Customer Reviews

The Sundering: Dread Empire's Fall

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Yet another great book from Walter Jon Williams, the most underrated SF author around. This book is the second in the Praxis series and should not be read without having read "Dread Empire's Fall". The Sundering (not that I get the title) picks up right where the first one left off with our heroes gallantly trying to put down a rebellion that threatens the stability of a 10,000 year old empire. The book starts off quick, stabilizes in the middle and finishes with a bang which leaves you wanting more. The story is not over yet and while I have no idea how many more books WJW intends to write, one can only hope for about two more, in which he should be able to wrap up the story and get on with something else. (I don't approve of endless novels). There is also a wonderful sense of humor throughout this book, not the Terry Pratchett kind, but a subtle realistic humor that makes this book very unique and a wonderful read.

WJW does a great job in showing just how hard it would be to stage a battle in space. Fighting gravitational thrust, incredibly long distances, inadequate intelligence all make a much more realistic view of space warfare then what is usually seen in SF novels. While other authors ignore facts of physics or invent some magical contraption to negate the effects, Williams deals with them honestly and effectively. This book is not only a great story, but it's not a cheat. In other words, as Arthur C. Clarke and other great SF writers have shown, it is possible to tell a good story and stick to scientific fact. While most other authors in this genre have conveniently forgotten how to do this in order to create boring "space operas", WJW forges ahead in the path developed for him by the great masters of SF. I only hope we see more of WJW soon and that he keeps writing great books like the Praxis series and "Days of Atonement", which is one of the best time travel novels ever written.

This second book in the DREAD EMPIRE'S FALL series is even better than the first. The characters continue to develop in complexity and their lives become even more complicated. An empire-wide civil war just makes matters worse for those involved. The result is a good story and bad times for galactic civilization.

In this installment the two major protagonists are reunited for a brief time only to have their personal foibles drive them apart. Each goes his/her own way and puts all available energies into fighting the war. Martinez does so with the fleet in space and Sula does so as a ground pounder. Each is extremely competent and each faces unexpected troubles.

I'm ready now for the next book.

The Sundering is the second book in the Dread Empire's Fall series. It continues the adventures of Martinez and Sula and more importantly deepens the relationship between the characters. This is hard SF set against a colorful universe filled with fascinating aliens and great battle sequences. What sets this book apart from so many "Space Operas" is the subtle humor and the complex and thoughtful characters. Williams is a brilliant wordsmith, but he can also tell a ripping good story. Buy this book. You won't be sorry. And may Mr. Williams continue this series for many more volumes.

The Sundering is the second volume of Walter Jon Williams' newest series, written around the lives of two engaging principals: Lord Gareth Martinez, the ambitious and extremely capable younger son of an enormously wealthy put hopelessly provincial family of Peers; and Lady Caroline Sula, the tormented street-child pulling off a galaxy-class con masquerading as the last surviving member of a disgraced line of Peers. As in the first volume, the action is set within that hoariest of all space opera clichés, the turbulent death-throes of a once all-powerful pan-galactic empire. What might have been just another cookie-cutter effort is instead a wild ride through space with the reader fully engaged in the lives, dreams, and perils of Lord Martinez and Lady Sula. Williams sticks with 'real' physics, forcing his characters to undergo long, punishing accelerations and requiring spaceships to follow ballistics and orbital mechanics. This isn't 'Hard' SF, but it's certainly working towards that. Williams won't force the numbers on you, but he never forgets that Physics are the ultimate player, and he never allows 'magical' performance from his spacecraft. Instead of resisting or wishing inconvenient forces away, he makes the constraints of physics a central driving force to the plot of this series. A refreshing change from the usual!

In the first volume, The Praxis, Williams has done a masterful job of setting the stage and setting the pieces into play. Now, we continue to follow the story as the action heats up and sparks (and missiles) start to really fly. Lord Martinez has become a hero of the Praxis, having managed to commandeer a warship right from under the nose of a massive and thoroughly-plotted conspiracy, and fight his way back to the capital with a skeleton crew. One of the few points of hope in the grim days following the attempted (and largely successful) coup, Martinez is decorated and placed in command of the vessel he commandeered, over the heads of many officers more senior. Further compounding their jealousies, he's placed in command of a light squadron on its way to reenforce a nearby system over a more senior officer. Balancing squadron jealousies and trying to shake his newly-assigned crew into shape, he's stunned to learn of the disastrous defeat that has essentially wiped-out the Home Fleet. Now, in addition to a demanding Commodore, a jealous 'subordinate', and a raw crew, Gareth must find a way to create new tactics that will spare the fleet the annihilation in the face of a superior foe and slavish adherence to hide-bound doctrines ossified in millennia of tradition. Gareth is called to lead his force back to the capital to protect it, but now there's an enemy fleet in his way...

Meanwhile, returning to the capital in a battered and nearly-dead cruiser not her own, Lady Sula is the sole survivor of her ship, and the only other bright spot of hope in the face of disaster and ruin. Part of a massive punitive raid against the traitorous Naxid fleet, Caroline watched helplessly from her pinnace as her ship, and most of the Home Fleet, was reduced to radioactive debris. The Praxis hasn't fought a real space war in over three millennia, and even then wasn't seriously challenged. Centuries of practicing the same drills over and over, with predetermined results guaranteeing the 'correct' outcome, has left the fleet unprepared to face a real conflict where both sides are equally equipped. In an orgy of incandescent mutual destruction, the loyalist and Naxid fleets consume each other in mad embrace. The Naxid fleet, however, is much larger, and while the Home Fleet is reduced to scrap, the Naxids have some resources left, and the capital is no longer protected. Only the patience and skills of Lady Sula allow the escape of any remnant of the home fleet, as she uses her carefully husbanded flight of missiles to punch a path open for their escape. Taking refuge in her communications with Gareth, where they discuss (at very long distance) Gareth's tactical innovations, and where Caroline adds her own distinctive flair and subtlety to the results, Lady Sula and Lord Gareth develop a growing intimacy. This time, Sula is determined that she will not flinch from him, and will make Martinez her own...

However, as always in any decent Opera, True Love does not follow the easy course, and Martinez and Sula will face the political maneuverings of the Family Martinez, its clients, and its sponsors, as well as the intrigues of the Convocation, and of the Navy as well. Looming over the entire tangled mess is the threat of the next move by the rebel Naxids, and the desperate need to find ships to reenforce the scratch fleet now defending the capitol. Professional jealousies and dogmatic superiors, disturbed by the sudden prominence of these two minor peers, throw further monkey wrenches into the works, and it seems the best chance of saving the Praxis may be lost to intrigue, jealousy, and myopia. The Naxids are coming, time is short, and events have taken on an irresistible momentum.

What will the lovers do? What will the Empire do? Read, and find out: You won't be sorry!

The Sundering is the second of Walter Jon Williams's space opera series collectively called Dread Empire's Fall. (First was The Praxis.) In the first novel the last of the Shaa, the long-lived aliens who controlled the multi-species Empire, died, setting off a battle for control. One species, the Naxids, rebelled, arguing that their status as first species to be conquered by the Shaa made them natural successors. The other species were taken by surprise by the rebellion, as they had apparently assumed that things would continue much as before, with power divided fairly evenly between the several species. A war quickly followed.

The central characters are two humans, Lord Gareth Martinez and Lady Caroline Sula. Both are relatively young and quite brilliant, and both become heroes in early action of the war, effectively preventing an immediate Naxid victory, though it is clear that the Naxids have the advantage of numbers. Martinez and Sula meet and are obviously attracted to each other. However both have flaws that will obviously cause future problems. Sula has a very dark secret in her background, further complicating her already compromised status as the last surviving member of a disgraced family. Martinez's family, while very rich, is provincial and thus his social status is tenuous, and his ambitions (and those of the rest of his family) tempt him towards dicey social and political manipulations, and occasional rather careerist, and conceited, actions.

In The Sundering, the story of the war as well as the personal stories of Martinez and Sula are advanced but not resolved, as one might expect from a middle book. Both are responsible in part for some further military successes, due to their brilliant tactical minds (and to fruitful collaboration). Their personal relationship takes some steps forward as well, only to be impeded by mutual misunderstandings, and by the problems mentioned above: Sula's past, and the ambitions of Martinez and his family. By the end of the novel a plan the two concocted for saving the Empire has been put into motion, albeit credited to more respectable people, and each are involved in desperate battles (of very different sorts) with the Naxids.

The book is very exciting, with some first rate space action, and some ground-based action as well. Williams appears to take great care in making his battle scenes plausible, taking into account travel times, acceleration requirements, and the general physics of space travel in planetary systems. Various aspects seem modelled on Napoleonic era naval adventure books, such as the hierarchical nature of shipboard society, and indeed the aristocratic focus of the overall society. The overall design is quite familiar, including such important things as the hero and heroine being brilliant mavericks, and such small details as Martinez's crusty and wily veteran servant. But if much is familiar, even cliché, Williams works very well within the form. The intrigues and twists and those disasters the reader sees coming give great pleasure. The flawed characters still attract this reader, and I root for them despite grimacing at their folly. This series is great fun to read, one of the most entertaining space operas in many years.

Walter Jon Williams' "The Sundering : Dread Empire's Fall (Dread Empires Fall)" is more than a satisfying sequel in what promises to be a multiple volume space opera saga which is far better written than virtually anything I've come across lately (The only notable exception seems to be Alastair Reynolds' ongoing epic, which is of a higher literary quality than Williams'.). Once more Gareth Martinez and Lady Caroline Sula (Or is she really the Lady Sula?) must contend with their romantic adventures while their empire descends further in a bitter civil war started by Naxids determined to assume control of the now-extinct Shaa's despotic interstellar empire. Much to Williams' credit, he has written some of the most compelling, indeed realistic, space battles I have encountered; without question this deserves ample attention within science fiction. But he's added a compelling saga replete with two fascinating characters in Martinez and Sula, and a fine prose style too. Indeed, I found this sequel far more riveting and exciting a read than its predecessor. And lastly, to Williams' credit, he ends the novel with the reader begging for more, raising the stakes - metaphorically speaking - with regards to future installments of this saga; without divulging what does happen, I will say that the future remains rather uncertain for both Martinez and Sula.

I very much enjoyed this book, as well as the second volume that followed. The characters were very well drawn, and react in a manner that fits their environment. When the last of its race, Anticipation of Victory dies, how will the Praxis survive? The Empire of the Shaa is a great backdrop for this story. Instead of humans victorious, or humans involved in a struggle for freedom, men are simply one of a half dozen conquered races living under the laws of the Praxis. This is a fantastic introduction to the series. The Empire is one of the most believable settings in a scifi novel I have read. The Shaa have assigned arbitrary values to the day, commemorate victory with ship names such as Destruction of Delhi, and enforce their laws with death or the complete destruction of worlds. There is not even a clue where their home world lies in space. I highly recommend this book to space opera fans.

Lord Gareth Martinez and Lady Caro Sula are even more interesting the second time around. What ridiculous names, yet what exceptional characters for a novel.
Martinez gets to show us his tactical space battle skills in ways that other "space opera" novels always fail to do. The battles in this book are exceptionally imaginative and demand our suspension of disbelief. This is not just a bunch of WWII naval engagements masquerading as deep space battles.
This book is an excellent continuation of the first installment (The Praxis) and includes much more intrigue, romance, scheming, fighting and useful flashbacks.
Spoiler --> Read it and weep (in a good way).

I don't have a great amount to add to the comments by the other positive reviewers. The series' cheesy title, "Dread Empire's Fall," initially put me off, but it only took a few chapters to put me in a state that required me to get the other two books and read the story straight through. The most difficult achievement, I believe, for Sci-fi authors is to create characters and personal drama that are as engaging as the epic story and setting they inhabit. Off the top of my head, the only Sci-Fi novels that have pulled this off as well (for me) are Simmons' Hyperion series and Hamilton's Commonwealth novels.

This second book and the series in general feature a wonderfully creative plot and universe created by the author. I have read all three and think that The Praxis is the best of the trilogy. The action in this book lagged a bit and it seemed at times that Lady Sula's plot line had been abandoned entirely. Still, I would recommend this series to anyone who enjoys a good sci-fi trilogy.