A Novel in the Safehold Series - Hell's Foundations Quiver

I'm going to give this one 4 stars - if you are reading this review you are more then likely already familiar with the series. your main question is probably - does the overall plot actually move at all in this one or is it just a lot of detailed period warfare and discussions on re-invented technology? Trust me I understand - for a writer that is so very good at interesting character driven plot and dialogue Mr. Weber has really been putting us through a lot of . . . other stuff. Well, in answer to your question - this book does push the plot forward. It has more actual substance as opposed to war filler content then some of the recent ones. That said in my opinion there is still a bit to much of the very detailed battle and technology scenes that do not concern characters I care very much about. I'd say this is 40/60 character main plot/war tech. Which is a heck of a lot better then some of the recent ones which seemed 20/80.

So I liked it. I hope Mr. Weber continues down this track with the next novel and moves it to 60/40.

This is a fantastic story which takes place in a future where humans are all but extinct. The survivors of the human race have transplanted the remaining members of humanity to a distant planet called, Safehold. All technology is superseded for fear of being detected by the alien race that wiped out Earth. You must begin this series with the first book, Off Armageddon Reef, to fully understand and appreciate the story. I can't wait for the next installment.

If you've already read the other Safehold books you'll probably buy this one, but it really isn't worth it. It's slow and formulaic. The names are a PITA and with such a large cast of characters it's hard to remember which is which, and in the long run you won't care about them anyway.
It was difficult to read more than a few pages at a time without putting it down. The book was however an excellent sleep aid. If the author's intent was to bore me he succeeded admirably.
I am done with this series. I really don't care how it ends and can't invest anymore time in it. And if the last couple of Honorverse books are any indication I may be done with them too.

I love this series. It is a shameless rip off of the reformation era in earth history but with fantastic twists and turns. Very creative and well researched. The plot has lot's of possibilities and is painted on a very large canvas indeed. The entire future of mankind is at stake in the long term, and the freedom of thought and individual morals and ethics are well explored here as well. Definitely entertaining! In this particular volume, the tide begins to turn for the villains. I can't wait for the next one in the series.

It seems like David Weber is trying to fill some kind of page count quota. I used to be really invested in the story line of this series but I really wish he would actually push interesting events and developments instead of making some kind of attempt at minor character development by rambling on about what people are thinking and doing before an explosion goes off. Too much of the plot line has become ultra conservative and easily predictable, and I really couldn't care less about half the filler that goes on between real events.

David Weber is one of my favorite authors. I have read all of the Honor Harrington series along with the Safehold series. In the Safehold series, the human race was nearly destroyed by another species. Humans have been stuck with pre-industrial technology to hide from the other species. A conscious mind, from when the humans first were hiding, has awakened nearly 1000 years later and finds the humans on the planet have been forced under a strict "religion" to keep them from progressing of a species. Mr. Weber takes us through the struggles of the humans to become what they once were with help from the single mind from the humans past.

This is my favorite saga. The character development, attention to detail and the twist with the story line ( reinventing weapon /strategy development ) is a wonderful change from the general sci if saga's. The religion aspect and importance gives a great background to the battles, and why it's so important to win against the " Four in Zion"!

I'm a fan of David Weber's books and the Safehold series has been totally gripping for me! Solid naval/land battles description's, moving character scenes great technology descriptions etc and this book is no less (or more) than the good quality he has been producing in this series.

If you love David Weber's style of writing if you like the Safehold series so far then this book won't disappoint you I stopped all work to read it in one session, but in my view it fails to quite soar to the heavenly heights of some of his best writings go, but given that we have one (?) book to go in this series I can see him building for a huge block buster last book in the series.

I for one will be waiting with anticipation for his next book in the series.

Good read but it starts getting a bit stale reading about a nation whose arned forces have better weaponry, better leaders, perfect intelligence and impeccable morals. Some faults in the perfect facade would be more believable. And the progression could be a bit faster, it feels like a couple of books too far in the series already. Still, I keep on reading them...

I do like this series. I liked this one better than the last. I get a bit tired of the battles and the descriptions of innovations, but I like the premise and the characters. I did hope this was the book the ended the series, but the war is going their way so maybe it will end with the next book.

Parts of this series have been challenging to get through. Because of how much I have enjoyed other books by DW, I pretty much felt compelled to finish this series and so far I am very glad I did. I think I enjoyed this book as much as the first volume, which is the one that got me hooked. Now I am eagerly waiting for the next volume.

I was worse than a junkie waiting for this installment of the Safehold books and when it arrived, I couldn't put it down till I fell asleep while reading.
The worse thing about it from my point of view is that I will have to wait a year for the next book.

This book was entertaining. The only bad thing about it is the author gets too wordy there were several chapters I believe that could have been left out. Over all is was a good read when you get past the too wordy sections.

This is a great continuation of this series. Wow- I could barely put the book down until I finished it. Cheers for insinuating just enough extra-ordinary luck and advanced knowledge and skills to keep the good guys one step ahead....now, if only the next book can be available tomorrow ?

Just finished reading "Hell's Foundations Quiver" by David Weber, released by TOR.
The eighth entry into Weber's absorbing Safehold series deftly picks up the story as - Spoilers Ahead - Aivah Pahrsahn unravels the threads of Merlin Athrawes ability to be in far off places while seemingly being able to remain where he's supposed to be in such a way that would make Miss Marple blush with envy. Aivah, it seems, has figured out, and quiet correctly too, where Merlin has come from - the same place all the Adams and Eves came from before they awoke on Safehold. Now that puts a new twist on things and expands the circle of those who know the truth about Safehold. Also revealed is how Seijins were originally created and entered into the Church of God Awaiting's bible and folklore.
The Church's Jihad against the Empire of Charis is crumbling as more and more people in the Church see the war the Grand Inquisitor started as a violation of the teachings in the Holy Writ. Ironically, the greatest technological innovation comes from the Church itself in this book, and it's one that could change the war for the losing side, if Merlin doesn't intervene.
I'm looking forward to the next entry in this thoughtful and compelling science-fiction series.
Strongly Recommended!
Five Stars!

Using SF to discuss the what amounts to the reformation, and showing us how ugly a true Jihad would be and what an all powerful church would be like is brilliant. Of course Charis is England and it's foe is Spain and the Inquisition believe s we we tell you or your tortured to death. The Church is all powerful and if you have something it wants then it takes it, and it surpresses knowledge and progress because it exposes the fallacy of it's doctrine.

Watch through the viewpoints of many characters as the great war rages across Safehold. Lots of adventure on land and sea as the planet struggles to reinvent technology with a bit of help from Merlin and the Owl.

This book is number 8 in David Weber's ongoing Safehold series. I think this book is a welcome improvement over some of the earlier entries. This volume has more "action" with both numerous land and sea battles that are nicely detailed and well written. While there is still considerable exposition (the author takes pains to develop almost every character -- even if the character meets an abrupt end after introduction), the pacing of the book is faster and it feels as if the storyline is (finally) progressing if not accelerating.

I give the book four stars as there is still considerable exposition. Those that have read the prior books probably don't need the amount of internal monologue that is present -- they already know the personality and mindset of the main characters. In addition, this book (and other relatively recent books by the author) don't so much as "end" (come to a satisfying break or stopping point) as simply "stop" (not quite cliff hangers but a very much "to be continued" situation).

Plot / Spoilers

After defeating or stopping the Church offensives, the Charisian Empire and its allies launch winter counter-offensives that take the Church armies (increasingly lead or directed by violent inquisitors) by surprise. The Jihad takes massive casulties and loses much of the territory seized during the staged uprising and offensives earlier in the storyline. Another "secret society" with knowledge of a history beyond the approved (and false) teaching of the Church comes to light. Innovation proceeds at an increasing pace. New weapons are developed and employed. The Charisian Empire (and its Church) appear to be growing stronger and more united. Merlin and Nimue expand their efforts to hunt down and hold accountable those members of the Inquisition that are running the concentration camps holding "heretics", using their access to advanced technology to rescue several victims of the inquisition. (And causing the Church to realize that their foes do have "supernatural" abilities -- which may lead to interesting developments in the future)

On the other side, various secular rulers and leaders are appalled at the increasing ferocity of the Inquisition and/or terrified of the Empire's success in battle. Members of the Church Leadership (Group of Four) are awakening to the possibility that they could actually lose the war. The Grand Inquisitor is increasingly irrational and hostile (echos of the paranoia and irrationality of Hitler and Stalin of Old Earth) and demanding the head of pretty much anyone that disappoints him or stands in his way. There appears to be a very real possibility of the Inquisitor purging the other leaders of the church in order to take direct control (though he is the reason they are in such dire straits in the first place).

This is the eighth volume in the " Safehold" saga. I've purchased and read all of them. They are displayed prominently in my office library.
Taught to read by my mother at age 4, I was reading at eighth grade level in second grade. Reading is my passion: so is science, aviation, and areospace. Bad heart kept me from an effort at becoming an astronaut. Astronomy is a passion, as is flying. Have owned 4 planes and have been a pilot since I was 14. But all I ever really wanted to do was be a,"Rocket Jockey"......and always find time for a return visit to home, and , "The Cool Green Hills of Earth". I love science fiction. Gave 350 Sci-Fi paperbacks to my Highschool Library in 1965, upon graduation. Read my first SF book in second grade (1954, three years BEFORE Sputnik; the worlds first satellite, thank you Auther C. Clark) I have a First Edition of the book in my library; "The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet" by Eleanor Cameron.

Why am I saying all this? Because I have read thousands of SF books, one of my undergraduate majors was in Russian literature and I have read every novel by every major author in the USA for the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries. I know good books. I also know great books and great authors. I am a technical writer, an Appellant Lawyer for 30 years and a member of the Bar of the United States Supreme Court, and because I am trained to recognize injustice when I see it's ugly face.
David Weber is one of the very few MOST SUCCESSFUL SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS OF ALL TIME. Yet he is ignored by many of the " gate keepers" to literary awards.
David writes as well as Hemingway, Mitchner, Ferber, Douglas, Steinbeck, Rand, Margaret Mitchell etc.
With his latest series he may very well have reached the pinnacle of his gifted talent. The great sweep of his latest novel, the humanity of his leading characters, the harsh, gritty details of life on a battlefield for a period of years, the great waste of life that is war. And the moral piety of those who force war upon nations because of their religion, thus revealing the debauched evil of those who casually spend other peoples' lives while proclaming it to be " Gods Will"! Davids' fiction is as moving as Solzhenitsyn's descriptions of Stalins' and Lenins' death camps.
It has been said you cannot appreciate a mountain when your standing on top of it. I respectfully request the "experts" to back off a fair distance and look at this great writers' body of work. All other considerations most fall by the wayside, when confronted by the gift of a very rare talent.

Reader, thank you for your patients.

The only negative aspect of the series is the time between books. Weber continues to add major characters that are well thought out and believable. The mixture of success and losses makes the series great. Can hardly wait for the next book. Weber is already one of the best writers of his day.

Don't buy the kindle version of this book. the version sent to me has the maps from LAMA instead of the map set in the hardcopy version of the book! I don't know if it's TOR or the store but I don't believe I received what I paid for!

Once again Weber proves he can grip you with his writing. My only wish is that we didn't have to wait so long between the Safehold books and he would give us a clue as to how many books left until the story reaches it's conclusion.

Solid space opera - tactics, strategy, deception, logistics, economics, leadership, good vs evil - its all here. If you are looking for pure action look elsewhere, but this book covers all aspects of a global war. Overall 5 stars, highly recommended.

number 8 of a series.

basic story is that Safehold is the last outpost of humans. all other human worlds were tracked down thru their use of technology and destroyed by a genocidal alien race. the leaders of Safehold, after a big fight between two sides (one wanted to hide, the other wanted to, eventually, fight the genocidal aliens) create a church to control development of technology to keep it below the level that can be detected by the genocidal aliens. this church has gradually been subverted by a reactionary overcontrolling sadistic faction that wants to totally control the population through fear and violence. some have revolted, starting with the Kingdom of Charis, which through conquest and marriage becomes an empire and declares war on the church's governing cabal, led by the chief of the church's inquisition.

this book is another installment in the Empire of Charis' war against the current church leadership. Basic plot is, Charis develops new technology by implementing ideas introduced by an artificial intelligence that has access to lots of advanced technology, but who can't give it to the Empire all at once because it would be against church proscriptions written to prevent the level of tech that would attract genocidal aliens. the other side gets the crap beaten out of it by that new tech, but captures some of it, copies it and almost reaches parity. The Empire then gets more tech; the cycle repeats. and repeats. and repeats. and repeats. and repeats. you get the picture.

the Empire guys are the good guys, the Gang of Four are the bad guys, one of whom is badder than the others, and the bad guys have lots of people on their side who love the Church, but who are growing increasingly disenchanted with the Gang of Four. the next 27 books will, in some detail (probably including advances in making toilet paper without breaking the proscriptions of the Church and attracting genocidal aliens, addressed in book 23, chapters 25-28), address progress in the War Against the Four, until the Four are defeated (it is possible that 2 of the Four may defect to the Empire, probably around book 33).

the next 214 books will address the technological progress of Safehold, under the leadership of the Empire of Charis and the Reformed Church, in preparing to rediscover the universe and fight the aliens (have i mentioned they are genocidal?).

the subsequent 618 books will relate the war against the genocidal aliens.

an addendum of 168 books will include the names of each human and alien character in this series, all of which will be written in homophones.

Wybyr should remember Elmore Leonard's Rule #10: "try to leave out the part[s] that readers tend to skip"

I started reading this book and within the first 50 pages it started coming apart. It has several loose pages now. This isn't the first time we have gotten a brand new book and it has been poorly bound.

The plot holes here are less egregious than many in previous books. Weber continues to "show through" by plot twists that are inexplicable except to pave the way for some future needs of the author. It's like in a movie where the main character suddenly begins talking to the audience, while the set background is switched. But at least they're of apparently less significant, and that's progress. Merlin slaughters hundreds of enemy sailors and soldiers to save 5 relatives of Thirsk (his enemy). Thirsk is responsible for improving the weapons and combat (naval) strength leading to deaths of thousands of Charis's soldiers and sailors, but saving a couple of kids from the Church at any cost? No problem. Weber's heroes at one moment pretend that All Lives Matter, and then have no problem mowing down dozens or hundreds of conscripted soldiers (who have families of their own to support) in some heroic gesture, proving they're the "good guys". The "inner circle" is divulging its secrets almost at random now. The criteria they use to decide whether the person they've told is trustworthy is to ask them = but now they give them the choice of 1. Join us to destroy the Church or 2.Go into storage (or prison) while we destroy your Church. Makes sense they've not had anyone choose option 2, and everyone choosing Option 1, aren't lying about their new-found dedication to oppose the mother Church they grew up in. Right. The total destruction of the Dreadnaught should have happened. Its inexplicable why it didn't while the rescue of Thirsks family, along with the slaughter of hundreds of Church soldiers and sailors happens so that Thirsk will ....will WHAT? Stay tuned for the next episode, folks! Not much happens in this book. Sailors are captured, sailors are freed; Charis invents more and (marginally) better weapons but experiences as number of serious set-backs, which means the Empire's survival still is balanced on a knife edge (with millions of Harchongian troops getting ready to invade Siddarmark). There are a couple of routine battles mentioned in the book, but basically it's a yawner. I'm an eternal optimist, I'd like to see Weber start to skip ahead and end this silly war (which will no doubt depend on some of the enemies which Merlin has 'turned', but which could have been ended in one or two years if he'd used targeted assassinations, but dozens of lives must be worth more than the millions that have died so far, in Merlin's (Weber's) moral calculus. Nimue continues to act as Merlin's shadow, you'd think doubling the number of PICAs would dramatically accelerate the progress of the war, but no. I guess there's no sense sending one of them (now that there are two) into Zion to slaughter ALL of the vicars and arch-bishops. No sense in that -be cause the response might be...the destruction of Zion and we wouldn't want that to happen! Anyway, I enjoy the way the technology is progressing, (although as a chemist, some of the chemistry is just plain silly (wrong, too) - I'm guessing Weber didn't have a chemist acting as an alpha or beta reader.) and he can be engaging. If this (with suitable introduction) were the first book of the series, I'd probably have no regrets in making it my last, but as it is, I'm hooked on finding out where Weber is going to take this - it's sufficiently entertaining. Hey, not all of his are going to be On Basilisk Station...more's the pity.

I have gotten seriously tired of how many words are used to advance the storyline so little. We've seen people introduced to the inner circle a few times. It's risky and hard for them, we get it, move on. It's a big world, with people on both sides and lots of emotions. Pick a few important ones, and move the story along. Both the events of the story and the character dialog has gotten very predictable; if you read the first seven, you could probably write the dialog and be correct about every major event before it happens.

I liked the world, it had great potential for story telling. But this story has gotten so bogged down that I skimmed large sections, and eventually looked up a plot summary online rather than finish. And yes, I correctly guessed at the entire end state of the book before reading past the 40% mark.

If you love the series for all of the character dialogue and detailed exploration of weapons development in an early industrial era, have a go at this one. For the rest - quit now if you haven't already. The issues with this one were there in the last several books, but have just gotten worse.

Behold the 8th book of what was initially advertised as a 8 book series, except Weber never met a good editor apparently. This book is 770+ pages, 100 pages of which is a glossary of characters from every novel up to now. The previous 670+ pages is an overwritten overthought overfought war of scene after scene where very little is actually at stake. David is using this series as an excuse to flamboyantly gorge himself on every military-fantasy he ever had, with hundreds of pages wasted in moves and counters that entertained only the author. The spirit of these books has been totally lost under a cloud of black gunsmoke. Remember when this series was supposed to be about a forgotten humanity struggling to save itself against an alien menace? Granted that was only the first ten pages of Book 1, but 8 books in, that remains the most interesting thing we have yet to read. For 8 books that problem has been IGNORED in what is for all intents and purposes...filler. 8 books of filler about an evil religion and a helpless populace and a mustache twirling Grand Inquisitor who, for all his evilness, is really only the secondary villain. Clyntahn's existence is irrelevant to the larger problem of the Gbaba, and every book spent on solving the Clyntahn problem as opposed to just getting on with it and getting humanity back to the stars is a book wasted.
See, the series has a fundamental design flaw. The first villain we're introduced to is the Gbaba. That means everything after that, every Church Inquisitor, every diabolic assassin, is only a mere also-ran. They are only time-killers while we wait for the inevitable rise of humanity and get back to the first villain we saw at the very start, a villain who is, frankly, far more interesting than anything we've seen on the human side. And the very premise of the series gives away the defeat of the Church of God Awaiting (you know they arent going to win), so book after book is just a "hurry up and get on with it." No other series has that problem. Honor Harrington's golden age novels were all self-contained,with beginning middle and ends where you never knew what would happen from one book to the next. The Multiverse is a series-long tale where every side is good and every side is bad and we have no idea where its going to end up. But this?
GET ON WITH IT ALREADY! I havent bought any of these books (all hail the local library), and I'm glad I havent. Just get to the end we all know is coming and wont surprise any of us.

I have bought into the the Safehold series but it is getting mighty long in the tooth! This is not a good book from a reader's perspective. The fact that you have to skim pages without losing the thread of the story tells you how much fluff is there in the book. As other reviewers have pointed out, the book could have been edited to less than 300 pages and nothing would have been lost.

Compare this author to the Chinese author Cixin Liu, it tells how a good story can be written concisely and without losing the thread.

Instead of buying Mr. Weber's novels (which I did the first three times), I now go to the library and check it out.

There is no question that David Weber can write a good tale. And HFQ is a good tale.

Now the down side(s). Weber's writing seems best when he has a co-author. Maybe something about the other person restraining his tendency to preciousness. In the Safehold series it's the use of silly name spellings. If having 80 or so pages of characters to keep straight wasn't enough of a momentum killer, this ridiculous affectation is. It probably took me twice as long to read this piece as it should have - largely due to this device.

Then, there are the maps. Other than the first map of the world, the others are borderline - or completely - useless. Most don't relate at all to the narrative. Additionallly, there are strange shadings, meaningless dotted lines and unusual focal points. None have a scale or, other than the first which shows the planet's equator, directional orientation.

One has to wonder if this material had any kind of editorial review or if Weber is such a good money maker for the publisher, TOR, that they simply printed his first draft.

I'm an avid reader of scifi, especially military scifi, and with the exception of the Safehold series, have generally enjoyed Webers writing. Though I will continue to read whatever he gets published, the Safehold series is neither enjoyable nor great literature. I read it as an Alzheimers - forestalling exercise, not as entertainment.

Although the story is well constructed, several aspects of this series make it a readers nightmare. The number of characters isn't justfied by need. Every battle and skirmish of a mililtary campaign need not be described in detail to convey what is happening in a war and why. No general or commander in chief in history ever had as much information about a war as what Weber expects a reader to read. Characters who skip between a standardized language and a bastardized one make them implausible and often incomprehensible.

Writing is judged not by the writers ability to string together words into long dialogues and detailed descriptions of minutia, but by his ability to communicate ideas, which includes keeping the readers interest and attention.

Without a doubt, anyone who finishes this series MUST pay attention, and MUST be determined and persistent, because the story is buried in a morass of irrevelant detail, enough secondary unneeded characters to populate a middle eastern country, and writing vanities.

Though trying to merge hard scifi with a historical drama, this Safehold universe has some literally incomprehensible inconsistencies, one of which is guaranteed to bring the speed of reading to a stall. Although place names and spoken language retain forms instantly recognisable to a 21st century English speaker, the author asserts that dialect drift has caused all characters names (but only characters names) to morph into bizarrely spelled forms. When sounded out, these names are recognizable as common names in use today, but the spellings, follow no written system used after the introduction of printed type, making both retention and comprehension difficult.

If the characters were Klingon or another species, there'd be a reason for oddly spelled names, but since the entire plot revolves around humans controlled by a world totalitarian church government according to a PRINTED SET OF BOOKS, the idea that a planetary language would be permitted undergo an odd but consistent dialect drift in spelling is absurd.

These unusual name spellings were apparently introduced after the writing was well underway, and unless Weber is an immortal who grew up in Elizabethan times, I'd bet that a custom search and replace spellcheck dictionary was used during early editing to convert them. The alternatives, that Weber enjoys torturing readers, or that this is his "serious" writing to atone for writing popular novels, would be appalling, if not outright insulting to those of us who have provided him with a comfortable living.

If you enjoy long dialogs, stories that switch viewpoints and locations after each scene, and a multiyear story that seems to progress in real time, do yourself a favor. Pass on buying the printed book and buy the audio version instead if and when it becomes available.

This book picks up *exactly* where 'Like a Mighty Army' left off. In that book, many of the reviews complained about the slow pacing and lack of any movement forward in the plot. I have to agree with that sentiment. However, I don't believe that anyone can legitimately say the same about *this* book. If anything, quite the reverse. Having read David's Honor series and this one, it's obviously that he is big on getting the stage perfectly set up before starting the show. To use another analogy, in the last book, he set up a huge line of dominoes. In this book, we get to watch them all fall down in turn. Most of the book is very fast paced -- a marked contrast to the previous one. As some other reviewers have indicated, a fair amount is predictable. However, I think that it's a pretty safe for me to state that no one reading this series thinks that Charis is going to *lose* in the end. It would be pretty hard for David to make them win without the 'predictable' events that take place in this book. I have to admit that as tie goes by, I'm coming to dislike the bizarre names more and more each book. It definitely makes it more difficult to keep the characters straight and adds nothing to the book.

That aside, I did enjoy reading the book. I'll certainly continue reading the series. When I read this through a second time, I think I'll photocopy the large-scale map of Siddarmark, though to have handy without having to leave the page I'm reading. I very quickly lost track of the towns, canals, and various terrain features referenced constantly throughout the first two-thirds of the book. Eventually I just mentally substituted all of the locations with 'somewhere in Siddarmark..."

I have gotten seriously tired of how many words are used to advance the storyline so little. We've seen people introduced to the inner circle a few times. It's risky and hard for them, we get it, move on. It's a big world, with people on both sides and lots of emotions. Pick a few important ones, and move the story along. Both the events of the story and the character dialog has gotten very predictable; if you read the first seven, you could probably write the dialog and be correct about every major event before it happens.

I liked the world, it had great potential for story telling. But this story has gotten so bogged down that I skimmed large sections, and eventually looked up a plot summary online rather than finish. And yes, I correctly guessed at the entire end state of the book before reading past the 40% mark.

If you love the series for all of the character dialogue and detailed exploration of weapons development in an early industrial era, have a go at this one. For the rest - quit now if you haven't already. The issues with this one were there in the last several books, but have just gotten worse.

Behold the 8th book of what was initially advertised as a 8 book series, except Weber never met a good editor apparently. This book is 770+ pages, 100 pages of which is a glossary of characters from every novel up to now. The previous 670+ pages is an overwritten overthought overfought war of scene after scene where very little is actually at stake. David is using this series as an excuse to flamboyantly gorge himself on every military-fantasy he ever had, with hundreds of pages wasted in moves and counters that entertained only the author. The spirit of these books has been totally lost under a cloud of black gunsmoke. Remember when this series was supposed to be about a forgotten humanity struggling to save itself against an alien menace? Granted that was only the first ten pages of Book 1, but 8 books in, that remains the most interesting thing we have yet to read. For 8 books that problem has been IGNORED in what is for all intents and purposes...filler. 8 books of filler about an evil religion and a helpless populace and a mustache twirling Grand Inquisitor who, for all his evilness, is really only the secondary villain. Clyntahn's existence is irrelevant to the larger problem of the Gbaba, and every book spent on solving the Clyntahn problem as opposed to just getting on with it and getting humanity back to the stars is a book wasted.
See, the series has a fundamental design flaw. The first villain we're introduced to is the Gbaba. That means everything after that, every Church Inquisitor, every diabolic assassin, is only a mere also-ran. They are only time-killers while we wait for the inevitable rise of humanity and get back to the first villain we saw at the very start, a villain who is, frankly, far more interesting than anything we've seen on the human side. And the very premise of the series gives away the defeat of the Church of God Awaiting (you know they arent going to win), so book after book is just a "hurry up and get on with it." No other series has that problem. Honor Harrington's golden age novels were all self-contained,with beginning middle and ends where you never knew what would happen from one book to the next. The Multiverse is a series-long tale where every side is good and every side is bad and we have no idea where its going to end up. But this?
GET ON WITH IT ALREADY! I havent bought any of these books (all hail the local library), and I'm glad I havent. Just get to the end we all know is coming and wont surprise any of us.

I have bought into the the Safehold series but it is getting mighty long in the tooth! This is not a good book from a reader's perspective. The fact that you have to skim pages without losing the thread of the story tells you how much fluff is there in the book. As other reviewers have pointed out, the book could have been edited to less than 300 pages and nothing would have been lost.

Compare this author to the Chinese author Cixin Liu, it tells how a good story can be written concisely and without losing the thread.

Instead of buying Mr. Weber's novels (which I did the first three times), I now go to the library and check it out.

There is no question that David Weber can write a good tale. And HFQ is a good tale.

Now the down side(s). Weber's writing seems best when he has a co-author. Maybe something about the other person restraining his tendency to preciousness. In the Safehold series it's the use of silly name spellings. If having 80 or so pages of characters to keep straight wasn't enough of a momentum killer, this ridiculous affectation is. It probably took me twice as long to read this piece as it should have - largely due to this device.

Then, there are the maps. Other than the first map of the world, the others are borderline - or completely - useless. Most don't relate at all to the narrative. Additionallly, there are strange shadings, meaningless dotted lines and unusual focal points. None have a scale or, other than the first which shows the planet's equator, directional orientation.

One has to wonder if this material had any kind of editorial review or if Weber is such a good money maker for the publisher, TOR, that they simply printed his first draft.

I'm an avid reader of scifi, especially military scifi, and with the exception of the Safehold series, have generally enjoyed Webers writing. Though I will continue to read whatever he gets published, the Safehold series is neither enjoyable nor great literature. I read it as an Alzheimers - forestalling exercise, not as entertainment.

Although the story is well constructed, several aspects of this series make it a readers nightmare. The number of characters isn't justfied by need. Every battle and skirmish of a mililtary campaign need not be described in detail to convey what is happening in a war and why. No general or commander in chief in history ever had as much information about a war as what Weber expects a reader to read. Characters who skip between a standardized language and a bastardized one make them implausible and often incomprehensible.

Writing is judged not by the writers ability to string together words into long dialogues and detailed descriptions of minutia, but by his ability to communicate ideas, which includes keeping the readers interest and attention.

Without a doubt, anyone who finishes this series MUST pay attention, and MUST be determined and persistent, because the story is buried in a morass of irrevelant detail, enough secondary unneeded characters to populate a middle eastern country, and writing vanities.

Though trying to merge hard scifi with a historical drama, this Safehold universe has some literally incomprehensible inconsistencies, one of which is guaranteed to bring the speed of reading to a stall. Although place names and spoken language retain forms instantly recognisable to a 21st century English speaker, the author asserts that dialect drift has caused all characters names (but only characters names) to morph into bizarrely spelled forms. When sounded out, these names are recognizable as common names in use today, but the spellings, follow no written system used after the introduction of printed type, making both retention and comprehension difficult.

If the characters were Klingon or another species, there'd be a reason for oddly spelled names, but since the entire plot revolves around humans controlled by a world totalitarian church government according to a PRINTED SET OF BOOKS, the idea that a planetary language would be permitted undergo an odd but consistent dialect drift in spelling is absurd.

These unusual name spellings were apparently introduced after the writing was well underway, and unless Weber is an immortal who grew up in Elizabethan times, I'd bet that a custom search and replace spellcheck dictionary was used during early editing to convert them. The alternatives, that Weber enjoys torturing readers, or that this is his "serious" writing to atone for writing popular novels, would be appalling, if not outright insulting to those of us who have provided him with a comfortable living.

If you enjoy long dialogs, stories that switch viewpoints and locations after each scene, and a multiyear story that seems to progress in real time, do yourself a favor. Pass on buying the printed book and buy the audio version instead if and when it becomes available.

This book picks up *exactly* where 'Like a Mighty Army' left off. In that book, many of the reviews complained about the slow pacing and lack of any movement forward in the plot. I have to agree with that sentiment. However, I don't believe that anyone can legitimately say the same about *this* book. If anything, quite the reverse. Having read David's Honor series and this one, it's obviously that he is big on getting the stage perfectly set up before starting the show. To use another analogy, in the last book, he set up a huge line of dominoes. In this book, we get to watch them all fall down in turn. Most of the book is very fast paced -- a marked contrast to the previous one. As some other reviewers have indicated, a fair amount is predictable. However, I think that it's a pretty safe for me to state that no one reading this series thinks that Charis is going to *lose* in the end. It would be pretty hard for David to make them win without the 'predictable' events that take place in this book. I have to admit that as tie goes by, I'm coming to dislike the bizarre names more and more each book. It definitely makes it more difficult to keep the characters straight and adds nothing to the book.

That aside, I did enjoy reading the book. I'll certainly continue reading the series. When I read this through a second time, I think I'll photocopy the large-scale map of Siddarmark, though to have handy without having to leave the page I'm reading. I very quickly lost track of the towns, canals, and various terrain features referenced constantly throughout the first two-thirds of the book. Eventually I just mentally substituted all of the locations with 'somewhere in Siddarmark..."

I really lyked thys seryes in the begynnyng, but in the last few books the story has just inched paynfully along. In his Honor series the stories move along at a good pace. In thys seryes the plot inches along s-o-o S-L-O-W-L-Y! In thys tome there are tons of unnecessary characters and entyre chapters of events that should have been condensed down to one paragraph each. In fact, you can skyp thys book entyrely and myss very lyttle of the story. I only recommend thys to a reader who is fully invested in thys seryes and wants to ryde it out to the bytter end.

(SERIES BOOK - DO NOT START WITH THIS ONE)
The eighth book of the Safehold series, Hell's Foundation Quiver, reads like a treatise on the historical development of military weapons and tactics during the early 1900s. I skipped whole paragraphs, sometimes even pages, as I slogged through the book - and I am interested in this sort of thing.

Characterization is minimal. While each character does thing in line with their past history and loyalties, every character talks about the same and have very similar decision making processes. People I loved for their uniqueness are little more than placeholders moving one year forward in the shared history of the world.

The center stage was the development of weapons - how naval weapon and land-based weapons were created and modified to meet different needs. I hope Mr. Weber remembers story-telling is about people, not things, soon, because I am about leave this very interesting world because of boredom. I've already skipped a book of the series (maybe two) and took over a year to pick this one up.

Mr. Weber is one of my favorite authors, I have read the majority of his books. "Off Armageddon Reef" is one of my favorite science fiction books and I loved the first three books in the "Safehold" series. Thus, it saddens me that I have to write a negative review for "Hell's Foundations quiver". However, it does not surprise me, since the book shares a lot of the weaknesses of "Like a Mighty Army".

The biggest problem is that nothing important happens. Of course, a bunch of stuff happens. But from a strategic point of view, the book starts with the Charisian Empire having control of the sea and the front stretching through Siddarmark and the book ends with the same situation -- the front is just moved a few hundred kilometers. (Note that this hasn't really changed since the beginning of "Like a Mighty Army".) On the character development side, nothing seems to happen at all. No important character is introduced, nobody important dies, nobody seems to have a change of heart or progress in any way. Indeed, many characters that we got to know and care about in previous books only make short appearances as members of the allies' tele-conferences. And during their tele-conferences they seem to be completely interchangeable, since they always agree with each other anyway. On the Church's side the tension between the Group of Four increases, but even that is a continuation of long existing developments. (The only exception is that suddenly Trynair is de facto irrelevant -- something which is just stated and not developed well.)

To summarize, in each of the first three "Safehold" books, wars were declared, people fell in love, thrones were lost, peace was made, countries were annexed. Compared to that pace, "Hell's Foundations" is disappointingly slow at pushing the main plot forward.

The fact that nothing important happens could been forgiven, if the book would be thrilling for other reasons. Unfortunately, it isn't. One problem for David Weber is the law of diminishing return. The major plot elements of "Hell's Foundations Quiver" are (a) a Charisian fleet is trapped by bad luck and fights valiantly to the end (b) Temple armies are being demolished by superior weapons (c) Clyntahn is livid and bullies the rest of the Group of Four (d) people are told the truth about the Archangels and have long theological discussions (e) Dialydd Mab does what Dialydd Mab does (f) special operations rescue prisoners (g) army commanders sip a beverage and muse about their future plans -- Anybody, who read the other 7 books in the Safehold series, will recognize these plot elements. They were fun to read the first times, but now it is repetitive.

Another problem is that there are no interesting twists. Most story lines (e.g., use of screw galleys, Thirsk's family, tension in the Group of Four, concentration camps) were a continuation of the last books and very predictable. The only "twist" is that an already existing ally gets a backstory -- which arguably doesn't really change much. Even worse, conflicts that had been set up in previous books seem to be forgotten. E.g., Nahrmahn existence as electronic reanimation does not cause any conflicts, for all practical purposes he may as well not have died. Irys, who one would expect to have all kinds of problems in Corisande, does not really play a role (except for being a pregnant and teary-eyed spouse).

Unfortunately, there no signs that things will move forward in the next book. Given the current pace, it will take at least two books for the allies to grind itself though the Harchongian army. I am not looking forward to that.

In my opinion, the "Safehold" series needs a serious reboot. The elements of diplomacy and intrigue from the first "Safehold" books have been lost. Many of the characters are boringly valiant, fair, and rational. (I wonder what will come first: the return of the Gbaba or a marital dispute between Cayleb and Sharleyan.) Most importantly, there is too much repetition and the plot is too predictable. I hope that Mr. Weber does something radical at the beginning of the next book to shake up the existing story lines.

Book number eight of an nine book off planet post apocalyptic series. There will be more books in the series as it is being stretched out in excruciating detail. I read the MMPB version. I will buy the next book when it comes out in MMPB.

The 1,000 years of middle ages are ending. The Empire of Charis and the Church of God Awaiting tied up in a death match with each providing rapid advances in war technology to their armies. The death toll of the armies and civilians is simply breathtaking. And the evil of the Church of God Awaiting knows no bounds.

The book is 929 pages long. There are two appendixes in the book. The first is 111 pages about the characters in the first eight books. The second is a 29 page glossary of places and things. Like I said, excruciating detail.

BTW, we do know how the Safehold series ends. Or, do we ? "How the Safehold series won't end (Thu Apr 18, 2013)"

First three books was good got me into this series, then the next four books bored me to the point of stopping. This new book partially return to the pace of the first books. It still contain large amount of useless monologues, pages you would just skim over, a bit of hand waving setbacks when Mr. Weber fell he wrote too many successes for the Empire, and almost 100 pages of names of characters that didn't survive 3 paragraphs. Overall the story advancement is acceptable, probably not worth the price of a hardcover. Worth a read if you are already into this series find it in a library.

Even with the title, I gave it four stars. While this book did move the plot forward a bit, given the sheer amount to text involved, it did not move very far overall. In my opinion, this book set the stage for some big doings in the next book (though I think I said the same thing on my review of the last book). The Imperial Forces are staged, the Holy forces are staging and training. That is the part that probably could have moved further along in this book.

What I liked about the books is that we get some new characters in the mix who have had minimal impact thus far in the series. We also get a bit deeper insight into the resistance in Zion and some new 'inner circle' members with a bit of soul searching going on. That's why I gave it the 4th star.

Unless you need the hard back or just want to read it immediately (like I did), wait for the price to come down or the mass market paperback.

Enjoy.

This book rolls slowly along for 679 pages, pushing the storyline forward a minuscule amount, while pounding us with minutia. The characters have taken over the book, there are so many of them it is impossible to keep more than 40 or 50 of them straight. There is a full 83 page list of characters, 90% of whom make no difference to the story whatsoever. In the first 7 books I took the time to figure out who and where everyone was. Now I am plowing along, not recognizing characters or the location of some of the campaigns and frankly not caring enough to try to find maps from earlier books that were better than the current book.
I remember how much I liked the first book, Off Armageddon Reef, and how little of that wonder is left. I think Weber is pulling a Robert Jordan on this series, and is writing for the paycheck now.
It was entertaining to see some of the developments and the final chapter was enough to make me grin, but I can't say that this book is worth buying. Get it from the library.

Yes the series is slowing down the pace and if you want a lot of action all the time, his older books deliver more of that.
Being about the age of the author I have slowed down myself and like a thoughtful read and slower pace from time to time.
AmI looking forward to the next book,? yes! being retired I have time to wade through the rich detail and accept his spending time on many characters rather than a lot of time on only a few. I look forward to seeing how some of the "good bad guys" come over to the good side.
One thing you can't complain about Weber is that his secondary Characters are flat cardboard. Weber builds a whole world not just a slice.

Wish he would finish this series or at least bring them to the space age, before working on other stuff.

The story is still long sand drawn out, but I keep with it. I enjoy this long detailed journey, but I truly hope the next one topples the gang of four as the real challenges, lie beyond that. Those challenges are worth telling and they are immense. So while I will continue to read this, I do have one concern and it is not small
The maps.
The author goes into great detail about positioning and in this book more than 1/2 the story lines, including major battles ARE NOT ON THE MAPS. This is very frustrating and time consuming.

I've loved Weber since reading his starfire novels, however it seems that in this series he is missing an editor... it's just too long, slowly paced and filled with uninteresting characters , heck 15% of the book is glossary with entries like "Zhysman Johys 1st Lt third army of god bla bla bla who cares?!"

I won't buy the next one, I'm tired of this series.

This is another book in the excellent Safehold series. Safehold is a planet intentionally hidden at a low tech level from an alien intelligence that has wiped out mankind except for Safehold. Safehold’s founders founded a new religion to deter industrialization in hopes of not attracting the attention of mankind’s nemesis. Much of the review here is the same for the whole series.

The aforementioned theocracy has become dominated by the gang of four. The gang of four, are four corrupt churchmen who will do anything, no matter how despicable, to remain in power. Mass murder, terriorism, torture and even instigating civil war and denying all progress, it still manages to trumpet it’s godliness.

As all of Weber’s works he has deplorable villains and laudable heroes. Weber works many of current society’s ills into his work. Fanaticism, jihad, corruption, facile politicians, evil empires; he manages to include or refer to through proxy.

There is an afterword of 101 pages listing characters who have populated the series and a glossary of definitions of terms. If that doesn't convince you that Weber is detail oriented, I don't know what will. Weber is one of those rare authors who can infiltrate your emotions with his characters and feel you full of empathy for their actions. This book shows the Charisian Empire again but focuses more on a next generation of characters. Merlin and Nimue plus their many alter egos play a large part in the action in this volume. Their need for blood shed causes them emotional angst. Religious warfare is shown in it's brutal reality. Something that has sadly been illustrated by current events and being propagated by questionable Presidential candidates.

I did have to agree with some reviews that complain that Weber is wordy but each brush stroke can increase the depth and beauty of a work although in this book and the last (Like a Mighty Army) I did feel he got a bit effusive.

I recommend the book.

You know the maps at the start of the book ? Weber puts these in every book, but the exact choice of maps varies. For this book, there is frequent mention of battles in places not in the book's maps. It seemed like an error at first. A little frustrating, because sometimes [often?] trying to follow the narrative of march and counter march purely from the text is awkward.

Then in a moment of pure cynicism I realised this was deliberate by Weber or the publisher. You can see the maps in the previous 2 books. I had to find earlier copies of those and open at their maps. Not bad! It is a subtle inducement for you to buy those if you don't already have them.

Oh, since we're talking about maps. It might help if the maps of the land and sea battles also showed the locations and movements of the units, like a conventional military history narrative. The maps of the Safehold books don't do this anywhere.

I also have to say in response to those complaining about the slow pace of events. This was already pointed out by reviewers of the 3rd book. If Weber had listened, the series would have ended long ago. I at least am content to go along with Weber at his pace. We get to see a very complete world, in all its flaws.

This one isn't as bad as the last Honerverse book, but it falls short of the quality of work Weber is capable of producing. Weber continues his use of excessive minutiae, endless characters with largely unpronounceable names and meaningless forays into script bylines that detract from the plot and serve only to confuse the reader. I found myself skipping page after page.

I'm probably going to make this my last Weber book. Shame too, I so enjoyed his early work.

This is a continuation of Like a Mighty Army, a few hours later. The story develops and a lot more people are added to the Inner Circle... also someone unexpected. My only cautionary note is that the story includes a child in deadly danger. I can't say more than that without giving something away, but it is a violent book. It is not gratuitous, but it's a war story. What do you expect?

Great stuff.

I love this series more than any other right now, I await every title quite impatiently. I have NEVER been a big fan of scifi, more of a high fantasy type, so the rest of the author's series dont really interest me...but this book draws a perfect parallel...and I love it. I hope it never ends.

The characters in this book grab you and suck you in and make you choose sides

I have really enjoyed the character development

I am really looking forward to the next book in the series as well

Another disappointing book from David Webber.

Can you say "milking the cow while its hot". This is the only way to describe the books which David webber released in last couple of years.

I can say a lot, but let me give you one simple example. There is one whole chapter which describes, there is a whole chapter talking about company size. Seriously? If I want to know the army size, I would buy a book about that.

Listened to this on audible. Loved the flow, the characters continuing development. This is a well written, thorough book leading up to a coming anticipated climax. The politics, feelings and general civilization of the story are complete, understandable and enjoyable.

I love these books. They are intricate, fun and very well written. I'm a huge fan of David Weber to begin with, but the complex and competent description of war and battle and the politics that go along with it make these fascinating reads.

Agreed the series is moving way too slow. He only seems interested in writing political intrigue and battle scenes. We don't see how these humans will advance to the point where they can fight their real enemies. Stopped reading a book ago ...

Eighth in the Safehold military science fiction series and devolving around a religious war between a corrupt Church and the decent people the Church claims are heretics.

My Take
It starts off with Aivah's story about Saint Kohdy and the secretive order that has kept his grave and journal safe. Boy, talk about a horror. The cover-up on this, while well done, is disgusting. Rewriting their holy book to cover up their sins. Adding new books to reflect the changes later generations of vicars and priests want. Huh, I wonder who this reminds me of…

Saint Kohdy's story is a great opportunity for Weber to fill in more of the back story on what happened in the original war between the scientists, the "archangels".

It's similar to Like a Mighty Army , 7, in that there are lots of battles with victories and defeats on both sides. Fortunately, there was really only one incident that made me cry. Khapahr's decision still makes me want to weep. I don't know how he could have been so clumsy at the last minute like that. It doesn't make sense for his character.

Mother Church is catching up weapons-wise with Charis, which is a scary proposition. But no scarier than getting the dummy generals weeded out and the Church finding more competent ones. Fortunately, that jerk Clyntahn is still insisting on calling the shots based on his emotions.

It also helps that the Charisian policy of dealing with the inquisitors has them quaking in their boots — every time an Army of God unit is captured or about to be captured, the inquisitors all commit suicide. Yep, couldn't happen to a "nicer" bunch of fellas. Interesting as well that some of the Church military men are thinking that Charisian policy has its bonus points.

You may be wondering why I'm giving this a "4". Well, as annoying as I found this latest installment with all the battles and the story not getting much further forward than where we were in Midst Toil and Tribulation , 6, it's those cameos. Portraying regular soldiers of both sides as individuals performing their tasks, learning their fears, and getting a sense of how different levels of people view what's happening in their world is a brilliant way to pull the reader in, to make this behemoth of a book more intimate.

I do NOT love the weird spellings Weber has been using from the start. With such a huge cast of characters, these odd spellings makes it impossible to keep track of who belongs where. Your best bet is to skim the names and remember: Church bad, Charisians and their allies good.

I do have to wonder why Seijin Merlin couldn't have blown up that last capture and kept it out of Dohlaran hands. It's not like the previous Charisian arguments about making Mother Church sit up and take notice.

I love the argument that rages about the gold Charis has found. Clyntahn insists it indicates how desperate Shan-wei is to succeed while others point out that if God were truly on their side, he would have prevented the demon from finding the gold.

The really excellent bit of the entire story is Thirsk, and even that is just a taste of what may be possible. It was most unfair of Weber to end it right there! Now I have to wait a year to find out what Merlin says to him and how Thirsk responds!

The Story
With Merlin on their side, with his access to all the technology of the Terran Federation, Charis has stepped out beyond the careful technological restraint placed on their planet that is enforced by the Church of God Awaiting. An institution, a powerhouse, that has become corrupted beyond belief and that the tiny kingdom — now an imperial empire — has taken on and is beating.

Mother Church claims that Charis and its allies are pawns of the demon Shan-wei, but many — from its allies, its faithful, and even within its own ranks — are beginning to question who the demon truly is.

The Characters
Goodreads only allows so many words in a review and the cast of characters got truncated. I pared out even more characters
— I only included major characters important to Hell's Foundations Quiver or those I thought might be important later on — so if you want the full list of what I wrote up, check out my website for that review anytime after November 4, 2015.

Merlin Athrawes is an avatar, a PICA along with Nimue Chwaeriau. Both began "life" with Nimue Alban's memories imprinted into them. Merlin became aware some seven years ago with the goal of returning the original mission parameters to Safehold. Nimue was brought to "life" a short time ago. Both have all the knowledge of the now-vanished, highly technical Earth. They can alter their physical appearance at will, can't be killed, have tremendous strength, and are incredibly skilled in combat.

Nimue's Cave is…
…the hiding place where the original scientists who settled Safehold hid their high tech computers and equipment. Owl is a computer program with which Merlin, Nimue, and those in the inner circle can interface. The SNARCs are small spy devices scattered throughout Safehold. Nahrmahn Baytz was a prince who died ( How Firm a Foundation , 5) but they managed to upload his memories and personality to the computers and now he interacts as a hologram with our side.

Seijin Kohdy is one of those folkloric tales but against the usual type, more of a conjurer or vagabond of fun. Turns out he wasn't all that fictional. Cody Cortazar was an Adam in the Zion Enclave (he had been a sergeant major in the Terran Federation Marine Corps); his wife, Sandra, was killed three years after being awakened. Kynyth Tompsyn had been his closest mortal companion.

The Imperial Kingdom of Charis and Its Allies
The Imperial Kingdom of Charis is…
…the good guy who has been spearheading the war effort, a war which began as a defensive measure. Tellesburg is its capital city. Cayleb and Sharleyan Ahrmakh are the emperor and empress. They have a daughter, Alahnah. Sergeant Edwyrd Seahamper is still alive and now Alahnah's personal armsman. Archbishop Maikel Staynair is the head of the Charisian Church. Father Paityr Wylsyn, the Intendant in Charis, is still in charge of granting patents. Ehdwyrd Howsmyn has been building or inventing almost everything the empire needs through the Delthak Works, which employs well over 100,000 men. Zhain is his wife and the daughter of the Earl of Sharpfield. Brahd Stylmyn is re-inventing the railroad. Master Taigys Mahldyn is in charge of rifles. Earl Pine Hollow is first councilor.

The Imperial Charisian Navy (ICN)
Sir Domynyk Staynair is High Admiral Rock Point and Maikel Staynair's brother. Payter Shain is sent to wipe out Desnarian privateers. Admiral Sir Dunkyn Yairley, Baron Sarmouth, commands HMS Destiny and gets brought into the inner circle; Hektor is his flag lieutenant. Sylvyst Raigly is Sarmouth's longtime steward and valet. Captain Rhobair Lathy is his flag captain.

Sir Lewk Cohlmyn, Earl Sharpfield, is in command of the naval contingent sent to Claw Island in the Gulf of Dohlar (I think Talisman Island is the same thing or nearby). Sir Mahrak Tymplytyn is his flag lieutenant. Commander Symyn Makgrygair will command the base facilities on Rahzhyr Bay; Major Qwentyn Ohmahly will command the Marine garrison. Sir Bruhstair Ahbaht commands the ironclad HMS Thunderer, sister ship to the Dreadnought. Lieutenant Daivyn Kylmahn is its first lieutenant, and Ahlber Zhaksyn is its second lieutenant. Captain Raimahnd Tohbyais of the Sickle deliberately turned back to give the rest a chance. Captain Kahrltyn Haigy commands HMS Dreadnought.

The Imperial Charisian Army
Sir Hauwerd Breygart, the Earl of Hanth, commands the Army of Thesmar; Mairah is his wife. Rushyl Thairis, the Duke of Eastshare (a Chisholmian, he's now the first high general), routed the Army of Shiloh under Duke Harless' command. General Ahlyn Symkyn commands the Army of the Daivyn. Earl High Mount commands the Army of Cliff Peak. The Army of the Branaths. Sir Kynt Clareyk, the Baron of Green Valley, commands the Army of Midhold. General Trumyn Stohnar fought hard at the Sylmahn Gap last spring.

The Republic of Siddarmark
Aivah Pahrsahn (she has an eidetic memory) has her own various identities, including Ahnzhelyk Phonda as her most public one as a madame for a brothel catering to the fathers in Zion; Frahncyn Tahlbaht; Mother Superior of the Abbey of St. Kohdy; Nynian Rychtair was her original name; and, Arbalest is her Helm Cleaver code name. Sister Klairah of the Convent of Saint Ahnzhelyk recruited this bastard daughter of a vicar. Sister Klairah was actually part of the Saint Kohdy order, a secret underground group who held a truth about the archangels. Sandaria Ghatfryd had been Aivah's personal maid for twenty years and her second-in-command of the Sisters of Saint Kohdy. I think Helm Cleaver is Aivah's spy organization. Daryus Parkair is the Republic's chancellor of the exchequer and seneschal. Lord Protector Greyghor is its ruler. Archbishop Klairmant Gairlyng is the head of the Siddarmark branch. Archbishop Cahnyr Zhasyn raised the Glacierhearters in Midst Toil and Tribulation , 6; Fraidmyn Tohmys has been his valet for years.

Corisande is…
…a Charisian ally with Manchyr as its capital. Princess Irys is Daivyn's sister and regent, and she's married to Hektor Alply-Ahrmahk, the Duke of Darcos.

Chisholm is…
…Sharleyan's original kingdom with Cherayth as its capital.

The Church of God Awaiting is…
…referred to as Mother Church, and they're the enemy with their headquarters in Zion, the Temple Lands. More specifically, the enemy is Vicar Zhaspahr Clyntahn, the leader of the Inquisition and one of the Gang of Four. He's a pathological pig with great powers and an overwhelming need to gather up power. He's willing to lie, cheat, steal, or murder to get his way with his Jihad. Wyllym Rayno, Archbishop of Chiang-wu, is his spymaster.

Vicar Rhobair Duchairn is the treasurer. Vicar Allayn Maigwair is the Captain General of the Church's military. Vicar Zahmsyn Trynair is the Church's chancellor, a powerhouse at the start, he's firmly under Clyntahn's heel today. Dynnys Zhwaigair and Brother Lynkyn Fultyn are inventing new weapons to try and catch up with the Charisians. Archbishop Militant Gustyv Walkyr is Vicar Allayn's chief assistant.

The Army of God (AOG) enemy commanders include…
…General Sir Fahstyr Rychtyr commands the Army of Seridahn. Sir Rainos Ahlverez, a cousin of the deceased Sir Faidal Ahlverez, Duke of Malikai (who died in Off Armageddon Reef , 1), who was himself a cousin by marriage to the Duke of Thorast, manages to salvage a very small part of the Dohlaran Army of Shiloh, which was routed by Eastshare. Bishop Militant Bahrnabai Wyrshym, who commands the Army of the Sylmahn and Auxiliary Bishop Ernyst Abernethy are wondering about Clyntahn. Bishop Militant Cahnyr Kaitswyrth commands the Army of Glacierheart; Father Sedryk Zavyr is his intendant. Sir Clairync Dynvyrs, Baron Wheatfields is with the Army of Glacierheart, and must send his friend, Sir Daivyn Wynstyn, the Baron of Tryfield, to his death to buy that army a chance.

Taychau Daiyang, the Earl of Rainbow Waters, is the commander (and lord of horse) of the Imperial Harchongese Mighty Host of God and the Archangels. His nephew, Medyng Hwojahn, the Baron of Wind Song, is captain of horse and Rainbow Waters' senior aide and adjutant. Lord of Horse Zhowku Seidyng, the Earl of Silken Hills, will command the Southern Mighty Host of God and the Archangels. Captain of Horse Kaishu Hywanlohng is a reliable soldier and chief of staff to Silken Hills. Baron Falling Rock commands another part.

Mother Church's concentration camps are…
…holding possible heretics. Inquisitor General Wylbyr is in charge of those camps. In Camp Dynnys, the vicious Father Zheryld Cumyngs is trying to burn all evidence of his corruption. The commanding officer at Dynnys, Colonel Ahgustahn Tymahk, says no to Bishop Maikel Zhynkyns. Camp Chihiro surrendered happily. Camp St. Tailahr outside Lake City was particularly brutal. Archbishop Arthyn Zagyrsk intervened and insisted they be adequately fed and given minimal medical care.

Helm Cleaver in Zion
Alahnah Bahrns and Zhorzhet Styvynsyn work in Mistress Marzho's Fine Milliners in the City of Zion. Marzho Alysyn is actually Sister Marzho of the Sisters of Saint Kohdy. Ahrloh Mahkbyth, a.k.a., Barcor, is an ex-Temple Guardsman who opened Mahkbyth's Fine Spirits and Wines. Zhak Myllyr is his senior employee and a Church spy. Father Byrtrym Zhansyn, a.k.a., Banister, is a Schuelerite and a spy for Helm Cleaver.

Kingdom of Dohlar is…
…an ally of the Church. Rahnyld is its ineffective king and his son, Rahnyld, isn't old enough to take over. Archbishop Ahbsahlahn Kharmych is the Kingdom's intendant. The Royal Council includes Baron of Yellowstone, who is the foreign secretary; the Duke of Thorast hates Thirsk and, fortunately, no longer has day-to-day oversight of the navy; the Duke of Fern is King Rahnyld's first councilor; and, the Duke of Salthar is the commander of the Royal Dohlaran Army. Father Chermyn Suzhymahga, the senior agent inquisitor, beards Thirsk in his cabin.

The disillusioned Lewys Gardynyr, the Earl of Thirsk, is the kingdom's senior fleet commander. Gorath Bay is where Thirsk is based. His flag ship is the Chihiro . Bishop Staiphan Maik is on Thirsk's side. Commander Ahlvyn Khapahr is Thirsk's chief of staff and intensely loyal to him. Stywyrt Baiket is Chihiro's CO and Thirsk's flag captain; Sir Ahbail Bahrdailahn is his flag lieutenant. Mhartyn Rahlstyn is first lieutenant. Mahrtyn Vahnwyk is Thirsk's personal secretary.

Sir Dahrand Rohsail commands the Royal Dohlaran Navy's Western Squadron from his flag ship, the Defiant, and is very competent. Markys Hamptyn is his flag captain. Admiral Caitahno Raisahndo is Rohsail's second-in-command and aboard his own flag ship, Demonslayer.

Sir Gwylym Manthyr and his men surrendered honorably to Thirsk in How Firm a Foundation , 5. Now their murders are a rallying cry for the Charisians. The Writ is the Safeholdian holy bible that has been rewritten time and time again, beginning with "Archangel" Langhorne. The Book of Schueler and the Book of Chihiro were later additions. Saint Evyrahard. Pei Shan Wei and the Fallen were actually the scientists who disagreed with Langhorne, Bedard, Chihiro, Schueler, and the others over how to implement their mission. Kau-yung did kill Langhorne and others. Aliens, the Gbaba, destroyed Earth which is why the small colony of earthlings were sent out into space.

The Cover and Title
The cover is a really deep green metallic background with the author's name (at top) and the title (at bottom) in an embossed silver. The middle third is a graphic band of the rescue at sea and Merlin's skimmer blowing up the Saint Frydhelm. The image has a narrow band of copper at top and bottom with promotional information.

When Hell's Foundations Quiver, Clyntahn is beginning to realize that he might not be on the winning side.

I picked this up at an airport shop, figured for twenty hours for my trip, I'd be able to make a dent in it. I was bored to tears.

There is so much fluff its unbearable, things that could take a paragraph take a chapter. Characters... Oh my god. At the end there's a glossary of the characters, and its almost a hundred pages long.

Combine too many characters with the fact that each name is pulled out of some bizzaro land polish phone book. Consonants for days in a twelve letter name. It's not Alonso. It's Aylysns. I wound up not caring about one mishmash name, because I couldn't translate the name to something relatable.

The one character I wanted to like Myrlyn or however he spelled Merlin, I just didn't connect with. I wound up giving up a few hundred pages in, and getting even that far was a huge effort.

I've enjoyed the series and for the most part am enjoying HFQ. I used to never skip pages when reading books because I would worry about missing something important, or somehow getting lost in the storyline. However, with this book I've probably skipped at least 100 pages worth of content and don't feel I've missed a thing. The descriptions of meetings, or of people with ridiculously complicated names (names that sounds like lots of others in the story) get very old and redundant so lead to a lot of page turning. IMHO when reading this book you just have to embrace skipping entire sections and you'll be happier and enjoy it more.

Also, I'm very tired reading about someone baring his/her teeth in anger. There must be a better description, or just don't say anything.

It is a fairly hefty commitment to start on this series & then to continue, but for those who persevere the reward is great. I found it fairly easy to become immersed in the world of Safe hold. I admire David Weber's ability to create not just a story arc but political, religious and technology arcs very seamlessly integrated. Can't wait for the next one to be published!!!

Thanks to Katherine you won't be taking my $15 to the bank (Kindle price, set by MykMyllyn Publishers who are HAPPY for you to make a thin chapter into a 700 page sleepfest) on this lastest book. After preordering Army, I was so excited to read another installment in the Safehold series. Little did I expect to spend my time with 50 new characters in the frozen woods. I was ready for Merlin & Co to open a big can of whoopass on Zion. As a reader, ok, a fan of ALL the Honorverse books and a new fan of the inhabitants of Safehold, I have spent $300 or more on your books.
That stops here. You've LOST a fan, "no, worse, Mr. President, you've lost my VOTE".
The twinkey names, the slow pace, the interminable details of the technology, and especially annoying; the "2nd Squad of the 5th Platoon of Bykkyrh Company of the 16th Regiment of Hykkylsukkyr's Division of the Soul-Sucking Army from Hell" just was too much to ask from me when I wanted to be ENTERTAINED! I didn't want another week too similar to sitting in US History in the 8th grade learning about the Civil War.
I felt like I was about to take a big bite of my birthday blueberry pie, only to find it was crawling with worms. A big let-down you might say.
When the reviewers finally write that the Temple is being overrun by Charisian troops, I'll buy that book 6 months later. Until then you go ahead and lose more of your fan base by pulling the crap you've pulled in the last 3 or 4 books by turning a chapter into a tome.

This series, though I like it very much, is starting to drag a bit too long. The basic plot was long ago established, characters developed and the story continues, and continues .... It's beginning to get quite predictable and needs to pick up the pace to reach a conclusion.

I'm a prolific reader and have been waiting for this book. It was at the top of my Wish List, along with all of David Weber's Books. I look at my Wish List now and all of the Kindle e-books are $12.99 or $14.99 each. For a single read book, I will not pay these prices. I'll wait for the paperback... or better, the USED paperback book. Meanwhile, I'll be using my Kindle Unlimited account to discover and read works by new authors.

I'm a little tired of the contrived plot points that are dragging this series out. The coincidental running aground of one ship to swing a naval engagement was just too much to stomach. Hurry this up...I'm not sure how much more disbelief I can suspend.

Another excellent book in an outstanding series. The HMS undertakes a risky venture and pays the price. Things go well in Siddermark despite the abysmal weather as the Allies strive to defeat the Army of God and save the pows imprisoned in Nazi inspired concentration camps. As at the end of WW2, Gestapo clones,the Church's inquisitors use death marches and mass extermination to prevent the captives from being liberated. One more map showing the Siddermark maneuvering would have been very helpful.

Seijins multiply and create much consternation in Zion and other church enclaves with precise assassinations and other penetrative raids. Zhaspahr Clyntahn faces internal difficulties and becomes even more despotic with his decision making.

I found this installment of David Weber's Safehold series to be both faster paced and at the same time shorter than the previous books. I may be wrong about the length, but I don't think so. What Weber has done is to condense the Character-building (since most characters are fully developed in earlier offerings anyway) and expand the action. Frankly, I was glad to see it. In other books set on Safehold, I found myself wading through intrigue and character development to get to the action - none of that THIS time! Oh, and in case you're wondering, yes, the book ends on a cliff hanger that will leave you biting your fingernails until the next one comes out...in a year or two.

This could be the culmination of the Safehold series but we hope for more. Charis carries on the war against the evil Clinton and his corruption. Two seijins are not enough but they get the job done. What will happen when the 'serf army' returns to their homeland? Will they even go home?
Great series by Mr. Weber. More, please.

I love this series and eagerly wait for the next one. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes the descriptions are a little long in the tooth. But I still love this series. Well, worth reading but please start from the beginning.