A Novel in the Safehold Series (#4) - A Mighty Fortress

If I hadn't read some of David Weber's books (e.g. Armageddon Troll, Dahak Series) I might think he was confused about what genre he was supposed to be writing for. He does realize he supposed to be writing science fiction right? I mean, that's the gig I signed up for.

Instead I find myself reading page after page after page of boring historical soap opera. I was going to call it an 'historical drama' but then I realized there really is precious little drama in this 700 page tome. It really does read like a soap opera put to the printed page. If you have ever seen a soap opera, you know what I mean. Scene after scene of people having endless discussions. Well that's what this has become. I strongly suspect that Mr. Weber has had a ghost writer do much of this work, and I suspect that writer was a woman.

Beyond that, if Weber (or his ghost writer) is going to recapitulate the entire history of Earth, from the middle ages to beyond the present, then he'd better get cracking unless he wants this series to go on for another hundred books. After 4 books, we have only covered about 3-4 years, and it hardly seems like it is getting anywhere fast.

The only thing I can figure is that he plans to short circuit that evolution (say, Gbaba scouts have found Safehold) and Merlin has to bring the current cast of characters up to speed. That would explain his laborious character development and his lingering on this time period.

Of course, I realize that Weber may have just wanted an excuse to write about his pet love of 15th-16th century naval warfare. Since there isn't much market demand for such stories, he may have decided to simply wrap such stories in a science fiction shell and try to pass it off as sci-fi.

Maybe that's a little too harsh, or maybe it's a little too hopeful. It's hard to tell at this point, but I will look forward to the next book in this series and hope that David Weber starts to once again write science fiction.

Ken
[...]

The Kindle edition was a joke with the typesetting done in India or China but clearly not by anyone who knows English.
Does DW believe that someone is reading this book without having read the first three? Please in the next one no more repeating what went on before we all know who Nimue is by now. excuse me but I always thought that good writing was more than simply telling a series of events but there was supposed to be some sort of character development. tension expressed etc. comeon DW.

I've really enjoyed this series, and like David Weber's other writings as well.

While not as fantastic as the first two books in the series, I think I actually enjoyed this one better than book 3, By Heresies Distressed. I was at first reluctant to get into this one because of some of the other negative reviews. I quickly discovered though that instead of not liking it for the lack of action and too much politics, as others have said, I enjoyed it quite a bit. Books that are all action....quickly bore me....it's the same stuff just rehashed with new names and circumstances. But these books mix action, politics, intrigue, espionage, etc..... so keep me interested.

Definitely not for the faint of heart however. This book is big at almost 1100 pages. The cast of characters is like a Cecil B. Demille movie on steroids....with probably a hundred plus primary characters to try and keep track of....and a slew of minor ones. Especially the nobles with names like Black Rock, White Pine, Blue Mountain, Orange River, Yellow Stars, Green Clovers, and Pink Diamonds....where's the leprechaun? :) Probably the only thing bad I have to say about it. But when there's an entire world of nations and leaders, battles and geopolitics to cover, I'm not sure how you could tell this story without the vast number of characters.

I'd give it 5 stars except for that. If you love Weber and Safehold.... and aren't an "action only" nut. You should really enjoy this book.

Looking forward to the next in the series!!! :)

Matt

There are many reviews here which basically say the same thing...this book is incredibly slow.
I am repeating that message in the hope that adding one more voice will add some weight to the possibility that the author changes his writing style to what it was in the first book in this series.

I loved the first book. Second was ok..still good. The third was ok..bearable.
The fourth is torture. I found myself skipping whole chapters of pointless conversation. It is still worth reading just because the basic premise of the series is gripping...but ...please,Mr Weber...more action less conversation..

This has to be the worst formatted Kindle book I've had the misfortune to buy. Words split in multiple places. Paragraphs split up or combined. Maps that are impossible to read. Hyphenated words split or combined randomly. I'm returning this to the store because it is too difficult to read.

As some have said, the book sometimes bogs down in detail. Some plot choices--Merlin Athrawes' "mission" to Zion stands out--border on inexplicably, urm, less than useful in advancing the story. What did he do there? Weather reports. *sigh* What a waste of time. A few continuing infelicitous word choices mar the narrative as well. For example, "Lords temporal and secular" referring to a gathering of church and secular dignitaries is just silly, as "temporal" in the context of referring to persons of authority as "temporal authorities" _means_ "secular" but Weber continues to do so in this book as well as all the other Safehold books, and his editors have yet to call him on it. Sad. Other similar lapses mar an otherwise good read. Still, _despite_ 22 or so pages of dramatis personae (seriously, the list is in the back of the book!) to keep up with, the inexcusably cumbersome name spellings to slow down the flow of reading and the relentless hammering of the same theological/social issues over and over and over again until one can almost simply note, "Ah, THAT discussion again" and "read" the next few pages blindfolded, it's _still_ a good read. And I'll buy the next one in the series, too.

There are many reviews here which basically say the same thing...this book is incredibly slow.
I am repeating that message in the hope that adding one more voice will add some weight to the possibility that the author changes his writing style to what it was in the first book in this series.

I loved the first book. Second was ok..still good. The third was ok..bearable.
The fourth is torture. I found myself skipping whole chapters of pointless conversation. It is still worth reading just because the basic premise of the series is gripping...but ...please,Mr Weber...more action less conversation..

This has to be the worst formatted Kindle book I've had the misfortune to buy. Words split in multiple places. Paragraphs split up or combined. Maps that are impossible to read. Hyphenated words split or combined randomly. I'm returning this to the store because it is too difficult to read.

As some have said, the book sometimes bogs down in detail. Some plot choices--Merlin Athrawes' "mission" to Zion stands out--border on inexplicably, urm, less than useful in advancing the story. What did he do there? Weather reports. *sigh* What a waste of time. A few continuing infelicitous word choices mar the narrative as well. For example, "Lords temporal and secular" referring to a gathering of church and secular dignitaries is just silly, as "temporal" in the context of referring to persons of authority as "temporal authorities" _means_ "secular" but Weber continues to do so in this book as well as all the other Safehold books, and his editors have yet to call him on it. Sad. Other similar lapses mar an otherwise good read. Still, _despite_ 22 or so pages of dramatis personae (seriously, the list is in the back of the book!) to keep up with, the inexcusably cumbersome name spellings to slow down the flow of reading and the relentless hammering of the same theological/social issues over and over and over again until one can almost simply note, "Ah, THAT discussion again" and "read" the next few pages blindfolded, it's _still_ a good read. And I'll buy the next one in the series, too.

I have been reading other reviews, and I felt the need to submit my own review.
True, these books are not all action, but then not everything needs to be a Salvatore book with fighting every 10 pages (and I have read everyone of his books, too)
This book does not have a lot of fighting action, but what I find just as compelling is the thought BEHIND the action that does happen.
I am not normally into simple conversation and political dialogue, but David Weber has produced a truly outstanding series of books that includes just enough dialogue and action to make it all believeable. His insights into human frailities, human weaknesses, and especially human strengths, are phenomenal. How people react to bad or good news, and to life events. Its amazing. I find myself thinking "How can someone justify that action, ever?" and yet it happens all the time!

Compare this series with SM Stirling's "The General" with less action, more intrigue and thought behind every action sequence.

I highly recomend this book, and this series. Everyone needs to get off the action high horse and actually think once on awhile. After all, even Drizzt is a thinker, at least most of the time. And for those of us that have been there, we know that combat is 99% thinking and 1% fighting, and this series just examines the 99% with just enough detail.

I had gotten the impression from book 3 that # 4 was going to be the last one, obviously not. and like the other reviewers, fortress was waaaaay toooooo long. half the pages would have made a better read. hopfully

I am by history a HUGE David Weber fan. This book is terrible; very poorly written. After roughly 150 pages I gave up in disgust. My time is too valuable and there are too many good books out there to bore myself silly with a plethora of words signifying little to nothing. This series is on the disappointing side altogether; but this volume the worst. I do not find the premise interesting. If I wanted low tech I'd read history books. The characters lack diversification: every individual evidently thinks, and especially "snorts", and .............provides significant pauses, ubiquitously. The 'pregnant pause' used to be a device Weber used very sparingly, and hence to good effect. Now you can find these on nearly every page. And how ironic given the absence of anything of particular substance said or thought by any character in this book. If David Weber wrote this book, I think he sold out. Periods of creative rust require rejuvenation; not shameless exploitation of reputation to sell dreck. Shame on you, Mr. Weber, even if you didn't write it, your name is on it as author.

A lot of other reviews have complained this book is long and tedious. My advice is to stick with it.
This is a series with a huge scope and lots of plot left to play out. You can afford a book like this that builds lots of parts of the plot without nail biting action every page. There is plenty of intrigue and action, just not on the scale of the previous books.
Some of the chief protagonists develop into more capable adversaries. The Earl of Thirsk is obviously going to be a key player. Even the group of four, develop from industrious idiots into industrious and clever adversaries with enourmous resources behind them.
On the Charis side, their allies increase and their industrial and research base are rapidly accelerating.
I think this book is the calm before the storm.
You may not feel compelled to stay up until dawn to finish it but an enjoyable read from start to finish.

Haven't bought this yet. I've gotten away from hardcovers and moved into kindle books, but I might have to order a hardcover for this one. I just can't see myself paying $15 for a kindle book when the hard cover is $17. Seriously, what possible reason is there to price the kindle book at $15?

Don't buy the Kindle edition.

While the book is a reasonable addition to Weber's Safehold series, the Kindle edition is poorly done. At $14.99, the publisher could have taken the time to make a decent digital edition. Here's some of the issues:

* No Table of Contents (in a book this size, it's an issue)
* Map labels are not readable (you can see the outlines, but the text in the map stating the location is blurry)
* Poor spell checking (lots of words are split up like "in de pen dent")
* Random numbers in the chapter headings (can't tell if this is a function of the Kindle edition)

Someone (the publisher? the store?) needs to enforce quality standards upon the Kindle edition books. Even a cursory glance through this book would have spotted some of these issues. It is disappointing that neither the publisher nor the store seems to care about the actual reading experience after you've paid for the book.

I have enjoyed this series immensely and looked forward to this episode in the ongoing saga.

I enjoyed it but I couldn't help but feel that it was essentially a gap filling exercise to gather the author's thoughts together before moving on the the climax. There is a lot of explanation and commentary rather than action, which detracts from the overall effect of the book.

As such it makes no sense whatsoever as a stand-alone novel and can only be read in order after its predecessors.

I have very much liked this series so far, and am looking forward to the next book. There are a number of comments in reviews about lengthy discussions and plot development between episodes of action, and to a small extent I agree. But that is also part of the charm of the series - I enjoy getting to know the broad range of characters and subplots in the series. Weber is thoughtful and detailed, giving substance and color to his story, and you can enjoy living in this world, with his characters. It is a book, and a series, that you can reread, and find aspects that are new.

I like many others am a GREAT fan of all of Webers novels. The crappy Kindle version detracted from the pleasure normally associated with reading. I was disappointed in the many pages devoted to 'fluff'. But still looking forward to next installment.

David Weber is showing just how difficult it is to stretch a story out over , a projected, ten volumes. This volume in particular is an evident filler, as nothing really happens to take the story to the next stage. It however, does set the stage for another step. Having heard that the series does not end with a return to space and a confrontation with the "bad guys," I find myself losing interest in the series. The comments on there being a lot of "what the person is thinking" content, rather ignore the fact that this is David Weber's style, at least in this series.

I'm a huge fan of Weber's previous work and found the Safehold series extremely compelling. And what's not to like? A lost human colony with 19th century technology is slowly being manipulated back towards modernity by an android with a love for constitutional democracy and a secret stash of gravtanks. But as so many other readers have noted, Weber offers us detail at the cost of action.

And by action, I don't just mean titanic battles or desperate sword fights. I'm about 200 pages into the book and nobody is really doing much of anything. It's not exaggerating to say the book has mostly consisted of chapter after chapter of meeting minutes.

I will certainly finish the latest installment to the Safehold series, since the story is still fundamentally sound and Weber can still take it (and us) in interesting directions. Having said that, A Mighty Fortress feels like something the author wrote as an assignment for his fans, rather than a work intended to entertain them.

First off, I'd like to say that the series is an interesting concept. Other reviews will give you a basic idea of the plot, so I won't bother you with another review that says the same thing.
This book is essentially further development of the characters and story. Characters develop nicely in this book, and the author has nice use of imagery to envelop the reader in the story. I believe to truly appreciate this book to the fullest, however, knowing about sailing and basic sailing terms would greatly help.
I would not recommend this book to someone who is new to the story due to the large number of characters and the roles they play. You will spend most of the book just trying to keep the characters straight. I believe you can still enjoy the book due to the many action sequences, however it will be far more enjoyable if you start with the beginning of the series.
I eagerly anticipate the next release in the series. I read on the authors site that he plans on the series being around 8 books or more.

First off, I'm a HUGE David Weber fan, and over the years, I've been a terrible and unashamed Honor Harrington Junkie, but I didn't find David Weber thru HH universe, but instead I came to find his work thru the universe of Starfire series and Dahak series, and one book that really sparked this series, Heirs of Empire (Which, if it wasn't the same author, would be plagiarism). That particular book was really a condense plot line of this current series, and I'll not belabor you'll with it, since you look it up for yourself, or maybe even read it. So, I've read A LOT of his stuff over the years, and imho, A Mighty Fortress is the best book of this series since Off Armageddon Reef, which introduced us to this universe.

Spoilers Below!

Cons:
- I'll start with the negatives, but given the comments and reviews I've read so far, many have pointed out the same things. First off, the characters are getting too flat and predictable, as they did for a while in Honor Harrington. This series is slated for twelve books, so I'm REALLY hoping it's not going to all be in this timeframe. The Tor website says 4 of 10 books, but I'm really hoping it's not more of what we received in the past 3 books, since as many pointed out; this book had TOO many "Robert Jordan-like" embellishments. When I saw the original page count, I was really excited, since I thought A LOT of time and material would be cover in this book, so covering just over a year was a head scratcher.
- The titanic battle at the end of the book is getting to be very stale, since it leaves you with a unnecessary cliff hanger for the next book, and it's really getting to be a cheesy way to keep the story going. Four book into the series, I don't think we really need a huge anymore convincing to read more books, and it's not like you can pick up this book to start the series. The next book is probably not due for another 12 months...so why keep us in suspense for that long? Imho, and I'm no writer, it would have been much better to have had this battle around pages 300 to 400, and conclude the story and leave us with a fresh start for the next book...this is the third book in a row to do this to the readers.
- Repetitive texts were prevalent in the book, and a good editor should have caught some of these, since once again...this is the fourth book of the series...we don't need to reminded in detail of what happened in previous books...sorry, but if a reader can't remember, they perhaps need to go back and re-read the previous books.
Pros:
- A Mighty Fortress really seems to have pushed the story along much further than the previous 2 books. Basically, Corisande and Zedebiah plot line have concluded for the most part, even though they still have unnecessary lose ends...in the form of Irys and Daiyvn. They have also effectively concluded the huge looming naval attack from the combined forces of Mother Church.
- One of the best parts of Weber's writing is his very detailed knowledge of Military structure in its minutia. Something like the establishment of the chief of Staff position, and the importance of a flag officer's staff...so many writers don't know how it, and this really makes Weber's writing so fun to read....it makes sense! No other Sci-Fi writer gets the whole breath of military strategy and execution, like he does.
- Nice tie-ins to the introduction of future technical improvements, as ships are going to enter the ironclad age of ships, and the modern combat arms of land warfare. Since the Proscriptions of Jwo-Jing limit technology to those powered by wind, water, or muscle, steam power would clear be okay. Not only that, but they should be able to jump ahead to airships as well. Seems that it would serve be a great answer to naval groups commander have recon eyes in the skies...current ballistics don't have the range to effectively shoot down airships.

So, over all, I was happy to read this book, and I pretty much was glued to it over 3 1/2 days, but it just left me wanting more plot, and less descriptions of everything. At the current rate, this is turning into another WoT series and 2010 makes it 18 years since I read The Eye of the World for the first time, and there are STILL TWO books to go!

If Macmillan really believes that we should be paying hardcover prices for their e-books (which have none of the distribution costs of hardcovers), then they can at least make damn sure that ther e-book is of a similar quality. It's quite obvious that nobody even looked at it once they did the conversion, since the software they used replaced all the soft hyphens with spaces, resulting in the book being almost unreadable. They also replaced the hard hyphens with hyphen-space, which is also ugly and not good e-book practice.

If you want to read par a graphs writ ten like this, instead of a de pend able ex cell ent e- book con ver sion, then buy this book and allow them to think it's okay to be med iocre.

Five starts for the story but only One for the Kindle conversion. Unfortunately it's clear that TOR just converted the book to Kindle format and never even bothered to even read the conversion! (or spell check it for that matter.) Every couple of pages there is a 'word fragment' that breaks my concentration and slows down my reading. Examples are:

pre de ces sors
in de pen dent
de pen den cy

All within a few pages. It totally takes you out of the flow to have to pause and try and recognize these as the words they are.

For the money they charge, Tor could at least proofread the Kindle version!

This is a logical continuation of Book three, with virtually no break and minimal review of the previous books. It is, as usual with David Weber, very well written, with good flow, fairly fast paced and constantly building to a climax.... which we will have to wait for the next book to read. Sometimes I think I'll just wait until all the books in a series are out before I read the first one, but I can't. He's very addictive.

A Mighty Fortress is as good as all the previous novels in the Safehold series. I was unable to put it down. I'm a sailor, and thus enjoyed the sailing-ship battles most of all. I drew diagrams of ship positions and wind direction from the author's verbal descriptions. I could accomplish this consistently, at least for the first engagements of each battle. In only one instance I found an error in which a ship was incorrectly named.

The idea of the accelerated development of both sailing and fire-arm technology in a 15th century culture is reminiscent of the Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. The history of the development of guns from smoothbore matchlock to rifled barrels with explosive shells is played back at an accelerated pace. We see how the innovators develop and use both ship and firearm technology to win against enormous odds.

More of the book is devoted to political intrigue than to battles, but the intrigue is engaging. The book could be shortened by abbreviating the light-hearted banter between principal characters that occurs at the beginning of each meeting scene. Some of the sentences are too long. A map of Safehold would be useful. The Kindle version has no map. The Kindle dictionary is too small to cover some of the nautical vocabulary (hounds, scantlings etc). The author could help us with some of the more esoteric jargon.

Nimue from the crystal cave of Mort De Arthur fame who awakens to a world of medieval technology must surly appear to be a magical being. An android construct that appears to be a fully functioning human, with apologies to Gene Roddenbury's Data but with the ability to morph into any configuration how can you go wrong. Merlin, AKA Nimue is zipping about in a stealthy space shuttle while mere mortals are moving at 6 or 8 knots in their state of the art wooden ships-of-the-line and battling hand to hand with cutlass and knife. The daring-do of midnight riders coupled with bugged rooms and instant communications all controlled by an AI computer, in said cave and becomming aware, called OWL and acting as a familiar, what's not to like. But most of all true love and soulmates struggling with Goddly men against a corrupt and debased priesthood for the souls and future of the last remaninate of humanity, give me more.

Keep it up David and thank you for your efforts.

Not yet thirty years old, many believe that Cayleb Ahrmahk is the greatest naval officer in history. His victories are legendary as he defeated handily the combined forces of five princedoms. On a personal level, his success at sea enabled him to meet, court, and marry Queen Sharleyan of Chisholm. On Safehold, the pair forge the Charisian Empire built on his naval prowess.

However, their most powerful adversary on Safehold, Church of God Awaiting, has declared the regime's rulers heretics and must be destroyed. Their first endeavor failed as the Church faithful failed to use the technology of the Charisian Empire. The second assault is an armada unlike anything in the history of Safehold. However, their foes do not have warrior-monk named Merlin Athrawes on their side. Merlin is the cybernetic avatar of a long dead female Nimue Alban, who died while watching the Terran Federation on numerous planets destroyed; Safehold is the last human stronghold and inadvertently the Church is leading the final extinction.

The latest Safehold science fiction thriller (see By Heresies Distressed) is a great continuation of the struggle for First Amendment type rights and freedoms from a church controlling society. The world of Safehold is incredibly developed as readers obtain a deep look at a culture run by a religious dominated caste system that compares unfavorably to the freedom of the relatively small Charisian Empire. With a strong cast (though the hero feels like a Harrington clone) fans will relish David Weber's powerful condemnation of church equals state; or for that matter any oligopoly controlling all aspects of society by oppressing freedom.

Harriet Klausner

As a reader who has eagerly followed the Safehold series, I pre-ordered "A Mighty Fortress" in early April. When the book arrived, I proceeded to sit down and tear through the 690 (story only) pages of alternative transplanted religious history in three evenings.

(One quick note: I do enjoy most of Weber picturesque descriptive passages, but the ever-expanding page counts on his books have me trembling about the next Honor Harrington tome. I'm guessing each book will have to be delivered in its own moving van.)

At any rate, Weber continues the story of humanity's last colony, composed of the descendents of the brainwashed "Adams" and "Eves" who were planted on Safehold to escape the genocidal Gbaba. Plus one cybernetic avatar of a Terran Navy officer, who is attempting to get the last humans back on a path toward the stars and a rematch with the alien world-killers.

Some reviewers have complained about the endless conferences and meetings that Weber describes in detail as a weakness in the writing, and I have to admit it did frequently slow down the storyline. It was, however, fun to see what the one group of characters were thinking about the chess moves being played out on the other side of the political situation.

I also like that he did not simply have Merlin solve every problem the Charisian Empire ran into over the course of the plot. One physical being simply could not do that, and we get to see the consequences of his being unable to do so in this book with the gruesome death of a character.

The descriptions of the naval combat and the various nations' preparation for the same were entertaining to me; but I always like a little background with my blood and thunder. Weber did seem to cut the endgame of the three significant naval engagments short. Apparently, this was to give the characters in the subsequent scenes some meaningful exposition to impart to the reader, but I for one would rather have had a first-person narrative.

One problem is that Weber is recreating the Protestant reformation as something it most definately was NOT: a struggle of basically peaceful religious reformers, forced to fight courageously against a completely corrupt church hierarchy. Now, it's his world; he can do what he wants with it, but the political struggles in the actual history were a lot more complex and messy than the simple morality tale Weber is presenting here.

I wish he would spend a little time showing us some of the Temple Loyalists as more than a few pages worth of exposition of essentially unthinking religious zealots, crass political calculators or the occasional duped well-meaning spear-carrier. It is only a few pages of these, of course, because they are always quickly and justly arrested and executed or, if they are lucky, given a clean(?) death in combat.

What I am also getting a little tired of in this series is the almost absurdly "Good" main characters with whom Weber is completely and blindly in love. Caleb, Sharleyn, Mikel Stainair and a half-dozen or so other members of his usual "Band of Brothers (and Sisters)" who may do some ruthless things, but they are always doing them because the consequences of NOT doing them are so obviously terrible for so many other innocent people.

The only human failings these people (like Saint Honor of Manticore) are shown to experience are their guilt feelings over not being able to save everyone depending on them in the middle of a FRIGGIN' MAJOR WAR(!) and their righteous anger at the evil tactics of their dastardly foes. Conversely, Weber allows these people to, incidently of course, be shown indulging in the same lavish lifestyles as the villians, but always inserts a line or two about their charitable actions and feelings toward the less fortunate, to distinquish themselves from the greedy, unthinking villians. A little of that kind of self-justification goes a long way with me; I don't need it repeated every few chapters by dozens of protagonists, great and small. Just let them eat well, sleep well and sit in a damn comfortable chair without giving the reader a mental trip to the confessional every once in a while!

I'm going to keep reading this series since I really like the premise, the battle scenes and the occasional bursts of humor that shine through, I just hope for a little faith from Weber that we would still like his favored characters even if on rare occasions, they did something selfish or ethically questionable.

The Safehold Series has a fascinating premise:

Even with access to space age technology, how can one 'man' single handedly sow the seeds of change to modernize/democratize a 1600 century culture/world steeped in the dogmatic teachings of a corrupt and all powerful Inquisition/Church determined to halt any Reformation/Renaissance?

Plus an evil alien empire (which has already wiped out the Terran Empire & the rest of humanity save for this one hidden away colony) lurking in the background potentially ready to pounce on any sign of emerging advanced civilization.

Actually a prequel on this conflict would be nice tho challenging to write a story with downer end already known. So.... for a decent plot with some suspense, Weber could create other escaped colonies or orphan military fleets (which found allies? hidden stock piles of ancient weapons from prior civilizations? Cloaking technology? wormholes to another part of the galaxy? explaining how they survived when main battle fleets didn't?) that are other wise occupying the aliens also adding to the reasons why this colony has yet to be found and wiped out (current reason: its technology is too backward to attract attention).

Also wondering if Weber ever intends to advance the Safehold series sufficiently so that searching out & taking on and defeating/exacting revenge on the aliens become a possibility. He is soooo dragging out the series that it does not seem likely; at the rate it is going both he and his readers will be ensconced six foot under before the story advances to that point!

David Weber is EXCELLENT in battle/combat sequences. Unfortunately, in between, he waxes on and on, long & exceedingly boring, taking waaaay too long to set up/resolve conflicts.

Massive skimming is the only way to 'read' this book. There are good parts, they are just few and far between. The book is 700 pages, it could've easily been 275 and a LOT better book,

This is the fourth in the Safehold series and un-initiated readers should start with the first, which as I recall is "Off Armageddon Reach" or something like that.

Despite being wordy and full of conversations between the many protagonists, Weber's writing, as usual, sucks you into the story and makes you hungry for more. This series shows signs of lasting for a loooooong time since the action proceeds at a glacial pace.

I'm a fan of David Weber's books, but not this one. Sometimes a book or movie starts with exceptional promise, but its sequels drift off course, and by the third or fourth you're wondering why you even bothered. That is, I'm sad to say, what has happened with the Safehold series. It's the Rocky VI of the Weberverse.

"A Mighty Fortress" is tedious and rambling, with extensive dissection of religious nuance and military logistics but little action or intrigue. Most of the elements that made the series worth reading in the first place have vanished. Most of what is left is buried beneath the leaden weight of a cast of hundreds, meaning each makes relatively brief appearances. (This is no exaggeration -- the list of characters at the end is 21 pages of single-spaced names. What was Weber thinking?)

If you like swordplay, look elsewhere. There is none. If you enjoy cannon-and-grappling-hook naval battles, don't bother. The first significant naval engagement happens, by my count, on page 509 of 690. By that time, your eyes have glazed over from 10-page disquisitions into the salient chemical properties of gunpowder. Or you've simply given up after reading word-for-word transcripts of Archbishop Maikel's sermons. It's no exaggeration to say I fell asleep at least twice reading what probably should be called "A Mighty Long-Winded Fortress."

We know Weber can do better. His Honor Harrington series remained a good read all the way through the most recent installment. Weber's Mutineers' Moon was a delight, as was his collaboration with Eric Flint on the 1632 series. And the Safehold universe remains the most intriguing intersection between advanced science and high fantasy I've ever encountered.

It's come to this: Weber badly needs an editor with the seniority to stand up to one of Tor's better-selling authors. This book would be excellent if it were cut by two-thirds and merged with its predecessor (By Heresies Distressed) and its sequel. As it is, with a few exceptions, the fourth Safehold book is about as entertaining as being forced at gunpoint to read John Galt's 70-page speech about Objectivist philosophy from Atlas Shrugged. Twice.

The problem is, as Merlin Athrawes might say, one of too much love. Weber has created a fascinating premise and dropped his characters into a dangerous universe. But along the way, he's come to love Safehold so much that he began writing more about the world -- its politics and its theology and its gunpowder manufacturing processes -- and forgot his readers are buying his books because they simply want to read a good story.

I'm not sure whether to call this the fourth novel in the Safehold series, or the fourth installment of one huge novel-in-progress. But however it should be classified, this is a most enjoyable book.

For those who came in late, the Safehold series started with the destruction of the vast majority of the human species, as the more technologically advanced, implacably hostile aliens humanity dubbed '"the G'Baba' destroyed every human-inhabited world they could find. By a tremendous effort, humanity managed to found and conceal one last colony from the G'Baba, a deliberately low-tech planet whose existence the aliens wouldn't suspect.

But something went wrong. Some of the colonies leaders managed to set themselves up as Archangels, and create a world-ruling church, a church dedicated to technological stagnation and grinding exploitation of the majority. A colony that was supposed to remember that humans once roamed the stars, and would go back to them some day, becomes a world of superstition and injustice. To copper the bet, a kinetic bombardment system exists in space, ready to destroy anyplace on "Safehold" that shows signs of technological progress.

Almost eight and a half centuries later, 'Nimue Alban' woke up on Safehold, or rather, her 'PICA' woke (PICA: Personality Integrated Cybernetic Avatar, a human-like android with more than human physical attributes; also, an example of a typical horrendous Weber pun). Her job was to break the hold of The Church of God Awaiting.

In the first three books of the series, the woman 'Nimue Alben' became the man 'Merlin Athrawes', a legendary warrior and reputed 'seijin' who became bodyguard to the Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Charis. Charis was slated for destruction by those who ruled the Church, who suspected the Kingdom of heresy. With Merlin's help, they have survived, and become an Empire with its own, schismatic, Church. But the war continues.

The themes of this volume are consolidation and secret resistance. In the League of Corisande, a conquered province of the Charisian Empire, various 'Temple Loyalists' maneuver to strike at the 'heretics' of the Church of Charis and the Charisian Empire, while the Charisians try to root them out and prepare for the next round of battles with the Church and those who rule her. In Zion, Inquisitor General Zhaspahr Clyntahn seeks to stamp out all resistance to 'the Church,' or more accurately, to Zhaspahr Clyntahn and his colleagues in the 'Group of Four' who run the institution, while a minority of Churchmen attempt to reform the institution from within. Meanwhile, the Church prepares for the next round of war with Charis. And both sides are getting better at killing the opposition.

It's in the nature of this series that the books can't be self-contained, anymore than episodes of a soap opera can be self-contained. If that bugs you, skip this series until its finished. Otherwise, I think you'll find this is the best volume in the series since the first, as the escalation of the war forces more and more people to choose sides, and the actions of 'Mother Church' reveals its totalitarian core.

Recommended.

Weber's "A Mighty Fortress" was a very good read... which means it arrived and I lost a night's sleep finishing it.

Some complain about this book getting mired in the details and perhaps that is true, but Weber uses a brush to paint his stories and the colors are rich and intense. I can "see" Safehold in my mind's eye, smell the waterfronts, hear the sails and the wind vibrating thru the rigging of the ships. The characters are equally well developed.

If all you want is pure action, perhaps this is not for you, but if you want to continue your immersion into the Safehold Series... indulge!

As a fan of the series, I was pleased, but not thrilled with this chapter in the books. Some of the political stuff went a bit overlong, and the ending was not mindblowing. Still, i will buy the next book, so it wasn't horrible

I have read many of David Weber's books, and I enjoyed this one a great deal. Hence, I was surprised by some of the negative reviews. I agree with them that David Weber has his pluses and minuses. On the plus side, he has creative plots and creates his worlds in great detail. In addition, he is very good at writing the action and battle scenes. On the minus side, he can go on sometimes on tangents. For A Mighty Fortress, I thought the plot was quite exciting and kept me reading. One problem is that he has so many characters in this series, but he has a glossary of all of the characters at the back of the novel. This helps a lot. In summary, I feel that this is an entertaining novel with many more pluses than minuses. The battle scenes were particularly good in this novel.

OK, so this is not the best book in Weber's Safehold series. The amount the series moves forward probably equates to a few months - so it could have moved the story arc along a little more. Most of the book is taken up with intrigues and inner thoughts of many different characters. Having said that, the book does provide more depth to several threads, and if the reader pays attention there are clues to what is coming in the future. Some reviewers didn't like the book because there weren't enough battle scenes. Well, there are plenty of mindless military science fiction books around. This book is part of an epic science fiction series (if Weber ever finishes the series in the lifetime of any current reader), so the current book should be judged as part of that epic. It a strict sense I probably would have given this book a "4" rating, but I gave it a "5" since it's better than some of the bad reviews would indicate. Bottom line - if you're a fan of the Safehold series, then this is a must buy, and you will enjoy it. Note that the book opened at No. 9 nationally on the New York times bestseller list, so that tells you something of the size of this series' following.

I really need to read these in quicker succession. There are a ton of characters, most of which have more than one name and the two opposing nations have similar names, Chisholm and Charis. Which one is the good guys? Ugh. I had the same problem with Sauron and Saruman in The Lord of the Rings.

Minor quibbles aside, this is an awesome, epic series. Huge in scope, and probably the only author I’ve ever seen that figured out how to combine science fiction with good old fashioned wind powered naval battles. It’s super cool, and completely unique. This is the fourth book in the series and it is starting to make me nervous that it is taking so long for humanity to get it’s act together and accept the truth, I have a feeling those aliens from the first book are still searching for survivors. Well whatever David Weber decides to do, I am all for it. Hopefully this series can keep up this level of excellence, a very impressive work.

I'm not going to re-read, or even re-skim, one or more additional 600-plus page doorstops to reorient myself in preparation for reading this one. This is part four, incidentally, of what seems to now be shaping up to be Arthurian motifs plus Protestant Reformation plus Industrial Revolution plus Interminable Boring Warfare, In Space.

Also, the names continue to be eye-bleedingly awful.

After the action pace of By Heresies Distressed, A Mighty Fortress felt like filler. Not much happened, and when there was plot, it mostly happened to characters I didn't care about. It meanders endlessly, and I'm beginning to lose all hope that Weber doesn't plan to write a giant book about each year of a 30 year war. Almost everything that happened could have been summed up in an opening chapter to a book set a year or two later.

The climax felt tacked on, and didn't directly connect to much of anything that happened prior to page 600. I didn't get any feeling of high stakes from it, afterward there was one actually decent character scene, and then that was it. I get the sense that he's pulling this style from something like O'Brien's Aubrey-Maturin series, in which several of the books are more a series of happenings than a traditional plot, and then end without any major change.

The Aubrey-Maturin series, though, is not attempting to tell the story of every single person involved in the Napoleonic Wars as well as the Wars themselves. It tells the story of a small group of characters, and mostly focuses on the friendship between the main two. Weber, on the other hand, is juggling at least 7 or 8 major groups of multiple characters, (that's off the top of my head, there's probably more) and that doesn't count the many chapters about random people we never hear from again. Also, reading 200 pages and not coming to a huge climax is okay. 700 pages... is not okay.

It's a shame, because I really remember enjoying the first one. I felt as if Weber were taking all the themes and ideas he had begun in his various books and series and combining them into some sort of magnum opus. Unfortunately, it hasn't upheld that promise. At this point, he's just reiterating scenes he already wrote.

There was one sequence in particular in which the sequence of the battle felt like a direct copy and paste from scenes in the Honor Harrington series. In short, the style is stale.

If I hear that some actual plot movement is happening, maybe I'll dip back into this series, but for now I may have to abandon ship. I only have so many hours in the day.

I hate when I start getting into a series, particularly by an author I normally don't like, and then it lets me down. In this case its the Safeholdian series by David Weber (Off Armaggeddon Reef, By Schism Rent Asunder, A Mighty Fortress). The reason I am disappointed in this book is because-- frankly--- there just aren't any bad guys. I mean, yes, there are bad guys. But there's a sort of lack of direct conflict because Merlin's capabilities practically make him Godlike.

The setting seemed perfect for internal and social conflict, given that Merlin is a dead woman trapped inside the android body posing as a man to fit into the male-dominated heirarchy of the civilization-regressed population she's working with-- but nope. Everyone is amazingly non-racist in this book, and for being a male-dominated society the sexism is very inconsistent (in other words, women aren't in many roles in the book, but there's random women in some you wouldn't think they would be, and no surprise or degratory comments from people because of this, etc). The few times when a bad guy or someone on the fence in this series does show some sort of sexism it's in a very minor, token kind of way. And very few of the characters are completely irrational or biased. It feels like most of them come upon the "right answer" on their own.

And the biggest disappointment I have had is that, instead of Merlin having to deal with her loneliness in a male body, the author takes a total cop-out and now Nimue is discovering maybe she's bisexual (nice deux ex machina for Merlin not going insane, and the action itself was done without any introspection and was completely skipped in any kind of description until after the fact when Merlin barely has any self-introspection about it)??? Everything for the characters goes so well and so easily, there's no real conflict beyond "let's mope for a couple paragraphs because someone died in this battle we won. Ok, we feel better now. What other Shan Wei-damned technology can we play with that we're totally going to be OK with despite our backgrounds?"

Reading comments on the snippets, it seems that the situations and battles are basically copies of battles and situations in Earth's history which is what many of these people like in the book-- or guessing how it's going to turn out based on that. But copying history and condensing generations and generations of technological developments into 3 generations to bring the Safeholdians from pre-Renaissance to spaceships hardly seems like engaging writing without properly done human drama. Its just copying history with no story.

I'll probably keep reading it because despite my lack of history battle buff-ness its not a difficult read and I'll keep my fingers crossed praying something happens that actually makes it not seem like God is guiding and mind-controlled every single character to a flawless conclusion.

Weber's Safehold stories share a characteristic that all of his readers know, and that potential readers should prepare for. His books are more than just stories, they are extended ramblings. In addition to the primary story, readers will be treated to: (1) extended conversations between characters who are peripheral to the story (2) extended descriptions of the details of Safehold's emerging technologies, including how to make gunpowder, rifles, ..., (3) lots of other expansive descriptions of things. So these books are MUCH longer than their underlying stories require.

If you have not read the preceding books in the series, don't start here. If you have read the earlier books, and if you decided after the prior one that you were willing to make another substantial reading investment in Safehold, then this is for you. But if you were unsure after the earlier one about whether to undertake another such effort, be prepared. This one is not much different, and the pages in the book that push the story forward are few and far between.

One new thing - Weber has dramatically cut back on his use of the word "sardonically." In this book, Weber has discovered and become enamored with the word "snort." All of the characters snort, repeatedly. It gets funny quickly.

All that said, I have found these books good for listening when exercising. If I phase out for a bit, then suddenly recognize that I have not been listening carefully, I seldom find that I have missed much.

Almost 700 pages of information on things we don't want to or need to know about combined with absurdly spelled names which make it difficult to keep track of who is who. How many characters does one story need?! Here's a hint. Weber provides a list of characters at the back of this book which is TWENTY TWO PAGES LONG! And most of them have silly spellings that keep stopping you as you try to figure out how it's pronounced, not to mention - who is this again? As for the main characters, not much happens to them, and as for the story - was there a story - oh right, fighting the Church. Well, not much happens there, either. Like others, I believe Weber has gone the way of Jordan. You see it in his other series' as well. He's too big now to pay attention to mere editors, and just stuffs reams of dull, plodding talk into his books which he thinks is brilliant writing.

With this series being advertised as 8-10 novels, book 4 here clearly falls in the 2nd Act of the typical three act structure. But how can we tell for sure its the 2nd Act?
Its boring as all get out.
We have a book of hundreds of pages where almost nothing happens. Theres no driving narrative, virtually no plot. Everything is either a continuation of last book, where (barely) something happened, and promises of the NEXT book, where we hope something will happen. It is page after page of talk and talk.
Minor characters talk about stuff, which will happen in another book
Major characters talk about stuff with already happened, which would be nice if we didnt already know
Secondary characters we neither know nor care about talk
New characters who are introduced here only to drop back out talk
Exposition, exposition, exposition, and we're not given ONE reason to care. We already knew that the Church was building a new fleet. We already knew there was going to be another fight. We could already guess who was going to win. So when it happens here, why are we supposed to care? There's nothing new whatsoever. With no exaggeration, you can skim thru hundreds of pages at a time and not miss a thing.
Skim skim skim- OK Merlin is saying something
Skim skim skim- OK someone somewhere fired a bullet
SKim Skim Skim- Minor characters we have no reason to get involved about are planning devious plans which are never as interesting as they say

I have NEVER been outright disappointed in a Weber book before. But here we are. This book has no readability at all. Once the series is complete, this book will be passed over in its entirety in favor of later entries.

The worst part is, is boredom like this that's kept Weber from completing his OTHER series. No Harrington? No Multiverse? There's more adventure in any 50 pages of either one of them than in this entire novel. And I felt cheated reading it.

So, I love the concept of the overall series, Terran Federation gets thrown back to the preindustrial age and now has to climb its way back into space.

When I first began this series I thought that would be the central focus and plotline-- mankind getting back into space. Instead what we really have is a very carefully disguised mimmick of Eric Flint's 1632 but not as well done.

By now, its obvious that the Author's pace will never get us back into space. Don't get me wrong, the story is still decent but you have to reside yourself to the fact that what we really are reading is a quasi 1632 type story (Eric Flint). The bad news is that 1632 and 1633 are superior to this series, the good news is that 1634+ sucks really really bad and David Weber's Safehold series (this series) is better than the follow on books to 1632.

Back to this book. The pacing is a bit slow compared to the other books but it still held my interest. I don't have the burning need to grab the next book in the series though. The set up for the major pitch battle in this book was a bit long and of course we can see it coming a mile away which is always sorta anticlimatic since the writing is on the wall.

I'm going to start a different series and i'm not sure i'll get back to this one. Up to this point, we've probably read over 2000 pages worth of story and if you can't move things along significantly after that much time, then your readers are bound to move on to more action packed pastures.

Mr. Weber, if you are reading this I guess what I expected when I began this series was each "book" more or less representing the next generation or time period as we try to get back into space. I think that would have been a much better treatment not to say that I don't enjoy this persepective. But if I were going to go this direction, I think I would have defeated the church within 2300 pages, 3000 tops. And at this pace, That's not gonna happen. At this pace I think its gonna take a good 5000 words to defeat the church. Especially if we seesaw back and forth with key pieces of technology. Charis develops a new weapon, the Church catches up... Charis develops another new weapon, the Church catches up. At that rate and at the rate you are writing (i.e. each book is about 1 yr) this is going to take a lot of books to resolve. In any event, I did enjoy everything up to this point, thanks for the read

After reading by Schism Rent Asunder, I was eager to read the next (and I presumed final) installment in the Safehold saga. Alas, this work begins to do a Robert Jordan (the exhaustive extension of a failry straightforward plot line as infinitum). Although there is more character development, we barely hear from the primary three (Cayleb, Sharelyn, and Maikel. This work is mostly about the ancient cybernetic avatar who is fighting to save the last of humanity. The book plods along endlessly with only a few moments of the clear writing present in the earlier installment. The book is LONGER than the last with endless ponderings on naval organization and repeated archaic references to top gallants, spars and other ancient nautical terms. If I had wanted to read Horatio Hornblower, I would have bought it.

The book covers a significant period of time but precious little relevant action. Some politics are examined in the conquered lands of Corisande, but the book begins to lose its believability owing to the massive distances crossed by its protagonists and the juxtiposition of the modern and archaic. If you've started this series, I might suggest steering clear of this work and looking for something else.

The previous volume was sadly marred by having only one map, which was only tangential to the main battle scenes anyway. Apparently that was due to some snafu between the publisher and the printer; several more maps had been prepared. Well the nice aspect of book 4 is that, as in books 1 and 2, there are several germane maps. But if you haven't read book 4 yet, try starting by turning to the back and thumbing thru the list of characters. Whew! Weber is determinedly trying to flesh out an entire world and his effort clearly shows. Bravo.

Maybe I spoke too brashly. If you do turn to the back of the book, you'll get some idea of the volume of reading and the amount of character retention needed in your mind. A good test of the capacity of your working memory.

The pace of action is very drawn out as others have bemoaned. If you have made it this far in the series, you have already seen this. Unfortunately book 4 does not get any more concise than 2 or 3. Book 1 was still the most action packed. Is Weber getting paid by the kilo of paper printed? To some extent we have seen this with the Honor Harrington [aka. Horatio Hornblower] series. The early ones were tautly drawn. The later ones groaned under extensive [or is it intensive?] introspective character development.

The Safehold series does differ, in that Weber is emphasising the moral and religious struggles as coequal to the political fracas, whereas the HH books really had little to do with religious tensions. As Weber said in a book tour lecture I attended in 2008, Safehold is not meant to be a thinly clothed recap of HH.

On a final and tangential note, the Safehold books appear to have sidelined Weber's parallel magical worlds that he cowrote with Linda Evans. Perhaps the latter books did not sell as well as Safehold? For a full time writer, Weber has to reinforce success, as one of his military characters might say. And Weber is certainly doing so.
Comment

This is the fourth of five books published to date in the "Safehold" series whose central character is Nimue Alban".

Some readers will enjoy this, particularly those who are already hooked on the characters and situation as a result of reading the earlier books in the series. As with the first three, I found it hard to put down. However, a significant chunk of David Weber's fanbase will get bored with this book because it goes into a lot of detail about things which some of they may not be interested in.

It's a massive book with 690 pages of story followed by another 30 pages or so of appendices (character index, glossary etc.) Most of the first 500 pages are taken up with a detailed account of the consolidation which the heroes of the story would have to carry out to incorporate the territory conquered in book three.

One sub-plot involves a beautiful but lengthy description of a journey through the savage Safehold winter for a minor character who has been summoned to the Temple where the technological church who dominate the planet have their HQ. Another sub-plot, as the bad guys in the Temple prepare to crush any internal opposition within the church by the most cruel and brutal means, involves the attempts by the doomed leaders of that opposition to give as many as possible of their families and supporters a chance to escape.

If you have become attached to and interested in the characters built up over the first three books, and the world which Weber has built for them, you may enjoy this as much as I did. If, however, you are one of the many readers who enjoy David Weber's books mainly for the battles, this is probably a book to miss. There are two or three squadron actions in the early part of the book: finally towards the end, the Temple starts to move the huge fleets they have been building and, unusually for this series, takes the good guys by surprise. Which leads to some nail biting moments and a major fleet action at the climax of the book.

By this point in the series, the technology with which the naval battles are fought appears roughly comparable to that of the mid-seventeenth century. Weber shows that he can create sea battles similar to those of the age of fighting sail as well as he handles futuristic space battles.

But this book will probably, like "Storm from the Shadows" in the author's "Honor Harrington" universe, be one of the books which a significant part of the author's fanbase hate because there are not enough battles.

Another aspect of the book, very typical of David Weber, is that his characters spend a LOT of time in conferences and conference calls which are described in great detail. I doubt if there can every have been another SF novel set in a world where most of the technology is at a 17th century level where the main charactesr spend as much of their time on conference calls those in this book do! These can be a good way of explaining what happens by looking at how the different characters see what is going on, but even the most devoted Weber fan can occasionally wonder if there is a bit too much of them.

Incidentally, either Weber or his editor appear to have listened to this criticism, because the number of conference calls in the fifth and following book in the series, "How firm a foundation," has been dialled back.

If you're going to read this series, start at the beginning and work through in order. The five "Nimue Alban" books to date are:

1) Off Armageddon Reef (Safehold)
2) By Schism Rent Asunder (Safehold)
3) By Heresies Distressed (Safehold)
4) This book, A Mighty Fortress
5) How Firm a Foundation (Safehold)

Not all the ideas are new: the story is a re-working of a number of the ideas in a some of Weber's earlier books, particularly the Dahak trilogy "Mutineer's Moon," "The Armageddon Inheritance" and "Heirs Of Empire" - the whole trilogy has been published as "Empire from the Ashes". But IMHO Weber deploys the experience he has gained in the meantime to re-use the same basic ideas more effectively and with some original twists.

For example, the alien attackers who are at war against humanity at the start of the first book, and the threat of whom hangs over subsequent books, will remind many Weber fans of the Kangas from "The Apocalypse Troll" and even more of the Achuultani from the "Dahak" trilogy.

The anti-technological church which the heroes and heroines are struggling against throughout the first four books bears a striking resemblance to the church on Pardal in "Heirs of Empire (Dahak series)," the third book in the Dahak trilogy. But in both cases the presentation of those ideas is better done.

None of the statements in this review are spoilers for "A Mighty Fortress" but the following description of the setting of this fourth book may infer more than you want to know about the outcomes of the first three books if you have not read them yet. If that is the case I suggest you navigate to the page for "Off Armageddon Reef" (see links above).

The basic idea for the series is that in the 25th century, humanity finds evidence that other intelligent races have recently existed on nearby stars - but that a xenophobic alien race is exterminating them. The Terran Federation has just enough warning to make a fight of it when that enemy finds us and attacks ten years later. The war lasts fifty years - but at the end of that time it is obvious that humanity is losing.

Operation Ark, a final desperate attempt to plant a colony outside the area patrolled by the enemy is launched. If they succeed, the colonists will face a choice: try to build a civilisation powerful enough to defeat the attackers, or abandon any technology which might attract their attentions and simply hide.

The anti-technological faction in the leaderships of the new colony win, and set up a totalitarian theocracy whose main aim is to stifle any technical change. For eight hundred years nobody on the planet knew that it was a colony, that humanity has a deadly enemy out among the stars, and that the real reason for the ban on technology was to avoid attracting the attention of that enemy.

But eight hundred years after the founding of Safehold, a cyborg was activated with the mind and memories of Lieutenant-Commander Nimue Alban, a brilliant tactician who had been one of the thousands of people who gave their lives that the colony fleet could get through. When the church tried to destroy the nation of Charis for being a bit too innovative, as a warning to others, Nimue adopted the persona of "Merlin Athrawes," a warrior mystic, and helped them to defeat the initial church invasion.

At the start of this fourth book, through a mixture of war and brilliant diplomacy the young King of Charis, Cayleb has created an empire out of the maritime island nations around Charis. Most recently by he defeated and conquering his nation's long-term enemy, Corisande. Unfortunately the Church managed to murder the ruler of that state - Prince Hector - when he was about to surrender, in such a way as to make many of the people of Corisande wrongly blame Cayleb for the assassination. This is making the assimilation of the country more difficult.

Meanwhile, in the Temple, the corrupt leaders of the Church are licking their wounds while they build up a vast fleet and prepare to declare Holy War on Charis. And the evil Grand Inquisitor is also planning a terrible vengeance on anyone inside the church who gives him and his confederates less than 100% support ...

I sadly, must concur. I enjoyed the first and second book, but by the third, it was getting decidedly long-winded and lacking in excitement. Weber's first books, including the Mutineer's Moon series and Apocalypse Troll, were full of adventure and intriguing characters. He now still retains the characters, but far too many in my opinion! I was something like 300 pages in before the first battle! I appreciate his extensive back story and the genius that weaves it all together, but I'm not even all the way through and I feel like I'm drowning! By now, I'm skimming and skipping whole sections!
I'll read on to the end and try the next installment, hoping he steers us back on course to the Gbaba. But if not, there are others to read, and thankfully, not all are almost a thousand pages long! The books are so thick they're almost intimidating! With that many pages, I'd suggest he deal with each book as separate eras in Safeholds eventually rise back to the stars seen through the eyes of Nimue AKA Merlin.

I hate to give David Weber two stars. The first David Weber book I read was _On Basilisk Station_, the start of the Honor Harrington series and a five-star book if there ever were one. That was a crackerjack "2AM" read that I stayed up all night finishing despite knowing I had to get up early that morning. I sensed the author's enthusiasm and the story moved along with what I recall as breakneck speed. Unfortunately it seemed to me that with every Honor book thereafter, I could sense a waning enthusiasm even as the pace got slower and the books got longer. I learned to recognize the trademarked Weber "info-dump" and how to skim page after page as he unburdened himself of every detail he had ever thought of as he built the background technology for his Honor universe. Eventually, the books stopped going to the top of my "to read" pile and in fact I've had the last one a good while without taking a crack at it yet.

With _Off Armageddon Reef_ I thought I detected a rekindled authorial enthusiasm. Finally Weber had invented a setting that let him write the big Napoleanic era sea-battles that he had always wanted, and the resulting book was a lot better than the last several Honor universe books. Yes, it still had some of Weber's worst tics, but I really enjoyed it. Then we had _By Heresies Distressed_, and things started to slow down again. Now in _A Mighty Fortress_ they have come almost to a full halt.

This feels like one of the longest books I have ever read, and it took *forever* for me to get through it.

To start with, *nothing* happens until over 200 pages into the book, and it's not that things start happening at breakneck pace then either. The way Weber has chosen to structure the book is infuriating. All through the book we get conference after conference where the principals of all the different sides and princedoms bring themselves up to date on what's been happening, what they think their enemies are up to, and what they want to do about it. It's the kind of thing that a character should reflect on *briefly* as he goes to do whatever is is that ends up being done. Instead we get meeting after meeting of "as you know, Bob" speeches rather than anything interesting action.

If that weren't enough to bring things to a screeching halt, it seemed to me that the info-dumps were even worse than usual in this installment. We get every fact Weber has ever learned about sailing tall ships and black-powder gunnery. If your smart guy has learned to make exploding shells, say that! We don't need to know how the fuses work, and why some work really well, and some not so much.

Aside from the general glacial pace of the unfolding story, there are specific plot and character points I had problems with. Addressing them will

SURELY ENTAIL SPOILERS

OK. First, I have to say that the long and boring voyage of the guardian of the Prince & Princess of Corisande to Zion was totally pointless. Yes we get that it will be important when the royal kids find out that Cayleb was *not* the one who killed their father, but his storyline contributed *nothing* to this book, other than perhaps letting Weber write a scene about ice-boats that he was dying to do. We got page after page of this guy that were essentially totally unrelated to anything else in the book.

Second, the perfect intelligence that the good guys have with their remote mics and cameras gets boring. I realize that Weber set the odds against them so high that they have to have such an advantage to prevail, but perhaps he should have made the odds mearly overwhelming rather than insurmountable and restricted their high-tech intelligence to satelite views of weather patterns and ship deployments.

Third, we are informed several times that manpower is a critical bottleneck for Charis, yet apparently *no* thought has been given to bringing women into the workforce. Hello, Merlin is a woman! I understand that sailing a tall ship is not like the high-tech Honor Harrington universe where pure physical strength isn't that important. Common sailor is a rough job that probably few women could do, even if Charis could get past the social revolution in a few days (which it couldn't) BUT there's no reason they couldn't start a "Rosie the Rivitter" type of industrial mobilization of the empire's women to free up more men for ships. In fact women's issues are barely touched on at all despite the perspective of Merlin's personal experience and the good guy's having access to all of Earth's history. We don't see *any* women in non-traditional roles. We are told that there is a woman researching things that go boom, but she doesn't get to come on screen. Other than that it's princesses and hookers. Very capable princesses, and super smart hookers with hearts of gold, but still..

Fourth, speaking of gender roles, the most interesting bit of character developement we get in this book happens off screen, and is almost totally glossed over. Merlin is a woman's intelligence in a male android body, and on his/her mission to Zion he/she needs to spend some time with a hooker. Now, nobody reads Weber for the sex, and I'm not suggesting he really write a sex scene, but it could have been an amusing little set piece:

Merlin thinks, well I've never been into women so we'll talk a while, and then I'll plead exhaustion.. Hey, wait a minute, this is starting to work for me..

It would have been a fun little character bit like the "swimming naked with the guys" bit from the first book in a book that is almost entirely devoid of real character development bits.

Fifth, something finally happens, and then the book ends

Sixth, did I mention this is a really long book?

As a long time fan of David Weber, I've been disappointed in large degrees by the Safehold series. To start with, the whole series was based on a concept used in a previous book from the Dahak series, but that was minor compared to the Deus ex Machina introduction of series protagonist Nimue/Merlin, an android/cyborg containing the personality of a young female human officer, who died 900 years ago. Weber made the point that such creations were rare, that it was a plaything of the rich, etc., while never explaining why a desperate humanity wouldn't have used such creations as part of its defense against the aliens determined to eradicate humanity.

Plot: Earth was destroyed some 900 years ago by an alien race which ensures its dominance by wiping out all competition. Desperate sacrifices, including the death of the human version of our heroine, result in a deception which allows a small fleet to escape and establish a hidden colony on a world known as Safehold. However, the leaders of this expedition believe that the only way to make humanity space is to reprogram the memories of the cryo-stored colonists, establishing a world religion which turns its back on technology, to the extent of nuking those who are peacefully in opposition to this plan. The opposition, however, had a mole on the inside, one who wasn't too pleased about the mass murder of his friends and his wife. This mole responds with his own nukes, wiping out much of the leadership, though not all.

900 years later an android with the memories and personality of a young female office who had died in the deception which allowed the colony fleet to escape, wakes up in a hidden sanctuary. Nimue discovers the nature of the world she is in, one where human ingenuity is struggling to break free of a corrupt church, in a world where no one knows that too much tech will lead to an alien invasion which will finish the extinction of humanity.

In a world where men are dominant, Nimue changes her andriod body into that of a man, Merlin, who goes on to advise the Kingdom of Charis in its struggle against the Church. This series is set on a world of lots of small continents with lots of ocean trade, all so that Weber can indulge in re-establishing the Age of Sail, and have lots of sea battles.

However, this series and book are burdened by many logical failings. At times, these failings are dim enough to cause some books in this series to shine, at other times, they rear their persistent heads to shout out about how Weber's logic has failed.

Weber has presented logical reasons for Merlin not to go into the Temple, the HQ for his oppressive Church - mysterious energy readings which might trigger who-knows-what type of response at the presence of a mechanical creation - but he's given Merlin the rest of the whole world to play with...and then has Merlin basically act in an absurdly limited role where action is concerned, especially in this book.

This book suffers from the presence of way too much Deus, and not enough Machina. The ongoing religious exposition is interesting, though any political intentions on the evils of a highly organized religion are fraught with folly, considering that atheist regimes slaughtered possibly over 100 million people in the 20th century, and we are daily faced with threats from an unorganized religion.

But it is the failure of Machina, due to the presence of that same Machina, which causes no small measure of logical failings in this book. Merlin has shuttles and the tech weaponary to lay waste to entire enemy fleets. Yet he does not. Weber could dismiss this by having Merlin concerned about what reaction might come from such a weapon display, fine. But it does not excuse that he's established how powerful Merlin's android body is. Merlin could swim circles underwater around any sailing ship fleet in the world of Safehold, attaching low tech explosive devices to any enemy ship. He could cut holes with his high tech sharpened blade in any enemy ship. He could sneak aboard and set fire to any enemy ship. He could use a low tech rifle at insanely long ranges to eliminate any enemies, or simply infiltrate an enemy's stronghold and eliminate them by any number of means. And yet Merlin does not.

Weber has created a mess of a problem with Merlin. This character is far, far too powerful, a true Mary Sue character. Weber tries to correct this by limiting the use of Merlin's marvelous abilities, but this creates problems caused by their illogical absence of useage. In the book where Weber first used this concept, "Heirs to Armageddon," the protagonists were stranded humans, enhanced humans to be sure, but still mortal, and possessed of a limited tech base. That theme was also only one of the settings of that book, as other plot threads were unwinding on other worlds. Here, we have way too much of a Superman character.

Weber's writing remains excellent, from a technical standpoint. However, he made a truly annoying decision in phonetically spelling the names of his cast, allowing him to have "fun" in the naming of his characters, e.g. Nahrmahn Baytz (Norman Bates)(insert sarcastic laugh/ golf clap of ironic disapproval here). However, this results in having to stop at every single name to figure out how they're pronounced. Which means that I'm knocked back out of this series into the real world wvery time there's someone's name to stumble through. It would've been easier with invented names. This was a poor decision.

This book focuses on the rise, finally, of a fleet capable of taking on the growing Empire of Charis, along with the travails of one competent enemy admiral. The rest of this book is political intrigue, as Clynton finally makes his move to wipe out the reformist movement in the Temple. We get hints as to further developments, as mention is made yet again to the mysterious key that Father Paityr Wylsynn, son of the now dead leader of the Temple reformation movement, possesses in his exile in Charis. More people are let into the secret of Safehold's true history, with the ominous note that those who can't handle the truth will need to be killed.

This is a series which has suffered from the outset from a lack of taut editing. Something which is true for Weber's other books as well is that he seems to be getting too big for his breeches, too big to have to bother with troublesome pests called editors. Again, Weber's technical aspects to his writing are fine, but this book drags at points, as does this series. David Weber is having tons of fun recreating the Age of Sail, but there were plenty of better ways he could've indulged his love of sailing ship battles.

This is a series book. Basic back story is that the high tech Earth Federation lost a war against a race that decided to kill all humans. A colony group fled to this planet where they were supposed to stay on the downlow until ready to rebound in a few generations. Some of the colony command group thought it would be fun to reprogram the cold sleep colony members to think the command group were demigods and start an anti-tech faith.

For some reason those opposed to the command group had a robot that a naval officer could transfer her being into. That robot lay in a secret superbase for 800 years, then woke up.

The world is now ruled by what is a Roman Catholic Church with some different names, a lot more commandments, and with the command group remembered and prayed to instead of saints.

The prior series books had the robot, now a man, working to elevate one of the island kingdoms in power to oppose the church rulers. That kingdom now controls about 1/4 of the planet and is in full warfare with the church governments.
The tech is very interesting. Wooden ships skipping ahead to fused shells, flintlocks jumping almost to primer rifles (and will be next book), the robot's ultra tech allowing the revolt command group to know everything major about the church's plans.

The battle scenes are richly written. Lots of detail and lots of research on how such battles would go. Well written details on carrying out sailing ship operations thousands of miles from port.
Those are the good parts.

Every single thing in the book is talked out to death. The second half of the book isn't too bad, since the talking is mostly about how to fight or react and is cut with action. The first half of the book is full of conversations about conversations about thoughts. It makes Rand look like a short and to the point writer. Just boring as heck. Everyone involved in the coversations also spends lots of internal time wondering what the others are thinking.

Weber! Stop! Get an editor you trust and give them the power to streamline your talkfest.

Also, the world is so richly detailed and the book is so sweeping you cannot start with this book. You have to start with book one. Even then you need to put postits on the list of characters, and on the world maps. There simply is no other way to keep track of who is who, and where they are and why it is important.

There have been hints where the books are going. The Temple complex is ultra tech and still functioning, the federation had cold sleep, and they also had the ability to give long life treatments. I suspect the colony command group/saints are sleeping and will get woken up once the rebel government controls 1/2 the planet. That will lead to ortillery strikes that the super robot will have to defeat with his/her super power and courage.

This book was a monster in size, but I loved reading it. There is a lot of great things that take place--great as in for the story, because some of them are actually truly horrible.

I have really enjoyed reading this series. My biggest beef remains the names, and I sometimes get lost in who is who because of the strange twisting of the names, but I deal with it.

David Weber is a very good author who has developed a compelling story and world. The problem with this book is that there is very little action and, when there is, the sequences are short relative to the length of passages used to plan for the action.

An annoyance is the continuous re-explaining about Merlin's origins, about the com systems, about the reasons behind Merlin'e existance. We are in book 4 of the series, we know all of that and the re-telling simply bogs down the story.

All long series have similar problems. Whether it is Jordan, or Goodkind or others, middle books tend to be prepatory in nature and, because of this, somewhat boring. Hopefully, Weber can overcome this in book 5.

Short and Sweet, it aint. Weber, if you read this, Are you still alive or are these latest novels by Ghost Writers?
I was unable to set a David Weber space novel down, you know you can always sleep later but what is on the next page, was my driving force. GONE GONE, where are you WEBER? Off Armageddon Reef drew me in. The Title, the premise, the early characters, Wow. Now I won't think of continuing. I might years down the road,if I am living and get all the remaining
books on CD and listen for the ascendancy of the Race back to power, but not now, no way.

Come back Weber

Thanks for the memories of bugs and White Caps.

Michael Gonzales

I don't know what has happened to Weber but this fourth book is worse than almost any other one of his I have read. At least the Temple people are starting to get some of their act together and not everything is going Charis's way. That actually just makes it more believable. He is still writing dissertations between way to many different groups and they are still tedious to me. I don't know, maybe he just has to much on his plate with Honor Harrington, Honorverse, War God, Hell's Gate, and the Safehold series's. I bought the next two after reading the first four once. I have now reread the four and I sure hope the writing improves.

Without an editor, or without an editor willing to edit, the quality of the writing David Weber's recent offerings has dropped off dramatically. Both this latest Safehold book and the most recent Honor Harrington novel suffer from sprawl that would make Robert Jordan blush. David has the potential to be a great writer (the original Harringtons, early Legacy of the Aldenata, and the first two books of this series prove that) but he's far too enamored of his own prose to be turned loose unedited. Apparently he has the idea (mistaken, but all too common with writers who become popular) that if ten words are good, twenty are better, and two hundred are terrific. My guess is that getting paid by the word is having the unfortunate side effect of pushing him to write reams of unnecessary exposition--a sad turn of events, since when he started his terser style and lean prose made for great books.

I will probably give the next book in this series and the next Harrington a read, but if the drift continues, he will have lost me as a reader. I suspect that if the trend continues, he may lose a lot of other fans, too.

The 1st book in the series showed as much promise as any of Webers' early Honerverse books.

By book three of this series, it was torment to wade through the litany of minutia in dialogue and charactors. A mighty fortress--- I'll say,, it's a fortress of boredom. It's a fortress of tedious verbosity. It's an unassailable fortress of mind-numbing exhaustion.

I've tried four times to just FINISH this book, yet all I've been able to do is fall asleep every. single. time.

How on earth this disappointment got published is beyond me, but I promise-- it's the last Safehold book I'll buy.

On the other hand, I will continue to use it to stave off insomnia.

It's rare that I do not finish a book but I'm putting this one down. After 150 pages I began skipping forward and found that it was mostly as dense as the first 150 all the way through. Many have mentioned that it's 690 pages but few note that each page contains between 500 to 600 words. And that some paragraphs are over a half page in length. I began to wonder if the author was being paid by the word.

The best novels quickly develop a rhythm, or cadence, that allows the reader to forget the mechanics of reading and lets your imagination fill in the background. But with hundreds of characters, plots and locations, I was continually stopping to look in the maps and character index in order to stay centered. If all or even most of this was central to the plot I might have stuck with it but that's not the case. I think Weber is trying to invest us with as wide a view of a world as possible but it does not work for me. I have read most of Weber's books and enjoyed them. But not this one.

I am so tired of this series.
First of all it is a cliche; SF writers have been writing the same story for decades. High-tech protagonist enters low-tech world, helps the good guys whomp the bad guys by accelerating their tech development and giving them new weapons and strategies, a good time is had by all but the bad guys. This was interesting in the 1950s. It's boring now and very predictable.
Second, Weber has become a very self-indulgent writer. His prose just flows, and flows, and flows. All of his recent books could be improved by a good editor to keep him focused, tighten his writing, and eliminate a ton of wasteful material. Now, I know he can write well and tightly because he did so in some of his earlier books, especially the first several Honor Harrington books. But now he's writing as if paid by the word and spilling out as many words as he can.
Third, his characters are becoming stereotypical. Many of the same people appear in book after book under different names. The royals in this dreadful series have just about the same personalities and speech patterns -- even the same sense of humor -- as high-ranking people in his other books. Nor do his characters evolve much any longer, with the exception of Harrington and a few of the Harrington characters. Weber is encountering real problems with originality, and this is one of the places it shows.
Fourth, his foibles are showing. To cite a single example, everyone, in every one of his books, uses a ton of elliptical pauses. Like Heinlein once overused 'uh,' Weber uses '...' on every page. Heinlein made it work, after a fashion; Weber just annoys. I would like to supply him with a keyboard that would give him a powerful shock every time he hits the period key more than once. This is also a sign of a writer fallen into habit and too lazy to find more than one way of expressing something.
Finally, I have seen Weber's recent books described as 'epic science fiction.' It's epic only if measured by weight or word count. If you want an author of epic science fiction, read Iain M. Banks. His Culture-series books are elegantly plotted, the dialog is first rate, the characters grow and develop, the canvas is galactic, and possibly even trans-galactic. If it's big battles and masses of tech you like, Weber just fires more missiles (you could chart the size of the missile exchanges through the Harrington books on an exponential curve -- tactical creativity grows much more slowly). Banks Culture -- though it may regret it afterward -- obliterates solar systems; even the ships are as big as minor planets. If you want 'epic,' go Banks. The biggest difference is basic: Banks writes honest-to-God books with exquisitely twisty plots, interesting multi-faceted characters and tight prose; these days, Weber just cranks stuff out.
I suspect many came to the Safehold series because they liked the Honor Harrington books. I did. Unfortunately, that makes the Safehold books something of a con game -- readers follow an author expecting a certain level of quality, and in this case, get only flab. Weber really needs to discipline himself and get back to the roots of his popularity before he finds it gone.
So, if you must read this, check it out of a library.

This book is a worthy addition to the Safehold series, full of action and intrigue. I am really enjoying the series

The characters development is well done and the character's are likeable and some you will really despise

Seriously, if Weber actually has an editor (and after reading this effort it is impossible to fathom that he does) that person should be taken out and flogged...repeatedly.

What started out as a fairly interesting combination of science fiction and fantasy has quickly degenerated into a Robert Jordanesque mess of epic proportions. Too many characters, too many sub-plots (many of which are repetitive), and almost no movement on the main storyline.

This isn't really a series of books that are connected through a shared storyline, it is one 5000 page novel broken up into 8-10 or however many parts his publisher thinks he can sell.

Even worse, he appears to have abandoned the idea of bringing the series full circle back to space and dealing with earth's enemies. Or perhaps he is planning another 8-10 books to deal with that story arc as well.

Given Weber's age and physique my suggestion is that he contact Brandon Sanderson now and start sharing his background material.

I'll start by assuming that most of you aren't first time readers, either of David Weber in general, or the Safehold books in particular.

Armageddon reef was pretty tight. It had a defined plot arc, a decent amount of action, and a solid climax.

Schism...not as tight. Not as much action. Lot of back and forth between minor characters.

Heresies...More back and forth. More and more minor characters. Less action.

Fortress follows this trend. It's nearly 1,000 pages long, and you go 200 pages before the first person dies. Minor characters are introduced, and they get vast amounts of time in print. Perspective shifts every two pages, and it shifts so broadly that the headers which are meant to tell you who the next two pages are about blur together, leaving you adrift until three sections later when one of the half-dozen characters who are actually important to the story brings you back in.

I've read a lot of David Weber. This is by far his sloppiest, most unfocused, and dullest book. Nothing happens! The church gets more repressive, Charis solidifies its hold over Corisande, there is a big naval battle (which turns into a massive slugfest for no satisfactorily explained reason). The end. And that story, that tiny story, took 1000 pages to relate.

I'll get straight to the point, something that Weber is apparently incapable of doing. The book in question is about 500 pages too long. Endless conversations that simply meander without ever being resolved; lengthy expositions of character genealogies and histories that still fail to meaningfully inform us about the person being described; absurdly cheesy nods to film characters (Nahrmahn Bayts, etc); no real sense of pace, nor of anticipation toward the unfolding of what plot there is; I could go on. To be charitable: at best, Weber bit off far more than he could chew in trying to immerse the reader in an alternate universe, resulting in a book that resembles more a mammoth encyclopedia entry than good fiction. At worst, even the fact that I read for a living isn't enough to excuse the many hours I spent slogging through this. Above all, this book lacks heart and is a go-to-guide for what NOT to do when writing science fiction.

Wow. Congratulations to anyone that has made it through this entire book.

Personally, I prefer books that keep the story moving through the main characters perfective. Understandably, there are times when you need to shift the focus so that the view can see what else is going on at the same time. These times should be minimized to maintain a cohesive book.

This book unfortunately feels like a bunch of very loosely related short stories thrown together. The series plot doesn't seem to be advanced by this book as far as I can tell. Anytime it approached a topic that was even remotely interesting (like the tech in Nimue's Cave) it just moves onto some meaningless babble amongst nobles/clergy that no one cares about.

I'm getting the impression that Safehold won't be fighting the Ghaba anytime soon, they will probably all die of boredom before it even becomes necessary.

Ugh.

If you like books with twice as many characters as needed, lots and lots of expository dialog and page after page of nothing happening, then this book is for you.

Weber's made the crucial mistake of creating a world so intricate, so complicated, so full of intrigue and moving pieces that the book falls apart under its own considerable weight.

Forget the ridiculous naming conventions (e.g., replacing the letter "j" with the letters "zh" to add a "futuristic" flair to your character names)or the mind-numbing number of side plots and ancillary characters -- the real problem with this book is the language. The dialog is wooden and is actually simply narration, dressed up as speech. People don't talk like Weber's characters, not even to themselves. And Weber's attempt to portray nobility, or intelligence or a sense of duty come off as laughable stick-figure versions of the real thing.

Do yourself a favor and give this a WIDE pass.

I have been reading Mr. Weber's books forever. I've read dozens of them and I liked them all quite a bit...except this one. I was excited to see that it was now out in paperback and I dove into it as soon as I got home with it. I'm now on page 205 and it has been some heavy sledding to get this far. The introduction of endless new characters who are jabbering on without really advancing the storyline made me wonder if the entire 1086 pages was going to be like this. Judging from the reviews it is... I worry that he has fallen into the Robert Jordan trap of allowing the story to get away from him. I recently read the Dahak series and I was blown away with how quickly the story swept the reader along at breakneck speed. The beginning of this series promised to be as good a story or better. I agree with another reviewer who stated that Mr. Weber needs an editor capable of giving feedback regarding the reader's experience and assisting in tightening up the plot. This is a huge story just like the Dahak series was. I'm not sure I'm up to the chore.

The battle scens are great, and I know there is a need for the political and even the religious part of the story but they are honestly boring. All the more so when you try to write about politics, and espically religion, in great detail. I get bored listening to my own preists sermons, and I believe in that God. There is not much in it for me to listen to a book of Langhorn sermon (unless it says something that will be important to the story). I am not impressed with the Kalib Charlian dialog. It was interesting before they got married but now not so much.
I love the premise of the story. The space ships carrying the last humans, being manipulated by bad but driven leaders who brainwashed the whole crew to protect them from the evil aliens. I expect each book should spending a little time revealing something about that making it permenant. Even just Merlin's plans on what he is steering the planet to do to eventually fight or hide from the aliens.

It amazes me how an author can create such an interesting story, and then make the reader hate him for it. The glacial pacing has been covered in detail by others, but the real crime of this story line is how there is absolutely zero character development. How could there possibly be any, everyone is already perfect theres nowhere to go with them. When ALL your main characters are so awesome that their only fault is being too awesome it removes any sense of conflict and makes for a boring as hell story. The bad guys are just as bad as the good guys are good. He actually has the main antagonist burning children at the stake because their parents pissed him off. Whats next Weber, baby eating? The author pits the cardboard cut-out good guys against the equally cardboard villains in a continual procession of increasingly ridiculous confrontations. Why should the reader care that that Charsian Navy is going into a fight with only 1 ship for every 10 of the enemy when there is absolutely no doubt that the good guys will win with little lasting damage? Weber cannot even allow the bad guys a single solid win. Their one victory was Pyrrhic and even then it had political implications that were bad for the Grand Inquisitor. I find myself rooting for the Church forces in every fight, because theyre the true underdogs who keep getting screwed no matter how well they plan or execute an operation.

Great setting, ZERO character depth or development, tons of exposition. Bad, bad book.

First off, I adore David Weber ok? I really do- I admire, and respect him. I also have the overwhelming urge to stuff his ass out of torpedo tube #1 and launch him without a space suit. Please- concentrate on ONE SERIES. I happen to love HH. This is a great series- really- but Dave's trying to do too much with two completely sets of "realities"

1100 pages to move the story about one inch or so? I must say that, unlike the other books in the Safehold series, this one was a chore to read. As others have mentioned, it mostly consisted of meeting minutes, and not much in the actual story happened. Mr. Weber is stringing this one out way too far. There are enough loose ends and open-ended sub plots to wring out another 2-3 books without actually changing anything substantially in the story of the conflict. I'll be reading the next one too, just because. But I'll definitely wait for the paperback and buy it with a coupon to save money.

In response to another review I just read: the philosophical discourse in this book, compared to the Foundation series (rather audacious to compare Weber to Asimov, in any case) is minimal. Weber does not convince in his attempt to pit orthodox religion and its abuses to the more freethinking approaches of philosophy. His characters are not as convincing, and the dialogues are repetitive. Mr. Weber does space opera very well, but for the "thinking man's" science fiction, I'd rather pick up Stephen Baxter, Iain M. Banks, or indeed Isaac Asimov.

Most of this book is one big "expository lump," as writers called chunks of explanation. That the lumps are inside dialog rather than bare was no consolation. I quickly began skimming and then skipping. There are only three or four mostly physical actions scenes did not make up for all the rest of the book.

I liked the first books in the series, and wanted to find out what happened next. Gues Weber is like the 400 pound gorilla who can do whatever he wants. And what he wants to do is ramble on, and on, and on. By flipping through, I found a little plot, but no character development. Lots of detail on how people get killed, on every move of a battle, on how to build things, on retelling the first books. This book would have been improved by being 200 pages shorter. I want to read it, not bench press it. How long, O Lord, how long?

Writing a book is a herculean task, so I am reluctant to be critical of anyone who manages to get published. Still, I am unable to give "A Mighty Fortress" more than two stars.

Most of what can be said about this book has already been said by the 100+ previous reviewers: This is a slow book, consisting mostly of meeting minutes, which does little to advance the overall plot. It doesn't really work by itself, and it doesn't really work as part of the series.

Unfortunately, it seems like the Safehold series is going down the path Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" was criticized for so much: It had a great, compelling start, only to grind down to an almost-halt a few books in.

Weber can still salvage the series, as the premise remains interesting, but he needs to take a good, hard look at what he is doing. He may _want_ the series to be 10 books long, and he could even be contractually bound to make it so, but it is very well possible this is just not a 10-book story.

Wow, had more fun reading these reviews that the book itself! Shouldn't have been surprised, however. Weber's last couple of Honorverse offerings have also suffered from the same «let's talk very earnestly and at great length, raising our eyebrows and snorting at our immense cleverness» gabfests. Sorry, Weber; this isn't deep political philosophy; nor is this what the Safehold series promised at its incept. I may continue to follow this series, but only based on that initial premise, not on its recent installments.

I really like the premise Weber is building his Safeholdian series on and as a huge scifi and naval history fan this series just hits "the spot" in many ways. But I really would wish for an editor with enough "balls" to shorten Weber's books a bit and the black and white approach (reformers vs. zealots) gets a bit old too.

David Weber is one of my favorite authors. That being said this was one of my least favorite books of his. He is spends way to much time on the politics, religion, etc of this planet. He could have just have written a few novels, skipped years or generations ahead in time through different heirs of the emperor, and then get the human race back into space kicking alien butt. I did actually enjoy this book. I can't recommend it to most people because I honestly think that 90% my friends aren't smart enough to keep all the characters straight (and im in grad school). Its like a tough piece of meat that has good flavor, tastes good but you spend so long chewing on it that you wonder if it was worth the effort. Weber's editor needs to read the reviews of this book and start trimming.

The author is obviously fascinated by sailing ships and ocean battles. I often skipped several pages at a time to avoid a character reminiscing about their personal history that didn't have much if anything to do with the main story.

Wait for your local library to get it. I wasted my money but I felt I needed to read it because I'd already read the others in the series.

I'd be hard pressed to call this a sci-fi book.

Off Armageddon Reef hooked me. The two previous sequels were also good but not up to his usual panache. I agree with most of you here that the meetings are excessive and it is a long book. But bear with it--skim if you must. I know it was too long and I skipped the last thee hundred pages to get to the end. Once I visit the book store again I'll finish it (no I didn't buy it because am currently experiencing a lack of $$$). But the premise of this series is amazing. I did read most of the HH books and a few of his earlier works as well. Everyone has an off day and I am more than willing to forgive the excessive length of the book for once. Remember some of the HH books were extensive as well. I want to see us finally take the fight back to the Gbaba. I don't care and when I have the money I will probably purchase the book to add it to my hardback collection. I give this book 6 out of 10, but am more than willing to cut Weber some slack because we all know he is an excellent author.

Don't get me wrong, I like the writer, I like this series, and I will almost certainly buy the next sequel. However. The best way to me to summarize this book is "nothing happens." I am not decrying lack of naval battles, I can live without them. I decry the lack of any substantial storyline progress, as this entire "opus" could have been condensed into ten pages, tacked onto the end of the previous tome in the series.

Fourth in the Safehold military science fiction series that blends high tech with early 19th century weapons. It's a war of David and Goliath proportions pitting the valiant Empire of Charis against the might and power of a corrupt Church.

My Take
It's all so reasonable with Green Valley thrilled to be blending his marines with the Chisholmian army--their soldiers have taken Green Valley's tactical ideas and absorbed and improved them. Cayleb is insisting that Chisholmians are treated exactly the same with the same rights and privileges as Charisians. Sharleyan has a slew of brilliant ideas for weapons and tactics.

I think Coris is playing with fire by not telling Irys who he really believes assassinated her father and brother. Merlin, at least, is a bit happier now that more people are able to communicate long-range. OWL is also starting to become more aware.

While I do enjoy Weber's poaching from a variety of cultures for the names and this series has a cast of thousands and with the odd spellings that Weber uses that it would be very easy to screw up names. But, I'd think that Weber would keep a document noting who was what and how their names were arranged or spelt.

Weber makes an interesting distinction between the original "archangels" who subverted the original mission plan for Safehold and twisted the Holy Writ to ensure their own views. It's useful that Nimue/Merlin knew the original Adorée Bédard and that the Bédarists of today are nothing like her, BUT they have taken her words and made them truly live by applying those words. The conversations between the two Wylsynns are truly heartwarming in their faith. Well, Samyl's peaceful acceptance is while Hauwerd's is more the argument I think most people (and priests) would have.
Very inspiring.

I must say, Coris has a fascinating trip to Zion what with the sleighs pulled by lizards and the iceboat across the lake.
A fascinating meeting between Mahklyn and Seamount discusses the minute details of what they've discovered so far about corning powder. I would never ha' thunk it.

I so badly want Merlin to make a number of video clips of what the SNARCs see and somehow project the clips so it seems like a vision and the people of Safehold believe it's a miracle...that, and I want that damn troopship!

YES! I tell ya, I think Weber dribbles out these little bits of karma just to drive ya nuts...! Oh, wow, Hauwerd Wylsynn's death is so...heroic, sad, and hopefully, not pointless with those bloody pointless tributes that Weber throws in...dammit. What?? Has Weber got stock in a Kleenex company??

The Story
While most of the populace of Corisande believe that Cayleb murdered the Hektors, there are extremely few people in power who don't believe that Clyntahn actually gave the orders for Prince Hektor and the crown prince's murders. Another tiny nail in the Group of Four's coffin. And Sharleyan is on her way home to Chisholm, if only to reassure her own people that she is safe with Archbishop Maikel soon to follow on his own tour of the empire and he has decided to hand over Ahnzhelyk's "twenty years' worth of documents about the corruption within the vicarate and the Inquisition" to Wave Thunder.

The Imperial Charisian Navy (ICN) has been having it all her way for over three books. Unfortunately, someone has put the Earl of Thirsk back in the game and the enemy shipyards are playing catch up with the newer innovations. That superiority is not going to last.

The Characters
An avatar, Merlin Athrawes, has all the knowledge of the now-vanished, highly technical Earth. The personality of Nimue Alban, a woman dead these past 900 years, has been downloaded into his circuits and he is determined to return the original mission parameters to Safehold. He can also alter his physical appearance at will and creates a new avatar when he goes a'spying in Zion as Ahbraim Zhevons. Cayleb is the Emperor of the Star Empire of Charis with his beloved (and pregnant) Empress Sharleyan. Her personal armsman Sergeant Edwyrd Seahamper is the only survivor from the attack on her.

The Chisholmian side of the Empire; Cherayth is its capital
Mahrak Sandyrs (Mark Sanders), Baron Green Mountain, is First Councillor in Chisholm and the Queen Mother Alahnah Tayt (Alanna Tate)'s lover. He's also the equivalent of a second father to Sharleyan. Both are extremely relieved that Sharleyan and Cayleb love each other. Pawal Braynair is now the Archbishop of Cherayth in the Church of Charis. Barkah Rahskail, the Earl of Swayle is a Temple Loyalist on the Duke of Eastshare's staff.

General Sir Kynt Clareyk is now the Baron of Green Valley and working with Rushyl Thairis (Russel), the Duke of Eastshare to integrate the Charisian Marines with the Chisholmian Army to create the Imperial Army. Sir Ahlber Zhustyn is the spies on other people while Hauwerstat Thompkyn, the Earl of White Crag, is the Lord Justice and keeps people from spying on Chisholm. Sir Lewk Cohlmyn (Luke Colman), the Earl of Sharpfield is now the second-ranking officer in the ICN and he's about to get an adviser--Gharth Rahlstahn (Garth Ralston), the Earl of Mahndyr, the former Emeraldian admiral.

The Charisian side of the Empire; Tellesberg is its capital
Rayjhis Yowance (Regis), Earl of Gray Harbor, is first councillor of Charis. Bynzhamyn Raice (Benjamin Race), Baron Wave Thunder, is the spymaster for the Charisian side of the kingdom.

Archbishop Maikel Staynair (Michael) is a Charisian and leads the new Church of Charis. To know him, is to love him. Bishop Zherald Ahdymsyn (A French "Gerald" Adamson) was Dynnys' representative in Charis year-round; now he is Maikel's advance man for his tour. And he impresses Archbishop Klairmant of Corisande.

High Admiral Bryahn Lock Island (Brian), Earl of Lock Island, commands key fortifications at Tellesberg's harbor mouth in Charis, but is not yet accepted into the inner circle. Admiral Sir Domynyk Staynair, Baron Rock Point, has his battles to win.

Doctor Rahzhyr Mahklyn (Roger Maclin?), the Dean of the Royal College of Charis with full access to OWL meets with Sir Ahlfryd Hyndryk (Alfred Hendrick), Baron Seamount, is Safehold's gunnery expert. It's a catch-22 as to whether they'll let Hyndryk have access to OWL; he's reinventing the scientific principles and it could be distracting. Ehdwyrd Howsmyn (Edward Houseman) "owns two of the kingdom's three largest foundries and one of the largest shipyards and a small fleet of merchant ships. Sir Ahlfryd Hyndryk (Alfred Hendrick), Baron Seamount, is a Navy captain and the gunnery expert of Safehold. Prince Nahrmahn Baytz (Norman Bates) of the now-province Emerald is now the Imperial spymaster with his daughter betrothed to Cayleb's younger brother. He and his much-loved wife Ohlyvya (Olivia) are brought into the inner circle.

Admiral Sir Domynyk Staynair, Baron Rock Point, destroys the port of Ferayd for two miles and then hangs the inquisitor priests responsible. Sir Gwylym Manthyr is bound for Hardship Bay on Claw Island in the Harchong Sea with a mandate to slow and/or destroy the Dohlar Navy. Ensign Hektor Alply-Ahrmahk, the Duke of Darcos, has a small role to play under Sir Dunkyn Yairley`s command. He's been helping Hektor learn the etiquette of his new station in life.

The Brethren of Saint Zherneau has guarded the journal of Saint Zherneau, a.k.a., Jeremiah Knowles, one of the original Adams and a secret adherent of Pei Shan-wei. Father Paityr Wylsynn, the Intendant in Charis, struggles as he awaits word of the fate of his family: his stepmother Lysbet, Zhanayt, Erais, Fraihman, and young Samyl Wylsynn.

The Exiles
Phylyp Ahzgood (Phillip Osgood), Earl of Coris, was appointed regent to young Daivyn Daykyn, the new Prince of Corisande albeit in exile at King Zhames` (James) court; he is also guardian to him and Iris, both Prince Hektor's children. All his skills as a spymaster will be required when the Group of Four commands him to travel to Zion in the middle of winter. He does manage to find a valet along the way, Rhobair Seablanket, a fellow Corisandian. And Church spy.

Corisandians; Manchyr is the capital
Viceroy General Hauwyl Chermyn (Howell Sherman) is less than happy with his promotion to Viceroy of Corisande. At the end of the book, he becomes the Grand Duke of Zebediah.

Cayleb has set up a ruling Regency Council of Corisandians for this newly conquered land: Sir Rysel Gahrvai, the Earl of Anvil Rock, is one of two co-regents for Prince Daivyn; Admiral Taryl Lektor, the Earl of Tartarian; Sahlahmn Traigair (Solomon Traeger), the Earl of Storm Keep; Edwair Garthin, the Earl of North Coast; Sir Raimynd Lyndahr (Raymond Lindar) is the Keeper of the Purse; Trumyn Sowthmyn (Truman Southman), the Earl of Airyth; Sir Bairmon Chahlmair, the Duke of Margo; Wahlys Hillkeeper (Wallace), the Earl of Craggy Hill; and, the new Archbishop Klairmant Gairlyng; he has his particular doubts, although one-third of the bishops and priests have accepted the Church of Charis.

Including the beloved Father Tymahn Hahskans (Timon Hoskins). Cayleb, Merlin, and a huge proportion of the populace of Manchyr love Father Tymahn and his sermons. Unfortunately, Mother Church is less than enthused that the bridle is finally off his thoughts.

Sir Koryn Gahrvai is Anvil Rock's son and in charge of the city guard. Sir Alyk Ahrthyr (Alec Arthur) is the Earl of Windshare and renowned for both his horsemanship and intrepid bravery on the battlefield. As long as it's straightforward. He's also Sir Koryn's friend and is now putting together a troop of mounted constables to help keep the peace.

The Corisandian Conspirators:
Storm Keep; Craggy Hill; Rahzhyr Mairwyn (Roger), Baron Larchros; Bishop Amilain Gahrnaht and Father Airwain Yair; Bishop Mailvyn in Barcor; Bryahn Selky (Brian), the Earl of Deep Hollow; Sir Zher Sumyrs, the Baron of Barcor; and, Sir Adulfo Lynkyn (Lincoln), the Duke of Black Water.

Bishop Executor Thomys Shylair is on the run and hiding out in conspirators' homes while Intendant Aidryn Waimyn has his own plans to foment rebellion in Corisande. And if it takes torturing a priest...well, he obviously deserves it. I hope that Merlin finds Ahlbair Cahmmyng (a French "Albert" Cumming), the thug Waimyn hired to kill the Hektors!

The Enemies
King Rahnyld (Ronald) of Dohlar. Samyl Cahkrayn (Samuel Cochrane), Duke of Fern, is Rahnyld's chief councillor. Admiral Lywys Gardynyr (Lewis Gardener), Earl of Thirsk, has been recalled from his dishonor and placed in charge of building the new Dohlar Navy. Since politics are more important than ability, Thirsk is under attack by, Aibram Ziavyair (Abram Savior), Duke of Thorat, the brother of the so-very-incompetent Malikai. Thirsk finds unexpected allies in Bishop Staiphan (Stephen) and Admiral Hahlynd (Holland).

King Gorjah III of Tarot chose the wrong side when he ignored his treaty with Charis and now he's paying for it.
Cayleb and Sharleyan are just waiting for Tohmas Symmyns (Thomas Simmons), the Grand Duke Zebediah to screw up.

Daivyn Bairaht (Devon Barret), the Duke of Kholman and Emperor Mahrys IV's senior councilor for the Imperial Desnarian Navy conspires with Sir Urwyn Hahltar (Irwin Halter), Baron Jahras, to fulfill the Group of Four's demands while preserving lives.

There are four priests who form a Council of Vicars, the Church's rulers, a.k.a., the Group of Four: Grand Inquisitor Zhaspyr Clyntahn (Jasper Clinton) is a gluttonous sociopath and he is like a cat playing with a mouse, enjoying its terror. Archbishop Wyllym Rayno is the Adjutant of the Order of Schueler and Clyntahn's executive officer. Chancellor Zahmsyn Trynair (Jameson Trainer) has seen beyond the façade that Clyntahn presents...and he's terrified; Treasurer General Rhobair Duchairn (a French "Robert") recognizes the danger he is in and is conflicted between following his conscience and saving his family; and, Captain General Allayn Magwair (Allan) is quite aware of his own danger.
Members of the Circle, priests who oppose the corruption of the Church, include Hauwerd Wylsynn and his brother Vicar Samyl. Their feud with Clyntahn is about to come to an end and not in a good way. With no way to know who the traitor is, they cannot warn anyone, but do their best to ensure as many of their brethren are out of Zion before winter shuts the city down. Another member is Archbishop Zhasyn Cahnyr (Jason Connor) of Glacierheart. Father Gharth Gorjah is his longtime personal secretary and Fraidmyn Tohmys his valet (Fredman?? Thomas)

Ahnzhelyk Phonda (Angelique Fonda) is a madam running a very elite brothel in Zion as well as a very secretive spy system collecting data on priests. Her contacts with the Church cause her to implement plans laid decades ago.

The Cover
This cover is very similar to By Heresies Distressed in that it has a dark background providing great contrast for the author's name and title in silver foil. The center inset is of Merlin in his guise as Abraim in his recon skimmer as he watches a nighttime naval battle. No, this combination of events didn't happen in this story either.

The title, A Mighty Fortress is a reference to something King Haarahld said about "the fortress of Charis is the wooden walls of her fleet" but Merlin elaborated on it: "Duty. Responsibility. Love ...is the real basis of your sense of duty. ...[The people of Charis]...love their kingdom. They love their emperor and empress. They love their church and their God. They love freedom, and they love each other. ...that...is the true fortress of Charis".

If you are like me you don't go to the movie theater's to spend way too much hard earned money on fluff. Well this book is another of Webers ramblings to make money. Don't get me wrong, I own over a dozen books by David Weber and he's a great idea man. It just takes him too long to get to the point. Because of this I would have rather purchased this series in Omnibus form or in the Walmart style $5 movie bin.

At the present rate, one per year, this is due to end in 2016 with book 10. I really may not live that long, but then we never know how long we have, do we. At least I won't die regretting that this festering chocolate log of a story never reached a conclusion.

I read the first 3 books and really enjoyed them. The fourth is a bit slow - Weber seems to be trying to stretch things out by getting really descriptive about things and situations without adding to the story, character or setting. I have about 150 pages to go but have already decided to not proceed with the series - good premise but lotsa of words without much purpose for this book.

There are some long reviews here, but will agree with most and sum it up: Breathtaking sea battle scenes that end too quickly, some Sci-Fi of note, religious intrigue, and about 97 chapters of often boring yak-yak between it all. Not all, but the amount of excess verbiage is like reading a later Tom Clancy or Steven King novel. That and I was a little irritated to see it on the shelf at the dollar store after paying full price. That should be all the review anyone needs!

I love this sentence: "A huge gush of flame-cored smoke belched from the muzzle, and Stywyrt's eyebrows rose as the very first shot scored a direct hit." Just a few words but an entire scene flashes in your eyes

But I hate it when the last 28 pages of the book just refer to identification of the characters. The author does this with every book of the series, and it is nothing more than padding the length of the book, not needed, and a waste for the buyer of the book.

I love Weber's books, generally, but this series is truly spectacular, and this book is one of the few that has had me constantly scanning the Internet, waiting for the next installment. The action, when it happens, is hot and heavy, but the emotional action - those things that go through people's heads when they're not shooting at each other - is likewise outstanding. I realize that a lot of people enjoy reading military science fiction for the action, and they might lose interest with this book. On the other hand, some of us want to read the thoughts of fully developed characters who struggle with the realities of good and evil, and this series doesn't disappoint on that score. Moreover, the way it covers the subtleties of the real struggle for faith that has gone on in the human race for centuries makes it a very good read for people with a theological bent who like to cut loose with some pleasure reading every now and then. This is not an explosive Honor Harrington book, but something that offers a much deeper treatment of important issues while delivering the occasional ship to ship combat. It is actual literature, instead of a mere "action movie in a book," so it offers a real breath of fresh air in an increasingly crowded genre.

Too long ... too slow ... and waaaaaaaaay too many names to keep straight ... the next one better have Merlin and the Empire breaking out a big can of slash lizard whoop ass on the Inquisition or I'm outta here with this series.

Long and boring. Too much tedious detail. What is wrong with Weber? His editors should be fired for letting this book be published. It needs serious editing. I feel brain damaged by the incredible amount of minutiae. Where is the story? Nothing happens. I love Weber but this book is torture.

Just to quickly qualify- I never read Weber before this series. I cannot compare it to anything else he has written.
I liked the other 3 books in this series and have been totally engaged in the story. The gut wrenching choices of some characters do keep you engaged. This is especially so in the last battle scene of the book. The fact that Merlin and the inner circle have a complete view of this large decisive battle and can do nothing to alter its course speaks volumes. They had the power, but while they would have won the battle with less pain, they would have lost the war in the end. This is a battle of hearts and minds as much as weapons. that is why I will continue to read this series.

As with others, I too am fighting my way through the book. The rest of the series was good, sometimes a bit winded, could have used a bit more FutureTech. But with A Mighty Fortress I'm awaiting for something to happen. Someone Wrote "drop the 1st 33%" very true, I'm still getting though it.

David has not advanced the story in 4 books. I would never have thought this excellent author would fall, he did. So many names it is hard to keep everything straight. Then he has slipped into a boring bloviating style.

Every short chapter, a new pair of difficult to remember and similarly named characters, countries and cities. An epic, but the man must have a pretty good database to keep track of all the schemes and characters Can kind of follow the main storyline but is so long winded. Can get interested for a few pages, then puts me to sleep.

If you'd rather Tolkien's Hobbit, and Lord of the Rings series had been written as follows: Bilbo finds a magic ring, gives it to his nephew Frodo who throws it in the lava and saves the world; this series of books is not for you. If you like to read and digest and think what could be, then you'll enjoy a religious-political-human nature romp through a possibly alternate future timeline where Survival! and responsibility have very different meanings to different characters.

I would add to the other poor opinions that similar failings have infected his Honorverse as well. It took me a while to figure it out but I think Weber has been sacrificing the work and creative aspect of imagination these last ten years to indulge an agenda of his social/political fantasies in both series. I wont say what it is but it is telling that evil in this series is most personified by a character who's named Clinton, ooops, sorry, I meant to say, Clynton. A clue to his laziness is the propensity of ALL his characters having the same idiomatic speech habits like over using the phrase, "to be honest..."
Once upon a time there was leanness and vigor to his books and now they are just fat and read mostly out of habit.

David Weber is always great at creating a system out of whole cloth and occasionally tying it back to «Old Earth». He really likes politcal intrigue, skillfully weaving it into the plot. This book also puts him up there with the likes of Patrick O'Brien in describing sailing ship warfare.

I wonder if those who wrote that this book was boring actually finished the book. While the first 600 pages read like a nightly CNN report with snippits of what is going on in the world. He gives you a great picture of the world and cultures that have risen. The last 200+ pages are full of action including a huge navel battle written with Weber's characteristic flair. I hope he continues the saga all the way to where humans once again travel the stars. That would be a great ride!

Yes, David Weber has become verbose. Yes, David Weber needs a few lessons in remedial grammar. Yes, David Weber has a tendency to reprise characters, under different names, from one series to another. Yes, David Weber's choice of phonetic spellings for names in this series is a bit annoying (although it can also be amusing at times). Yes, David Weber is offering up yet another of the "lost colony" stories that have long been a staple of science fiction and not an original concept. All of those criticisms of the Safehold saga are valid, they do at times detract and distract from the overall story, and they are hereby stipulated.

The basic outline of the origin of the Safehold colony, Merlin Athrawes, and the conflict between the Kingdom (later Empire) of Charis and the Church of God Awaiting has all been effectively recapitulated in other reviews, so there is no need to repeat them here.

Having said all that, I now submit that the reviewers who are carping some variation on the theme of "There just isn't enough action!" in the fourth book of the Safehold saga, "A Mighty Fortress," simply don't get it. From the very first book, Weber made it clear that the war on Safehold between Charis and the Church was ultimately a war of ideas, not one merely of weapons. It is those ideas that are at the heart of the entire series, and they begin to come to the forefront in the preceding volume, "By Heresies Distressed," coming to full fruition in "A Mighty Fortress." Weber writes passages, nowhere moreso than in "A Mighty Fortress," that demand a large measure of thought--and possibly personal introspection--on the part of the reader. This means that these books are NOT a "Star Wars" novel series, or even "Star Trek." The issues raised in these books are not as superficial or facile as those around which "Star Trek" novels are centered, and we all know that superficiality is at the heart of the entire "Star Wars" universe. That doesn't mean that those two franchises don't have a place in the science fiction library--they do, as entertainment, pure and simple, which they accomplish quite well. No one asks or expects more from them.

But castigating Weber for not providing a sufficient level of "blood and thunder" in the Safehold books misses the point entirely. Truly GOOD science fiction has always been about ideas. Witness "Frankenstein"--really just a very dark retelling of the creation myth; "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea"--a condemnation of the perceived faults of British imperialism; "The War of the Worlds"--a commentary on the fragility (and arrogance) of late Victorian society. Does the Safehold series deserve to be in the same company as these books? Who knows? When they were published those books weren't regarded as significant works of literature, but rather as mere entertainment. In a generation or two, the Safehold books could well be seen in the same light, however--certainly the potential is there.

The Safehold series isn't written for those readers who in their reviews complain about a lack of "action," or who gripe that "A Mighty Fortress" reads like a collection of minutes from a series of meetings. Evidently these same reviewers have never read the first three books (and the best of the series) of Isaac Azimov's "Foundation" saga. Those books were, almost in their entirety, composed of people sitting around talking about ideas--there are no titanic space battles, no exploding starships, no epic warfare--except what takes place "offstage," as it were, and are only referred to in passing by the various characters in their dialogues. "A Mighty Fortress" is written in much the same vein: most of the "action" is recounted indirectly, after the fact by the participants, or through the consequences of the events. This is actually Weber's strength, as he compells the reader to focus on the ideas, the values, the moralities, and the spiritual questions that drive those actions. At the same time, it demands that the reader focus equally on the people involved, who are presented (admittedly in a somewhat stylized fashion) as being flesh-and-blood, and not merely as cannon-fodder, or the operators of machinery, or the occupants spaceship cockpits. Readers who enjoy genuinely thought-provoking works of science-fiction will come away profoundly satisfied. It is those who are unable--or simply refuse--to grasp that which Weber is trying to accomplish who will be, and are, disappointed

If you are looking for a parade of hardware without a human thought or emotion in sight, an endless succession of "gee whiz whiz-bang" space battles, or even a procession of land or sea battles fought with 18th Century weapons, ships and tactics, you would be well-advised to look elsewhere for your reading material. These books, and this one in particular, demand that the reader actually THINK, something that these critics are clearly unwilling to do. They want to be dazzled by fireworks; contemplating what is behind the fireworks is self-evidently something for which they lack either the time, the inclination, or the capacity. Sadly, for them, it's their loss.

Yes, David Weber has become verbose. Yes, David Weber needs a few lessons in remedial grammar. Yes, David Weber has a tendency to reprise characters, under different names, from one series to another. Yes, David Weber's choice of phonetic spellings for names in this series is a bit annoying (although it can also be amusing at times). Yes, David Weber is offering up yet another of the "lost colony" stories that have long been a staple of science fiction and not an original concept. All of those criticisms of the Safehold saga are valid, they do at times detract and distract from the overall story, and they are hereby stipulated.

The basic outline of the origin of the Safehold colony, Merlin Athrawes, and the conflict between the Kingdom (later Empire) of Charis and the Church of God Awaiting has all been effectively recapitulated in other reviews, so there is no need to repeat them here.

Having said all that, I now submit that the reviewers who are carping some variation on the theme of "There just isn't enough action!" in the fourth book of the Safehold saga, "A Mighty Fortress," simply don't get it. From the very first book, Weber made it clear that the war on Safehold between Charis and the Church was ultimately a war of ideas, not one merely of weapons. It is those ideas that are at the heart of the entire series, and they begin to come to the forefront in the preceding volume, "By Heresies Distressed," coming to full fruition in "A Mighty Fortress." Weber writes passages, nowhere moreso than in "A Mighty Fortress," that demand a large measure of thought--and possibly personal introspection--on the part of the reader. This means that these books are NOT a "Star Wars" novel series, or even "Star Trek." The issues raised in these books are not as superficial or facile as those around which "Star Trek" novels are centered, and we all know that superficiality is at the heart of the entire "Star Wars" universe. That doesn't mean that those two franchises don't have a place in the science fiction library--they do, as entertainment, pure and simple, which they accomplish quite well. No one asks or expects more from them.

But castigating Weber for not providing a sufficient level of "blood and thunder" in the Safehold books misses the point entirely. Truly GOOD science fiction has always been about ideas. Witness "Frankenstein"--really just a very dark retelling of the creation myth; "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea"--a condemnation of the perceived faults of British imperialism; "The War of the Worlds"--a commentary on the fragility (and arrogance) of late Victorian society. Does the Safehold series deserve to be in the same company as these books? Who knows? When they were published those books weren't regarded as significant works of literature, but rather as mere entertainment. In a generation or two, the Safehold books could well be seen in the same light, however--certainly the potential is there.

The Safehold series isn't written for those readers who in their reviews complain about a lack of "action," or who gripe that "A Mighty Fortress" reads like a collection of minutes from a series of meetings. Evidently these same reviewers have never read the first three books (and the best of the series) of Isaac Azimov's "Foundation" saga. Those books were, almost in their entirety, composed of people sitting around talking about ideas--there are no titanic space battles, no exploding starships, no epic warfare--except what takes place "offstage," as it were, and are only referred to in passing by the various characters in their dialogues. "A Mighty Fortress" is written in much the same vein: most of the "action" is recounted indirectly, after the fact by the participants, or through the consequences of the events. This is actually Weber's strength, as he compells the reader to focus on the ideas, the values, the moralities, and the spiritual questions that drive those actions. At the same time, it demands that the reader focus equally on the people involved, who are presented (admittedly in a somewhat stylized fashion) as being flesh-and-blood, and not merely as cannon-fodder, or the operators of machinery, or the occupants spaceship cockpits. Readers who enjoy genuinely thought-provoking works of science-fiction will come away profoundly satisfied. It is those who are unable--or simply refuse--to grasp that which Weber is trying to accomplish who will be, and are, disappointed

If you are looking for a parade of hardware without a human thought or emotion in sight, an endless succession of "gee whiz whiz-bang" space battles, or even a procession of land or sea battles fought with 18th Century weapons, ships and tactics, you would be well-advised to look elsewhere for your reading material. These books, and this one in particular, demand that the reader actually THINK, something that these critics are clearly unwilling to do. They want to be dazzled by fireworks; contemplating what is behind the fireworks is self-evidently something for which they lack either the time, the inclination, or the capacity. Sadly, for them, it's their loss.

I have enjoyed the series, but agree with those who think that it's getting a little too wordy and not enough action. The Harrington series did the same thing. I like decent characterization and a little romance with my fiction, but what I crave is the fascinating strategy and breath-taking action that causes my heart rate and my imagination to soar. Those things are what make it so I can't put the book down and keep me coming back for more.

I'm a die-hard audiobook fan,(I spend way too much time on the freeway) so perhaps the listening experience is different than reading the material. Not having to translate David's spelling of names is a major blessing. However, having listened to about 3/5ths of A Mighty Fortress, I'm very satisfied with the way the Safehold story is moving along in contrast to BHD. I gave this book four stars, because there is way too much exposition for the fourth book in a series. This is not a stand-alone work but there were way too many pages dealing with backstory that had already been fully covered in the first three. But all-in-all,I'm having a good time with Fortress.

Its true that compared to the previous books in this series there is not as much action in this book. But I didn't find it boring. Eventually this series will have to ramp up again as technology continues to advance on Safehold and humanity rubs up against the guards put upon it and their alien enemies. You have to judge this book within the overall series and its vision. If you have to have a battle scene every three chapters you should look elsewhere.

I have been a huge fan of the Safehold series since the first book, and this installment does not disappoint. David Weber continues to tell a fascinating story, and to develop intriguing characters. I'll be the first to admit that he tends to reuse some of his favorite plot elements (anti-technic society, religiously motivated, from both 'Heirs to Empire' and Grayson from the Honor Harrington series), but each time he does so it seems like he expends considerable energy on further exploring them.

With each new book in this series I find myself continuously drawn back into the story and into the lives of the people involved. One of the things I was very satisfied to see was the development of Nimue/Merlin, including the scene when we get to reencounter Nimue as a still living entity. I was also pleased to see that Weber was able to take the story into some darker directions, in ways that we really hadn't seen since the death of King Harald, but that fans of his other works wold be well familiar with.

Like each of the books in this series since 'By Schism Rent Asunder' I've had 'A Mighty Fortress' in my hands since the day it was released. It took me approximately two and a half days to read it, and I'm planning on reading it again in about a week. I look forward with enormous pleasure to each return visit to Weber's worlds, and Safehold is no exception. I highly recommend 'A Mighty Fortress', and each of the other books in the series, to absolutely anyone who is a fan of well written and very creative fiction.

In sum, this book continues the same high standards and reading enjoyment of the previous three in the series. Unlike all too many authors, Weber doesn't get you hooked on a series, and then fade away. Three times I literally couldn't put this book down.

One of the things that I enjoyed most was the character development of Nimue Alban/Merlin. One of Weber's best strengths is giving us believable characters that he makes us actually care about. Nimue is concerned that she is losing her objectivity--losing sight of her ultimate goal through her increasing involvement with people that she comes to deeply care about as individuals--losing her soul, if she has one. She is the opposite of Inquisition head Vicar Clyntahn: she is no longer human but is becoming more human; he is human, but is becoming less human. Her doubts about what she is (can a PICA have a soul?), what she is becoming, etc. help make her, in my opinion, one of the finest characters in SF.

I really appreciate that the plot is so believable. Nimue doesn't just wave a ray gun and conquer all. As for the criticism that Charis unrealistically has too many great leaders, allow me to point out that this did actually occur at least once in real history, namely the American Revolution, which gathered not one or two, but about one or two dozen extraordinarily selfless leaders. (Hey David, if you can find room, how about bringing John Adams in somewhere?) If you find the story of freedom in real history interesting, you are likely to feel the same way about Safehold. And when was the last time you read about the moral and practical struggles of ruling a conquered people (Corisande) without losing your own soul? As for the critic (non-the store source) who objected that Clyntahn's evil is stereotypical rather than realistic, I recommend a little more study of history, where one might notice that tyrannical leaders--without exception--sooner or later move into murderous excesses. Weber's knowledge of real history and real human nature comes through again and again.

Another criticism out there is that Weber spends too much time on religion in general, or is too favorable to religion (it should not be a fight against the abuse of faith, but a fight of reason against faith...), or all this religion stuff is boring. Well, a lot of us really appreciate that, unlike many SF authors, Weber neither unrealistically pretends that "religion will fade away as science triumphs" (Asimov), nor does he write as if faith was stupidity (etc.!). Instead he gives us not just another SF window-dressing religion, but the kind of challenges that many of us of faith experience in the real world--the doubts, the confusion, the struggles to know and to do what is right. For me, the religious element in this series is its best part, not Merlin chopping up the bad guys. Nimue is no mere killing machine (pun intended).

I know nothing about Weber the man, except that I read his books. That said, I cannot believe that he could write this well about faith unless he is himself "a man of faith". I wonder if the theology of this series might be Weber's personal faith statement, rather just a plot device. The theology here does seem much more developed than we see even in Honor's world (e.g. how does one navigate a high tech/low tech world without losing one's soul?). As an Evangelical Christian, I cannot agree with Nimue's version of Christianity, which is more or less a Christless Christianity, where God helps the sincere and the decent. Weber deals with the on-going challenges of theodicy (If God is all powerful and all good, why is this such an evil world?) far better than most. Nevertheless, it sure is nice to see faith itself treated with honesty, realism, and respect, even if it is not quite what I personally believe.

POSSIBLE PLOT SPOILER--don't read further if that bothers you

Now I'm not sure that a book review is the proper place for speculation, but here's a little anyway: We learn that Paytir has the "the Key", and Weber reminds us that Nimue is limited by mysterious energy sources under the Temple. And where did all those seijin stories come from? Is it just coincidence that Nimue's actual PICA abilities match so nicely with the legends? Could there be another PICA under the temple? He will get the drop on Nimue, but she will persuade him to join the cause. Together they defeat the orbital blockade despite some really nasty paranoid stuff that Langhorne set up (like maybe the self-destruct function actually destroys the entire planet), and Nimue will no longer be the lonely immortal, although love with a guy with only a 10 day memory might be interesting. ...on the other hand, noble self-sacrifice is one of Weber's major themes. Well, we shall see.

Finally, if all you want in a story is the good guy chopping up the bad guys through superior technology, I suggest you look elsewhere. If you enjoy things like Weber's usual environment of decency (as per Tolkien et al.), good character development--people you come to care about (Weber gives us believable role-models here that can work for the real world), realistic challenges of technology, intricate political plots, the triumph of freedom, and honest religious and moral dilemmas, then Safehold should be your world of choice.

A Mighty Fortress (2010) is the fourth SF novel in the Safehold series, following By Heresies Distressed. In the previous volume, the two younger children of Prince Hektor were smuggled out of Corisande. The Charisian Marines defeated the army of Koryn Gahrvai in Tabor Pass. Prince Hektor and his heir were assassinated by agents of Mother Church.

Emperor Cayleb was blamed for the death of the princes. After the deaths, Cayleb accepted the surrender of Corisande from Rysel Gahrvai and then appointed him as Regent for Daivyn Daykyn. A Regency Council was formed and a Viceroy General was selected to oversee the conquered princedom.

In this novel, Merlin Athrawes is a PICA -- Personality-Integrated Cybernetic Avatar -- of Nimue Alban. She is over nine hundred years old and is masquerading as a male because females have less influence on Safehold. She is captain of Cayleb's guard and his secret advisor.

Cayleb Ahrmahk is Emperor of the Charisian Empire. His empire includes the nations of Old Charis, Chisholm, Emerald and Corisande. Now the Empire is going after Mother Church. Cayleb is aware of the truth about Merlin.

Sharleyan Tayt is now Cayleb's wife and Empress of Charis. The former Queen of Chisholm is not a consort, but a co-ruler of the Empire. She is pregnant with the heir to the Empire. Sharleyan now knows the truth about Merlin.

Maikel Staynair is Archbishop of Charis. He is the Primate of the Church of Charis. Maikel is aware of the truth about Merlin.

Nahrmahn Baytz is Prince of Emerald and an advisor to the Emperor. He is Minister of Imperial Intelligence, senior spymaster of the Empire. Despite their former enmity, Cayleb is discovering that Nahrmahn is a likeable fellow and extremely intelligent. Nahrmahn has not been admitted to the inner circle and is unaware of the truth about Merlin. But he suspects that he is not being told everything.

Hektor Daykyn was Prince of Corisande. Under orders from the Church, he led the attack against Charis. Now he has been assassinated and the Charisians are blamed for the deed. His children Irys and Daivyn are living in exile in the Kingdom of Delferahk.

Hauwyl Chermyn is Viceroy General of Corisande. He is the senior secular official within the Charisian occupation forces.

Klairmant Gairlyng is the newly appointed Archbishop of Corisande. He was chosen by the Church of Charis.

Rysel Gahrvai is Baron of Anvil Rock and head of the Regency Council. He is also the father of Koryn.

Koryn Gahrvai is a member of the Regency Council. He is also the son of Rysel and commander of the Guardsmen. He is trying to reduce the amount of violence among the populace.

Taryl Lektor is Earl of Tartarian and a member of the Regency Council. He was former commander of the Corisandian Navy under Hektor.

Lywys Gardynyr is the Earl of Thirsk. He is also the most competent admiral in the Mother Church forces. Despite internal opposition, he is training his crews before sending them to sea to face the Imperial Charisian Navy galleons.

In this story, the populace of Corisande is being agitated by agents of Mother Church. Demonstrations and riots have become frequent, but the Charisian forces know to moderate their response to such violence. Viceroy General Chermyn has passed the word down to all his troops.

Merlin and the inner circle know all about the instigators. They have recordings of most of meetings of the resistance. The Charisians are only waiting -- more or less patiently -- for clear and admissible evidence of this treason that doesn't blatantly expose their sources.

The Regency Council is aware of the Charisian restraint. Rysel Gahrvai calls a meeting with his son and Taryl Lektor to discuss matters. He is having some doubts about the loyalty of the two northern nobles, so he carefully fails to inform them of the Council meeting.

Merlin pays a visit to the Duke of Eastshare in the Kingdom of Chisholm. He has assured himself that the Duke is loyal to the Empire, but he has something to tell him about one of his staff officers. He hopes to keep the Duke from committing violence on the known traitor.

Merlin also takes Sharleyan into orbit in a recon skimmer. She is the first person on Safehold other than Merlin to see her world from space. Cayleb has ridden in a skimmer, but not above the atmosphere.

Merlin is taking her to his hideaway in the Mountains of Light to give her a thorough prenatal examination. She is familiar with Owl, but not with the medical computer. So Owl introduces her to the medical AI and stays available during the procedure.

Nahrmahn Baytz and his wife are fully briefed on Safehold history, including Merlin's true identity and mission. Both are shocked by the origins of Mother Church, but rapidly recover. Cayleb gives Terran communications gear to Nahrmahn and assigns certain data for him to monitor.

Merlin escorts Maikel on his official visit to Corisande. In addition to meeting Archbishop Klairmant, Maikel will be preaching to a mixed crowd of nobles and commoners. Since everyone knows what Merlin can do to assassins, the inner circle hopes that Mother Church agents will not try to kill Maikel. But if they do try, Merlin is quite likely to foil their efforts.

Merlin also pays a visit to Zion in the guise of Ahbraim Zhevons. He uses the mutability feature of the body to change his looks. After the success of this operation, he appears elsewhere as Ahbraim and spreads rumors of a network of seijins working for Charis.

Meanwhile, Admiral Gardynyr starts convoying Mother Church merchant ships. The Charisian forces discover this the hard way. In the resulting battle, three Charisian galleons drive off four Dohlaran galleon and capture another, but the battle was hardfought on both sides.

This tale has Mother Church advancing their forces against Charis. Admiral Gardynyr is becoming a real threat to the ICN. Then the Church forces start moving out to sea.

The author excels at describing battles between warships armed with cannons. He conveys the flash and smoke. He also shows the damages caused by the broadsides. Obviously he was greatly influenced by C.S. Forrester, but he also knows a lot about sailing ships.

Both sides are becoming stronger. The next installment probably will have even fiercer battles. Read and enjoy!

Highly recommended for Weber fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of naval combat, political intrigue, and personal courage. If anyone is not familiar with this series, the initial volume is Off Armageddon Reef.

-Arthur W. Jordin

David Weber, A Mighty Fortress

Not to disagree, exactly, with some of the more negative reviews, but I liked this book.

1. I admit to being a Weber fan. Go, David, go!!

2. As a retired executive and combat veteran, I know that real life's not all about the combat.

3. And for anyone that's been reading Weber's various series, you know that as his super-competent protagonist characters mature, their roles expand from their initial limited combat-focused roles, to much broader roles including political and personal. So, also, do their supporting characters and antagonists, and the nation-states they represent.

4. Thus, in A Mighty Fortress, there are a lot of non-combat situations within and without the new Empire of Charis that either get mostly resolved or expanded upon and continued, or new ones added. Yes, there is combat, and it's well-done, although a bit less combat than in previous volumes. And, the "good guys" don't always win, but they are always courageous and magnanimous.

5. So, for someone who enjoys reading about complex and maturing characters, and the plots and sub-plots, and counter-vailing plots, they get involved with, this book is a very good read.

6. Plus, if you've been following and enjoying the series thus far, you really have to read it in order to know where things are going.

I have read every single one of David Weber's books. And I think this book is right along with some of his best work. The "long winded" aspect that some readers complain of, is actually David Weber giving you details of a world that few other authors do, and does so in such a way that gives life to the worlds that are just words on the page. His worlds and characters are deep, which require some explanation, and the "political" non action parts of the book do an excellent job of giving you an in depth look at the characters and why they are doing the things they are doing. No this is not a quick or easy read, but it is an excellent example of David Weber unique style at creating individual characters and unique worlds for readers to immerse themselves in. The action in The Mighty Fortress starts off slow, but leads up to an exciting conclusion as is David Weber's style. The battle scenarios are exquisitely detailed, and yet kept simple that any layman would be able to understand. For those readers that suggest that this book is "tedious" and "rambling", I suggest you go back to your young adult novels. This book kept me hooked right up to the moment I turned the last page. As I said above, I can't wait for the next one.

I loved the book, as I find the characters and the politics fascinating.
I do hope that the technology advances a little more quickly though, as I
would like to see the series get back into space with the Gbaba, even if
DW has said he has no present plans to take the series that far.
It would be disappointing not to have that conflict renewed.

I couldn't wait to get my hands on "A Mighty Fortress." I wasn't disappointed. The writing carries one along. I classify Dave as a "Political Science Fiction" not military SF. For me the scenes behind and leading up to the battles are what make the book[s] so interesting for me. I can hardly wait for the next one in the saga!

The book is fantastic. David Weber at his newly non-republican best. Don't bother ordering from New World Books, and if you do, don't bother asking for fast delivery. It took more than 2 weeks for the book to arrive.