Customer Reviews

In Death Ground

5 star:		(45)
4 star:		(35)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

When I first read the back cover of IN DEATH GROUND, it sounded suspiciously like a rip-off of the great STARSHIP TROOPERS, by Heinlein ("Bugs" and "Arachnids" as the enemy, for gosh sakes). But after the first chapter I was hooked. For readers of sci-fi military lore, this book satisfies on many levels. The detailed and innovative descripton of future military technology ("SBMHAWKS"), the breathtakingly original tactics for fighting battles in deep space between two entrance/exit points (almost like fighting in a 2-dimensional universe, which would be far more difficult than in 3 dimensions), were absolutely riveting. The intrepid admirals, the high-tech battlewagons and carriers fighting a numerically superior and brutally agressive foe, the exciting and dramatic accounts of the desperate battles, and the incredible but realistic casualty rates of such deadly battlegrounds in space kept me glued to the book from start to finish. The only flaw in the book was the somewhat unrealistic use the Bugs had for the inhabitants of their captive planets. However, it detracted very little from the storyline and was easily overlooked in the overall drama of this gigantic campaign for survival of humanity and other allied races. The particular process of interstellar travel in this book, and its implications on strategic thought in this future century, was original and spellbinding. All in all, one of my top ten of all sci-fi books I have read and the equal in many respects to the great STARSHIP TROOPERS (the book, not the film!). Mr. Weber and Mr. White, please write the sequel. I have to know how it ends.

"In Death Ground" is the third book to come out in a series which also includes "Insurrection" and "Crusade." "Insurrection" takes place many years after the other two books, however. "In Death Ground" is, chronologically, the sequel to "Crusade"; moreover, it reuses many of the characters from "Crusade," as well as relying on background information provided by that book. So "Crusade" should be read prior to "In Death Ground."

That being said, "In Death Ground" is a book which is superior in many ways to "Crusade." At heart, both books are really nothing but space opera, in which space battles play a major role. But whereas the characters in "Crusade" were flat and there was little change in them from one end of the book to the other, this is no longer the case for "In Death Ground." Finally, what Weber has learned elsewhere gets a chance to shine here. His hand is clearly present at the description of space battles, but some of that great character insight he has shown (in the Honor Harrington series) he is capable of finally makes an appearance in this book.

The plot is straightforward, pitting again the Orion-Earth Federation Alliance against a new foe. Battle after battle follows, but this time we get insight the head of a few of the captains and admirals commanding this battle (something sorely missing from the previous book).

As opposed to both "Insurrection" and "In Death Ground", the issues are NOT resolved in this book; clearly a sequel is planned, and I hope not too far away.

In summary, this book is pure fun space opera, but with some actual three-dimensional, evolving characters thrown in. Fans of mindless space opera will no doubt enjoy it, as will those who require a bit more depth to their science fiction. But beware: you should probably read "Crusade" first, and that is, unfortunately, an inferior book to "In Death Ground."

"In Death Ground," like the rest Weber's and White's Starfire series, is one of those science fiction novels and can and probably should be intellectually rejected. However, when I started reading it I had a hard time putting it down.

The story is really quite simple: in the twenty-fourth century Humankind has stumbled upon a particularily nasty breed of aliens bent on systemically injesting (literally) every known being in the entire galaxy. Essentially these beings are ants in space, and they have little regard for their own life in pursuit of ultimate victory and, henceforth, the survival of their species.

There are other aliens, but as a whole the aliens are slightly and uniformly [weak]. It seems as if the author simply thought of various earth animals and made them aliens, from the cat-like (and therefore predatorial) Khanate of Orion to the bird-like (and therefore fragile and agile) Ophiuchi Association.

But the aliens are not really the focus of the novel, and neither are the relatively wooden characters. Instead the battles, strategies, and tactics of the opposing navies are really the most interesting part of this story. The reason is that this is novel based on a wargame, called Starfire, that includes a lot of novel ideas about space combat, namely warp points (points in space that allow for instantaneous travel between star systems) and reactionless drives (engines that allow spacecraft to behave like naval vessels.) In fact David Weber, the primary author, is the principal designer of the game, so undoubtedly all of these campaigns were actually playtested, and as a result are incredibly consistent.

In short, if you are looking for a story with compelling drama and complex characters, look elsewhere. On the other hand, if you want a pleasantly forgettable, yet strangely addicting military science fiction novel, then look no further. For military history and science fiction buffs (such as myself), this book is pure fun. For anyone else, it is probably a bore.

***/**** stars -- Nick Schrock

I loved this book and I just could not stop reading it, but... the book finishes just in the middle of the war and there was no warning of that. It has been three years since the authors wrote it: when shall we read the sequel?!

In Death Ground is one of the best book I ever read aside of the Foundation series. If you are looking for a story involving spaceships battling against each other, In Death Ground is the one you are looking for. Weber/White did 3 sequels on same type of background story. They are Crusade, In Death Ground and Insurrection. However all 3 books are not directly related. For example, you won't need to read In Death Ground to read Insurrection. But if you want to read with the timeline of the 3 books in mind you read in the order I mentioned above. One more interesting point is that In Death Ground came out at a much later date than the 2 other books. After reading In Death Ground, you would crave for a sequel to it. Unfortunately, Weber/White does not satisfy us with a direct sequel as Insurrection sets a much later date in the story timeline. If Weber/White is reading this, please give us a true sequel to In Death Ground.

First off, I want to say that I'm a huge David Weber fan, so naturally I devour his books like potato chips. I've read every book he's written and quite a few of the shorter stories that have appeared in anthologies. I love this guy!

Usually, David Weber's writing is right on, creating whole universes with imaginative merging of character, technology and action. This formula has made him an extremely popular author, and rightly so.

In Death Ground however falls short of his usual excellence. Based in the Starfire universe (in which other such books as Crusade and Insurrection are set), it follows a human federation's war against an insidious and non-understandable alien race.

Sounds good at first glance, but unfortunately, this book was a little too disjointed for my taste. There were a great number of sub-characters who showed up once and disappeared. That's all good and fine, but the sheer amount of them was overwhelming, and I for one like to see characters reoccur and develop over time. A few did, but that was the exception not the norm.

To make matters worse, the action got pretty disjointed at times. I found myself losing track of exactly what was going on. I got overwhelmed and had to set the book down.

The next book (this is the first volume in two about this war) comes out in the near future (of this review). I'm hoping that it is more carefully crafted.

I can't really recommend In Death Ground. If you enjoy David Weber, go for it, But my advice is to try 'Path of the Fury,' 'Insurrection,' or any of the earlier Honor Harrington novels if you haven't read him before. Any of those books are far better than this one.

What a wonderful sci-fi novel! I couldn't put it down. I haven't read any of Weber's other books and didn't realise there are prequels to In Death Ground. Nonetheless I managed effortlessly to get into the storyline.

I usually read about modern and ancient history warfare, which I now and then interrupt with a military science fiction novel. Yes, those novels which are so hard to find! At last I found a hard-core military space battle sci-fi book that is as riveting as any real-life war novel.

The book is one long action packed space battle with a myriad of different spaceships, strategies and manoeuvres that would have satisfied Alexander the Great, with battles lost and won to your heart's delight. There is very little time for mindless chatter or aimless wanderings in this space opera.

In Death Ground's inter-textual play with Heinlein's Starship Troopers works very well - from the description of the bugs and the name Bug War to the abrupt end. It even manages to drag Starship Troopers out of its sometimes dull think-too-much, do-too-little world, since the battle that never happens in Starship Troopers (the book, not the movie) has finally arrived here In Death Ground!

Lastly the book is thankfully void of over-zealous character development or any other human-interest ploys.

Really a superb book!

In Death Ground (1997) is the third novel by Weber & White in the Starfire series. However, it is the second in internal chronological sequence following Crusade and is the first in a duology with The Shiva Option. Insurrection is actually last in the series by internal chronology.

This story takes place 60-odd years after the Theban War. The enemy ambushes Survey Flotilla 27, destroying or severely damaging the survey cruisers and their escorts. The enemy then pursues the survivors through warp point after warp point. The Terran Federation Navy diverts two nearby task forces to reinforce the survivors of SF27 and sends all available freighters and transports to evacuate the colony planets. TF58, under Admiral Anthony Villiers, is the first task force to reach the SF27 survivors in the Golan system. He holds the warp point for a while, bleeding the enemy and evacuating part of the population, until forced to withdraw to Erebor. TF58 has a month to prepare, receive reinforcements, and to start evacuations, but the enemy then attacks through the warp point with devastating tactics, mass, and a new weapon. Villiers is forced to commit his battleline to slow the advance, losing his battleships, and leaving Admiral Jackson Teller in command of the withdrawal into the K-45 system.

This novel describes the desperate battles to stop the enemy advance. Since the warp points are bottle necks, the fighting is more separated than surface naval combat. Each warp point is defended and the TFN makes the Bugs pay dearly despite overwhelming odds against them, but more Bugs ships keep coming through. TFN reinforcements are still arriving, but will they be enough to stop the Bugs?

This novel describes a campaign similar in many ways to the Pacific theater of World War II. The attack on Pearl Harbor destroyed or severely damaged every US battleship in the Pacific, forcing the US navy to rely on aircraft carriers and escort ships. Therefore, the strategy was to harass the enemy with destroyers, PT boats, and submarines, while the carrier task forces struck at enemy concentrations and tried to destroy the Japanese carriers. At the Coral Sea, aerial attacks by US carrier planes severely damaged three Japanese carriers and destroyed several escorts. Then, at Midway, the US carriers destroyed four of the remaining Japanese carriers. These two battles effectively stopped the Japanese advance.

This novel is recommended to all Weber & White fans and anyone who enjoys stories of spatial battles with a touch of political intrigue.

-Arthur W. Jordin

Anyone who has an interest in good old fashioned rip-roaring space battles, who ever loved a story of a war between good and evil, who ever stared with fascination at movies of space aliens battling brave human spaceships will *love* this book. It's almost non-stop action, but intelligently told, with incredible space battles on an epic scale for enormous stakes. The aliens are mysterious and unfathomable, and relentless, and you know from the start (as one of the characters says) it will be a battle to the death between them and humanity and its allies.

OK lets get one thing straight. The evil aliens are formulaic instant parallels to Gamesworkshop's Tyranids, Heinlein's Bugs and the Buggers from Ender's Game (minus the character) and no doubt a whole host of other things besides. Also all of the other aliens (bar the Zarkoloyans in the second book) are humanoid animals.
On the other hand they are well realised and to counter this relative lack of imagination, the physics of the universe are innovative and rather cool, in particular the warp points lead to excellent writing.
The characters are rarely well done, with the exception of Kthaara'zarthan and Ivan Nikolayevich who'se hatred of politics (and accompanying descriptive language) is a refreshing attitude.
The space combat however (and face it this is what you bought it for) is excellently done with real descriptions of what is going on, so rare in this genre (in my experience) well to the fore, in particular the Pesthouse battle near the end is brilliantly realised.
Get this book it'll bring you back for seconds. (but next book they must do one about ISW three because they always mention it but never tell you much.)