Customer Reviews

By Heresies Distressed

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Several things.

First, unlike the first 2 books, there is no map of the world. Surely an extra page for this wouldn't have added significantly to the printing cost, given the length of the book. And if the publisher had commissioned the map and owns it, then there might be no royalties to pay to the artist. The only map in the book is of Chisholm. It's basically a non sequitar. Little action happens there. Instead there should have been a map of Corisande. The land battles happen here and a map would have helped the reader. Puzzling omission. In By Schism Rent Asunder, there were maps germane to the naval actions, for example.

But let's move onto the text itself. As with the earlier books in the series, and indeed Weber's other recent offerings, this is long. Quite a contrast with his early works. The latter first came out in paperback, while as he got more successful, newer ones were in hardcover. Is Weber one of these writers that cannot resist the temptation to bulk up? I am reminded of Ludlum. His early stuff, like The Scarlatti Inheritance and The Gemini Contenders were gripping and compact. Then in the 80s, the books got longer and longer, and the plots more and more intricate. They became largely conspiring about conspiring in a meta self referential way, with the actual action deprecated. To some extent Heresies suffers from this. Though the countervailing opinion is that Weber is impressively fleshing out an entire world. You can safely expect other reviewers to bewail the seemingly interminable dialog!

By now this series is a fascinating variant on Drake and Stirling's 5 volume General series, The Forge (The Raj Whitehall Series: The General, Book 1). They posited a fallen world, reduced to early 19th century technology, and fragmented into warring monarchic statelets. The hero, Raj Whitehall, is Cayleb. There is a sentient computer, Center, who reveals itself to Raj and aids him in world conquest, primarily by giving him access to superior technology. Sound familiar? There are differences of course. Center does not have human form, unlike Merlin. And there is not the brooding backdrop of a genocidal alien race.

If you like Weber's series, you really should check out the General books. You will appreciate both. By the way, it was the General series that also has the "custom" of taking a common English name and mis-spelling it to add an air of otherworldliness. Some of you might look askance at this, but I think in both series it adds a nice filip.

One problem with the current series is the kryptonite dilemma. You know, when the Superman comics came out, the authors made the mistake of having him invulnerable. Hence the hasty inclusion of kryptonite. Even so, there is always a problem in those comics; Superman has it too easy, frankly. Ditto here. In Heresies the battle scenes lack enough suspense. The combination of Merlin's introduction of better weapons and his ability to surveil incoming enemy dispositions removes a lot of the tension. In the General books, Center had lost its satellites and could not surveil, which let Stirling even the odds somewhat, by having Raj often unaware of enemy deployments. Hence the enemies at times could pull genuine surprises that were difficult to overcome.

Think about it for a moment. Imagine you are a general with better weapons and tactics. Plus you know where the enemy is. Just the latter is priceless in war. Any of you from a military background, or who read history, will be well aware of this. The book rolls the dice so heavily in favour of Merlin. Oh and yes, Merlin has super-physical powers and effectively cannot be killed in combat. Come on! Weber needs to tighten the odds to make more interesting reads.

In similar wise, Birmingham ran into kryptonite with his Weapons of Choice (The Axis of Time Trilogy, Book 1). That series suffered from the same problem; most everything the enemy did was easily detected and foiled.

On a final note, Heresies can be better appreciated if you have read other Weber books. Notably In Death Ground. Heresies has the humans and Bugs swap places. But also look at The Excalibur Alternative. That had a human group escape genocidal aliens and set up an empire capable of taking them on. In Heresies, there is a piognant moment when Merlin explains to Cayleb what the Church cost the humans on Safehold. If technology had never been suppressed, then after 500 years the humans would have improved their weapons and rebuilt their numbers sufficiently to go hunting the Gbaba. Instead, they must still unwittingly huddle on Safehold and hope to continue undetected, like mice near a cat. Excalibur was the antithesis of this current scenario.

By the way, in 2008 Weber was on a book tour for Shism. I asked him if he ever intended this series to have humans take on the Gbaba in a rematch. He said unlikely. The emphasis of the series is on having the humans throw off a tyrannical Church and on how there could be good people on both sides of this conflict. Damn!

I loved "Off Armageddon Reef", despite the character names. The names were a huge impediment to understanding; it was a constant chore to translate them (or should I say "trahnzlayte thayem"). I liked "By Schism Rent Asunder", but not nearly as much as the first book. I hoped "By Heresies Distressed" would get back to the people and what at first appeared to be the major theme, but it didn't. It became very impersonal. It felt as though the interactions between the major characters were thrown in at random and for inadequate reasons.

Also, as other reviewers have mentioned, the story was lopsided. The good guys won too easily; the bad guys were so evil they were comic bookish. By book three, all the characters were shallow, and the story fluctuated between religious politics and mechanisms of warfare. Not that those were new themes, but there was too much "They have more muskets, but we have better rifles. They have the better ground, but we have better cover. Of course, our better cover means we have to deal with brush and vines, which hamper our longer rifles. This shape cannonball is good for reasons A,B,C, but the other shape has the advantage of X,Y,Z." This is combined with constant switching between a large number of characters with distracting names, and I found myself skipping pages because I no longer cared. I no longer knew who was on which side of the conflict, except for a small number of major players, and skipping pages didn't reduce my understanding of a thin story line that seemed to drift from theme to theme. I felt frustrated by all the dropped issues, the little threads that seemed to be introducing a subtopic, but were never mentioned again.

I had such hopes for this trilogy, but I was very disappointed, and I don't think it's done. Based on the vengeful thoughts of a minor, uninformed, young character who vows to make someone pay for something he didn't do, I think the door is open for more shallow confusion and more drift from theme to theme.

I've noticed problems in other books by this author. In one Honor Harrington story, the plot was interrupted by a very lengthy, boring, distracting discourse on the history of a character's family background. It did not fit in with the action of the moment, a conversation between Honor and the bad guy.

I think publishers have decided that some authors are so popular that they don't dare edit them for fear they will switch to another publisher. I wish some brave soul would tell Weber that he needs to learn to define his scope, focus, and quit introducing distractions that don't add anything of such value that it's worth the sidetrack. I get the impression that he can't decide if he wants to write action or something with political/sociological/religious depth, so he tries to combine them and fails.

This is a good book, not a great book. The premise is very interesting but the pace and movement in the story has become too slow. It appears Mr Weber is trying to stretch a three or four book series beyond what he can do and still generate the attention and interest of the reader. I have loved most of the author's books especially the Harrington novels but felt left up in the air and disappointed at his inability to finish them off in a decent fashion and I fear this series is headed in the same direction. At the same time his single issues such as Troll,and on Death Ground, were fantastic. This book continues the thread of the first two in the series, more slowly and with less focus on the dominant player but is still well worth the read. Relationship development could use a boost and side bar stories could broaden the novel providing better future options. All this being said, I still find David Weber one of the better reads available.

Series generally drag as they get longer. This one is no exception. Weber's vice is dialog. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Page after page of scheming, analysis of schemes, more scheming. When the characters are not talking to each other, they talk to themselves in italics. Not many authors can hold my interest this way. About three things actually happened in this whole book. The Honor Harrington series tanked the same way. I'm skipping the rest of this series and only reading the first book in the next series Weber comes out with. He's written some decent novels, but never a decent series.

What can I say, I am a David Weber fan. I am current on his three series (Safehold, Honor Harrington, and the Multiverse) so I generally like his books but this one, although well written, just fails to get started OR go out with a bang. I just felt like he was trying to move the ball forward a few yards on the major plot lines rather than developing the overall story. Add to that a twist at the end which kills the main "event" of the book with a whimper and I was left wanting more. I am all for this series extending out to a couple dozen books like the Honor Harrington series but the parts have to be better if the whole is going to be worth it.

The Safehold series is a longer version of the basic plot line first developed in Heirs of Empire. I really enjoyed the first book, Off Armageddon Reef. The 2nd book was slower and seemed like a middle book. Now we're into the 3rd book and the series is definitely much longer than Heirs of Empire, but the action scenes are shorter. What? I don't get it.

By Heresies Distressed has no naval battles, which is fine because it has army battles. The author did army battles very well in Heirs. In fact he's set up the same basic scenario, a small better equiped army has to break out through a mountain pass held by a larger army. But for some reason these scenes were skimpy in Heresies.

I'm a veteran of half of the Honor Harrington series, Empire from the Ashes, and the first two books. And I've got to say, Weber is in desperate need of second drafts. This was an overall let down. I suspect that in the future, this will be a necessary bridge to hopefully better books later in the series.

The series has definitely sputtered and stalled; nearly nothing technological happens in the plot, and the pages are padded by incessant repetition of points. Weber is cursed by an annoying tendency to build up plot points and then anticlimactically cut to less interesting aftermath.

As another reviewer noted, it's annoying that the only map included is of Chisholm, when most of the limited action occurs in Corisande.

All his characters follow the same two-dimensional pattern; he could swap the names in half the conversations and no one would notice the difference. Every conversation follows this pattern regardless of character or setting:

Point A, Counterpoint to A, Point B, Concession to Point B, return to Point A, Compromise C. Without fail.

In the end, I might buy the next book, but I'm patient enough now to wait for the paperback. It sure would be nice to spend the next 400 pages reading some science fiction, rather than endless ruminations about sailing jargon, the "hardness" of glares, how "softly" someone can speak, or what causes their "nostrils to flare."

Lots of talking, filling up paper (or wasting paper)...

There should have been more action and a longer plot for the book.

It looks as if David Weber's books are becoming more like Terry Goodkind's Sword of the Truth series.

Even Terry's books have more action than this one.

The action, however rare it is, is good.

The endless talking is not only long, but it is the same tone of voice and same "personality" for ALL of the characters. This makes it dull and boring. I had to skip pages upon pages of talking.

Here are the action sequences (SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS below):

The taking of Corisande only took 2 major battles to win over, about 3 chapters total.

The attempted assasination of the Queen was only 1 chapter.

A whole lot of writing was done on the actual "traveling" between Charis and Chrisholm.

If there are any action sequences I am missing, please forgive me.

All the "talking" drowned out the action scenes.

Now, it took the previous book in the series to take over Chrisholm.

It took another book (this one) to conquer Corisande.

There was a map in the last book, and there is NO relevant map in this new book.

If you look at the previous map in the last book, you will see that there are another 10 to 12 countries/regions, which are bigger than Corisande.

So, if it takes one book to conquer one nation, it looks like there will be 10 to 12 more books to go.

All in all, it was a mediocre book, with lots of talking that could have been compressed, coupled with good action scenes.

By Heresies Distressed
This is the third installment of the 'Safehold' saga by David Weber. I would never have slugged my way through it except that I had waded through the first two books and was hoping to get to the end. I was dismayed to discover that the third installment is not the last. The story still fails to reach a conclusion and will live on for yet another volume.

My biggest complaint about this book, as well as the second installment of this series, is that the main literary device used by Mr. Weber to move the story laboriously along is to force the reader to sit through an endless series of meetings. We sit in on counsel meetings of church leaders, conspirators in bars, war counsels, kings and advisors, unimportant characters who briefly appear and add nothing to the plot. Sprinkle in here and there an occasional battle.

I really thought the initial volume was the best. I liked the concept but have been disappointed as the series drags on. I recommend it as bedtime reading for insomneacs.

Bordering on being too wordy and taking a bit too long to develop the action. I hope the next book gets to business and is not just another moneymaking installment on what is and should continue to be a great series. I bought this in hardcover and now I wish I had waited for paperback. I will read the next in the series in paperback.