voices for the characters. Lots of great space battles and sad character deaths.
September 23, 2018
This was my favorite book of the series.
March 27, 2019
Great addition to a awesome series.
December 3, 2020
Fast moving military scifi. Agree with other reviews that the quality is better than his later works. Battles are exciting and we'll depicted.
Read
October 11, 2021Garbage
Totally one dimensional characters. I expected a heck of a lot more from a book co-authored by David Weber. Reads like a laundry list.
Totally one dimensional characters. I expected a heck of a lot more from a book co-authored by David Weber. Reads like a laundry list.
January 5, 2023
Great fun, in its own genre, fast paced space opera. Yay!
Don't read it if you can't grok it.
Don't read it if you can't grok it.
March 26, 2023
Still lightning in a bottle
January 30, 2024
Conclusion of the story arc started with the book "In Death Ground" (which is Starfire book #3).
November 11, 2024
Read this book years ago and loved it - finally got around to reading it again. This two book series really set me on a David Weber path as he's a great author.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 63 reviews