Customer Reviews

PATH OF THE FURY

5 star:		(45)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I LIKE David Weber's writing. After I found my first Honor Harrington, I couldn't rest till I had the whole series. And I've read 3 or 4 of his other books.

But this book is really special. Weber brings three distinctive personalities: Alicia, a very special warrior; Tisiphane, one of the three furies; and a very advanced AI. All three inhabit the same body although the AI also inhabits their star ship.

There is breathtaking suspense as our protaginist(s) track down some particularly evil pirates, solving the mystery of who they are, where they come from and what their ultimate purpose is. Aided and impeded by her own military, she uses the arcane talents of all her selves to accomplish her goals.

But more important than the space opera aspects (and Weber sets up some of the best tactics and strategy in space warfare you'll find), the development of the conjoined leading character is fascinating. For both adventure and character development,this is a don't miss book.

I had read the Honor Harrington series, and loved it, but I still had some misgivings about this book. From the reviews I had seen, I was afraid the story would be too unbelievable (well, aside the very existance of a Fury :), and, perhaps even more problematic, that it would have pages and pages of schizophrenic dialogs.

Boy, was I wrong... the story has none of the sort. The main (human) character is a commando. A *very* elite commando, with the best cybernetic implants money can buy and research can produce. The Fury is a megalomaniac divine being with a very ironic sense of humor, and proud of it. The AI is... is like a treecat, in some ways. All three share some basic personality traits, which sometimes place them at odd with each other (or more often, two against one). Unlike the impression I got from other reviews, these entities are clearly distinct, and the main character is quite rational.

The story is very fast paced, the action scenes are great and the fine humor kept me grinning (when I wasn't chuckling or outright laughing) throughout most of the book.

I can't say you will like this book if you like Honor Harrington books because, unlike in HH series, there is no detail or depth in the combat scenes. But it is a very fine book.

it takes a brave and extremely good writer to actually produce a book with a plot that involves a bronze age mythical demon, a cyber-enhanced female warrior, an AI-controlled combat vessel, over-the-top escapes, two distinct alien races, and believable politics (well, you accepted the fury, you're not going to object to the politics, are you?). now, include humor and some really good writing, and you have any reader's idea of a fabulous book.

as other readers, i love the honor harrington series and was a bit reluctant to try this in case it was too much like HH or not to the same standard. however, since mr weber is taking so unconscionably long to produce the next HH, i bought this book. i am glad i did.

the characters are absobing, multi-dimensional, real in their responses to situations. not all the villains are dyed-in-the-wool nutters, but the heroes are definitely heroic. mr weber obviously knows his military history, but he's pretty darn good at political history, too. and his grasp of psychology puts to shame a lot of other writers praised for perception. and the humor ranges from chuckles to guffaws. and, on a minor note, i really enjoy the names he creates for his characters. the combinations subtly suggest the effects of centuries of social changes.

PATH OF THE FURY is the first David Weber book I've read. With over 35 years of scifi behind me, I still enjoy a rousing "spaceopera" This one was highly rated by readers and amazon kept recommending it, so I decided to give it a try. By the time it arrived, though, I was having second thoughts. The hype-laden cover, complete with flaming letters, didn't help, but after letting it languish on my shelf for a couple of years, I figured it was time to get on with with it. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be pretty good.

Don't get me wrong. PATH OF THE FURY doesn't quite rank among my all-time scifi favorites. Nor can I find it within myself to give this kind of book a five star rating. Nevertheless, it has an engaging story line and the main characters have more depth than you usually get in books in this genre. And, as you would expect, there's lots of action. It's definitely not dull.

I thought the idea of bringing an ancient Greek demi-goddess into the story was a bit over the top. I took this to be scifi, not fantasy. I can accept a lot as far as future technology, alien lifeforms and new worlds go. After all, nobody knows what the future (or the universe), holds. But mythological entities from the past don't fall within that realm as far as I'm concerned. Still, it works tolerably well within the context of this tale, so this is a minor issue.

I liked this book. It was well-plotted, there was lots of action, and the main character, though something of a super-woman (not to mention the assistance of the demi-goddess), was conflicted and sympathetic. If you like good "spaceopera", PATH OF THE FURY fills the bill.

Great, fast paced adventure as I've come to expect from Weber's tales. Unfortunately, Amazon's webpage led me to believe that it was a sequel to Weber's "In Fury Born." They are, in fact, the same book - one in hardcover and one in softcover. Buy one or the other and enjoy!!

"Path of the Fury" is probably the best book David Weber has written. This is the book that started it all for me. I picked it up in a library years ago back in 1994, and I've been an avid fan of David Weber ever since. I can't hold back recommending this book to any reader who might see this review. Now if we can convince him to write a sequal...

"Path of the Fury" follows retired Imperial Commando Alicia DeVries and her search for vengence against the pirates who murdered her family and gutted the planet she had made her home. She is helped, by the mystical and self-serving Tisiphone, one of the long lost Furies of Greek legend. Their quest leads them to steal an artificially intelligent ship and... well, why spoil it.

Weber has a unique way of creating universes that have extrodinary depth and complexity, while at the same time intertwining character development and action flawlessly. It is the depth that makes David Weber such a good author. This book shows all of his best qualities, and could easily be called the best of what he's written. He's an ever more popular author. This book shows why.

I can't recommend it enough to those who haven't read it. Give it a read, you won't regret it.

This work from Weber is different from many of his others. It does not appear to be a part of a series but it has all of the makings of the possibility of being the anchor in a very good series. It stands alone just fine as an exceptional story but leaves me yearning for more. It is space opera and deals with space navies and empire but it is not Honor Harrington. It is the story of an outraged woman and her vengeance.

Alicia DeVries is a "retired" drop commando, one of the elite of the elite. She and her extended family live on a colonized world at the periphery of human space and all seems fine until the pirates come to call. They wipe out her family and most of the rest of the planet. It is not the first planet they've hit. Something big is up and no one knows quite what it is. The pirates are at a disadvantage, however, because Alicia was not present when her family gets it. She is out hunting and come back to bushwhack the bushwhackers and manages to take out a whole landing ship while being grievously wounded herself. She is content to die and regrets only that she cannot get the rest of those responsible before she dies. Enter the Fury.

The Fury is an ancient entity, weakened with time but still one of the goddesses from ancient earth. We never learn exactly what she is but we know she is a created being and that her sole purpose is vengeance. She offers Alicia a deal. Accept "possession" by the Fury and she will live and get her own vengeance. Alicia takes the deal.

That summarizes the first chapter. The rest of the book is about how she goes about getting the bad guys. In the process, Alicia loses part of her soul and the Fury becomes more humanized. Then a AI starship enters the picture and we get a little Trinity bent of vengeance AND justice.

The whole bit with the Fury is a bit fuzzy and not well explained but it works well in the story and that is the point. It is a good story. I hope for more.

"Path of the Fury" is one of David's few stand-alone books (in fact, the only other so far is "Apocalypse Troll").

It looks like standard space opera -- albeit of the very highest quality -- as we introduce a planet-raping pirate fleet on the order of "Doc" Smith's Boskonians; a fleet that apparently is *intentionally* maximising casualties in its raids on colony worlds. It appears as if they are carrying "dead ment tall no tales" to its logical extreme -- but even early on there are indications it may be even more than that.

One shuttle-load of such heavily armed and murderous raiders is just unlucky enough that, on a backwater planet their fleet is raiding, they happen to hit the farm that is the home of Alicia de Vries, retired Imperial Marine Drop Commando. And said lady, who had been out hunting a Very Large native predator on the far range, returns in time to find her entire family wiped out and the Bad Guys still on the ground.

With nothing to live for, the heavily-augmented Alicia proceeds to become the sort of berserk that is the worst nightmare of any fighting man -- beyond pain, able to shrug off even normally-fatal wounds, totally unconcerned about herself, and determined to have revenge before she dies herself.

And, it is as she lies dying herself, having taken revenge on all of the killers of her family, that David introduces the twist that makes this book unlike virtually any other military SF novel you have read or will ever read, in the person of a character who, in consort with Alicia and one other, will raise them all to higher and higher levels of prowess, to the point where Alicia is not only possibly the greatest individual warrior who has ever lived, but even more -- an implacable, unswerving personification of vengeance who terrifies even herself.

In the person(s) of Alicia and her two partners, who collectively may be said to be the Fury of the title, David has introduced a rather daring twist on military SF that, at the least, challenges the underlying assumptions of a mechanistic Universe that are basic to so much of the genre; has bent if not broken the rules and succeeded brilliantly in producing an original and Very Satisfying adventure.

Powerful as they are, Alicia & Co still face many difficult if not deadly challenges -- both from the Bad Guys and from well-meaning but non-comprehending Good Guys -- that the book is hardly a boring walkover, even for them, and the action is hot and heavy enough for even the most jaded military SF fan's taste.

His best so far.

Alicia DeVries is a strong woman to begin with. When she follows her grandfather into the military, she is cybernetically enhanced to near super-human strength and speed. She is disillusioned by a real FUBAR that costs more than ninety percent of her platoon their lives and retires to live with her family on a remote planet. Without giving away the plot, something happens that leaves her more dead than alive; HOWEVER,she survives and works to exact vengeance, assisted by Tisiphone, the last of the Furies. Along the way, they link up with an AI ship. This makes Alicia truly super-human. Without being boringly detailed about the battles, Weber gives enough information to keep adventure fans involved. He also maintains enough of Alicia's humanity and vulnerability to keep her an interesting person and not just an angry killing machine.

"PATH OF THE FURY" (ISBN 0-671-72147-X) by David Weber combines history, mythology, advances in the sciences and technology into a complex story that I found hard to put down until I had finished the entire book in one day. Approximately four millennia have past since the time of the powerful beings of Greco-Roman mythology and the events in "PATH OF THE FURY." History has seen the rise and decline of many civilizations, cultures, and governments through intrahuman conflicts and other internal and external factors. Also history has seen advances in science and technology that has been both beneficial and harmful to humanity. One of the beneficial advances has allowed humanity to sail from the shores of Earth across the vast sea of space to inhabit almost 2000 worlds. Another advancement was the invention of implants that allow approximately 60% of humanity to directly interface with both conventional and Artificial Intelligent (AI) computers. Of course the most advanced use of these enhancements (implants) is by the military to augment an individual's body into a one of humanities most potent and dangerous weapons. After approximately three millennia humanity was divided into two factions, the Federation and the Terran League and had made contact with two star spanning civilizations, the Quarn Hegemony and Rishathan Sphere. Peaceful and beneficial relations developed between both human groups and Quarn because of the differences in physical appearance and resource world requirements of the two species. The Quarn evolved on a world with a gravity more than two times that felt on Earth and an atmospheric density that is lethal to an unprotected human. Relations between the Federation, the Terran League and the Rishathan Sphere were filled with border conflicts and covert operations designed to cause a war between two or all three of the governments, because both humanity and Rishathan evolved on worlds with similar planetary conditions. Two wars were fought between humanity and the Rishathan. The First Human-Rishathan War (HRW-1) began between the Federation and Terran League through the covert actions of the Rishathan, who then launched an invasion into human occupied space. When the war ended the Rishathan controlled most of the Terran League worlds and the Federation fragmented into civil war. From the ashes of the Federation emerged the government of the Empire. After the Empire had recovered sufficiently, attention was turned to the recovery of the human inhabited worlds taken by the Rishathan. During the Second Human-Rishathan War (HRW-2) the Empire forced the Rishathan to the prewar borders of HRW-1 freeing most of the human inhabited worlds designating the territory as the Franconian Sector. From the end of HRW-2 the Empire has been recovering from the two inter-species wars by maintaining a large naval and military force in the Franconian Sector to ensure that the Rishathan do not invade again. Ten years prior to the events in the "PATH OF THE FURY" ninety-five members of the Imperial Cadre Drop Commandos, the Empire's elite military unit, were sent on a mission to rescue two hundred hostages being held by a terrorist group. Intelligence information indicated that the terrorists were poorly trained and armed. Of the ninety-five who started only seven of the Drop Commandos, led by Master Sergeant Alicia DeVries survived the nightmare mission successfully saving the lives of all the hostages. The loss of eighty-eight commandos led to an investigation that failed to find out how the intelligence information could have been so wrong, but no answer was ever found. Five years after the rescue mission Captain Alicia DeVries is part of a raid on a Rishathan military base and learns that the Intelligence officer of the earlier rescue mission falsified the number and military capabilities of the terrorists because he was a spy for the terrorists' backers. The same officer, now a colonel, is the assistant intelligence officer attached to Captain DeVries mission. When Alicia confronts the colonel with the information, he tries to escape and Captain DeVries attempts to kill the traitor. The colonel survives and assists the government in shutting down the spy ring that he had be part of. Unfortunately, in exchange for the colonel's assistance he was not tried and properly punished for his crimes. Captain DeVries is offered the choice of resigning from the Drop Commandos or go on trial for assaulting a superior officer. Alicia resigns and moves to Mathison's World, a colony on the frontier of the Franconian Sector. Another five years have pass, bring the reader to the start of the book. Three colony worlds are attacked, with two being wiped out, by pirates. Mathison's World becomes the pirate's fourth victim. One of the pirate's assault teams attacked the DeVries homestead killing Alicia's entire family. One of pirates is killed before Alicia arrives to kill the remaining pirates by herself, but is mortally wounded herself. In her grief and desire for vengeance, Alicia awakens Tisiphone, the last of the Furies of Greco-Roman mythology, and strikes a bargain for the Fury's assistance. Thus begins the "PATH OF THE FURY."