I've been working on this one for awhile--listening on the drive too and from work etc., and while I hesitate to give things I like a three on this site (as, in my opinion most reviews seem to treat a three as a negative or meh response despite it's definition as "I Like it"), but I just couldn't bring myself to go higher. This one starts off absolutely brilliantly, and had the whole thing been as good as the prologue it would have been a five+ rating and I would be ravening over the prospect of getting my hands on the next in the series. Unfortunately, after an amazing prologue that presents an amazing premise and the most fully developed characters in the book, the execution of the story that inevitably follows is ragged in spots and slips from the lofty standard the prologue set. If you consider discussion of the basic premise of a novel, material summarized on the dust-jacket or the back blurb, to be spoiler material you may want to skip this paragraph. I don't so I will be forging onward without hiding it or providing further warning. Weber's premise is as vast and epic as anything I've ever read, and I am always enthralled by the ambitious scope of grand space opera or Epic fantasy. In the Safehold series, Human civilization has been wiped out during a centuries long war with an alien civilization named the Gababa (I only listened to this so I've never seen "gababa" written down. This is my own phonetic spelling). The only exception is the single world of Safehold where the military officers of Operation Arc, after ten years journey in hyperspace have founded a colony designed to re-start human civilization. During the ten years the operation's commander and the operation's chief psychologist altered the mental template to be used on the volunteers who will be the seed population for this world and altered the original plan to develop what they hope will be a permanently low-tech planet bound culture that will allow humanity to survive without being detectable by the Gababa. To accomplish this they institute a religion they call the Church of God Awaiting, which is created as a hodge-podge from Earth religions with an added super-strict anti-technology/anti-innovation doctrine. They then pose as divine beings (archangels, not deity/deities although that's still quite a god complex)in order to cement the belief system in the minds of the colonists. This religion replaces all record of old Earth and previous human civilization and has as its goal preventing the human race from ever becoming sufficiently technologically advanced to encounter the Gababa for a second time. The members of the military mission who disagreed with this religious lie and the brainwashing that accompanied it and attempted to preserve human knowledge were killed. This is all from the prologue. It captures all that is best about the book its amazing world building, its epic scope, and real genuine human characters who are conflicted and who make mistakes. And there are highlights to the novel. Weber writes what action there is very, very well. The climax is exciting and well-written. The ideas that hit powerfully in the prologue--freedom vs. security etc.--play out realistically throughout the novel. Despite a plethora of battle sequences there is a sense of the horror of war rather than its glorification. The world building is amazing in many aspects, especially politically and militarily. The intrigue that forms the majority of the plot--and it is a huge book in which mostly political moves are made until the final third--includes enough realistic debate and power play to be interesting. I will probably try the next book in the next book in the series before deciding whether or not to go on and would certainly consider any other series by Weber on its own merits (as his merits as a writer are considerable) rather than judge it by this one. And yet...When the novel proper begins eight hundred years later, much of what was excellent about the prologue is lost. The high concept is preserved, and there is just enough intrigue and action to carry through the story Weber is telling and it is genuinely exciting at parts, and the potential of the story he's telling remains enormous, even at the end of the first volume. The world is well drawn, politically and militarily, but there isn't much else to identify the various nations culturally. Those differences described are all political without truly touching on the cultural. I have no idea (other than the reader's accents)what separates Caris from anywhere else on the Safeholdian map except that they are arbitrarily more open-minded, and they have a great navy. Nothing else makes them stand out. And the rest of the world-except for a short passage early on in which governments are described are just that--the rest of the world. Undifferentiated even in economic products except for the idea that one of the nations, an empire that still practices outright slavery, is the only one that can produce a certain type of fabric in any quantity because it would take slaves to do the work. No freeman would do it. In this story, the characters are either Carisian (good guys) or everybody else (bad guys). The church is disgustingly, patently corrupt, and the Carisians are heroic. All Carisians (except for a single token traitor) are heroic, and all the nations allied with or bullied into allying with the church are operating from selfish motives. Either self-preservation or greed and ambition. There are very few characters developed as such, and none of them seem to have any life at all outside of the main plot, and are thus interchangeable, or are at best archetypes that never achieve flesh and blood. The noble prince and heir to the throne, the wizard/higher genius, the good king, the corrupt priest, the ambitious king, the bullied smaller nation, etc. Whenever something happens to break the types associated with a specific group it is one individual who is placed as a nod to the possibility of individuals within said group that break the stereotypes. The characters in the prologue all acted out of varied human motivations, and were people I felt I could identify with. I had a hard time caring much about any of the characters in the novel proper. And Weber does have a tendency to belabor the technology that he is dealing with. Granted, technology are central to the plot of the story and to the premise, but I feel like I could use this novel to write a graduate level research paper on the ship building and gunnery techniques of Safeholdian navies in the period just before the arrival and then just after the arrival of the main character. It's a horse that is more than beaten to death, it is beaten down to its component atoms. And it would appear at themost inopportune moments, always ready to disrupt what would have been a gripping sequence. I'm hoping the good overcomes the meh and outright bad for me here as the series goes forward because there was a lot of good stuff to be had and as I said I fell in love with the premise almost right away.
By page 17, humanity and all of her colonies have been exterminated by the implacably hostile Gbaba, except for a fleet of fugitive humans that has safely evaded the Gbaba scouts and established a low-tech colony on a world tens of thousands of light-years beyond the reach of the Gbaba (for the time being that is). The colony was to have maintained a low-tech profile to avoid attracting the Gbaba's attention, and then develop the advanced technology needed to defeat the immense, but static-technology Gbaba fleets, some of whose ships, while thousands of years old, have exactly the same weapons technology as recently-built Gbaba warships.Unfortunately the leaders of the fleeing colony decide to impose a "permanent" low-technology doctrine on the colony by first erasing the colonist's memories and then presenting themselves as gods or archangels with a religious doctrine aimed at preventing *any* technological advance beyond the level of 14th century technology (except for that technology employed by the archangels themselves, that is). To counter this perversion of their human origins and heritage, one of the founders had a backup plan; he had the mind and spirit of a young female tactical officer transferred to an immortal android body, ordinarily only used for temporary, high-risk 'adventures'; but in this case meant to employ a cache of high-tech information and technology to overthrow the religious authorities and restore humanity's inheritance and then ultimately develop the strength to go back and eradicate the Gbaba for all time. The story takes place nearly 1000 years after the colony has been established, when Nimue Alban awakens in her android PICA body to learn that her patron and his supporters had been eliminated by an orbital nuclear strike but that he had succeeded in eliminating most of the Archangels themselves, but not all of them.In a 14-century world, Nimue Alban, re-configures her PICA's android body as a male, assumes the name Merlin, and presents 'himself' as a savior/adviser to King Harrahld of Charis after saving his son Caleb from an assassination attempt. Merlin then sets out to improve Charis' navy by making vital technical changes to its ships' sailing qualities, cannons, and muskets/rifles, all meant to individually pass the inquisition's review, and yet give Charis the fighting power to stave off defeat by her numerous enemies.Unfortunately (there's that word again), the Church of God Awaiting chooses to disavow the impetuous and innovative Charisians, and instead orchestrates a naval alliance against Charis by coercing two of her allies and two of her enemies to combine forces with a fifth kingdom, the single largest navy on the seas of Safehold, to attack Charis without provocation or warning. Merlin's network of spy drones keep him and through him King Harrahld and Prince Caleb informed of their enemy's intentions and movements, which enables Caleb to ambush half of their opponents' combined fleet and destroy it, even against odds of 6:1, before returning to confront the rest of their opponents ships in a battle to the death.This story combines themes Weber has explored before, anti-technological religious dogma, genocidal aliens, and super-high-technology versus massive fleets with powerful but static technology. The novel ends with Charis facing a backlash as the Church of God Awaiting is forced to realign against her in a religious war of annihilation, which is set to play out over the course of at least six more novels; not including the ultimate buildup to humanity's final confrontation with the Gbaba. Readers may find the story overly-long and protracted, even tedious (unless you develop an attachment to the characters involved, at any rate). Even Weber enthusiasts may find it hard to read through the rest of the novels of this open-ended series. However, I enjoyed it enough to order the first novel in hard cover after reading it in paperback, and to also order the next five books in hardcover as well.
What do You think about Off Armageddon Reef (2007)?
When a good friend raves about a book, convinces me to read it, and it turns out that I think the book is dumb, I hate how that puts a temporary damper on the friendship. A coworker strongly recommended this book to me. I think this book is dumb. I think the whole premise is dumb. I think that it's completely sexist that the main character changes genders from female to male so that she can 'better fit in/exercise influence' in the world she ends up in. There are only two kinds of characters in this book - good guys, and bad guys - in spite of the fact that there are hundreds of characters who all have different names. Plus there's the fact that only about one paragraph in ten pages is actually necessary to advance the story - lots of skimming. At least that made it a quick read, and since this is the first in a series of at least eight books, it's making some good money for the author. It reminded me of a Tom Clancy book - all the 'good guys' are physically strong, handsome, smart, strong-minded, skilled at causing physical violence, masters of military strategy, firmly monogamous and totally identical. The writing style is even similar.So what do I say when my coworker asks eagerly how I liked it? I thought it was totally lame, and don't recommend it at all.
—Adrian
The last 100 pages were unbelievable. Book was a bit long, though.-------------------------------http://abitterdraft.com/2013/10/off-a...Picture this: an incredibly powerful race of aliens known as the Gdaba halted the human exploration in space and all but wiped humanity out. The remainder of the human fleet splits up – one half cloaks and stops moving, the other continues flying to draw the Gdaba away. The half of the fleet that cloaked and escaped colonized an Earth-like planet called Safehold.Here’s the catch – the Gdaba can detect any technology of the industrial level or higher. Humanity is forced to revert to a medieval society, where Safeholdians know nothing of their space-faring past and all believe in one religion run by a very strict church. Nimue Alban’s mind awakes in the body of an android and she is given the task of helping Safehold break away from its medieval prison, despite the teachings of the oppressive church, and eventually take on the Gdaba. Since Safehold is a medieval society, Nimue’s android body is made male, and she takes on the pseudonym Merlin Athrawes. Merlin ventures to the Kingdom of Charis, an island much like Old Earth’s England, to kickstart this scientific revolution.I’ve never read Weber’s Honor Harrington series, but I’ve heard nothing but praise for the man’s talent. The premise for Safehold seemed awesome, and with Weber’s credentials I couldn’t imagine being disappointed.I noticed a few things right off the bat that I found questionable, the first being the unconventional names. I’m all for having fantasy-like names such as Tisamon or Bayaz as opposed to modern names like Jim or Tom. Weber decided utilize the fact that humanity had to restart in picking names, so we’re left with ones like Haarahld instead of Harold and Bynzhamin rather than Benjamin. The idea makes sense and it’s kind of cool when you think of how names evolved, but on paper and with a cast as large as Safehold‘s, it’s a bit of a struggle to remember them (though this is a nonfactor with the audiobook). They’re definitely something you get used to the more you read, and you have plenty of time to get used to them with 800 pages in the paperback, which leads me to my next point.The Honor Harrington books were rather average in length, floating between 350 and 450 pages for the most part. Safehold books are more or less all upwards of 700 with some even pushing close to 1,000 pages. In most reviews of the series you’ll find that people comment on Weber’s infodumps. While trudging through Off Armageddon Reef‘s 800 pages, the infodumps are readily apparent, and they really mess with the pacing. Occasional bits of information are nice, especially where background is needed. It seemed like Weber was almost flaunting, though flaunting is too harsh a word, his being a font of knowledge, for dozens and dozens of pages at a time. The book could have been slimmed by several hundreds of pages and been truly outstanding.I bet an eyebrow or two were raised at the mention of Nimue taking the form of a man to make acquiring a position of influence easier, especially with Weber’s ability to write strong female characters. While Merlin is a man, Nimue’s female mind is definitely still inside the android. She doesn’t just magically lose her attraction to men, which leads to some hilariously awkward situations. Like I said, the cast of characters is huge, full of bastards like Prince Nahrmahn of Emerald and people you ‘t help but love like King Haarahld and Prince Cayleb of Charis.Weber’s infodumps are sometimes very useful and necessary, but often extremely slow the pace of the tome that is Off Armageddon Reef. The final 150 or so pages made everything worthwhile, though, as they include some of the most outstanding depictions of naval combat I have ever read. Off Armageddon Reef, while overlong, was definitely worth the read, and while I’d like nothing more than to avoid getting caught up in a series that may very well exceed ten books of over 800 pages each, I will definitely be attempting to catch up.
—Patremagne
For imagination and scope of vision this must have high praise. For an entertaining and thought provoking blend of science fiction and fantasy, this also gets high praise. But ... It is very long, tends towards space opera melodrama and somewhat collapses under its own weight. It was also formulaic and predictable, though in fairness to Weber, he fills in the predictable gaps with great attention to detail. Some of the dialogue was flat, but most of the narrative was OK to read. Just … too much, kind of like the feeling you have after eating at an all you can eat discount buffet.
—Lyn
