Off Armageddon Reef by David Weber and Oliver Wyman

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Off Armageddon Reef from Science Fiction

Off Armageddon Reef
Available from Amazon
Price: $29.61
Updated on 12-28-2008.

Features

Audio CD

Publisher: Macmillan Audio; Unabridged edition (January 9, 2007)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1427200653

ISBN-13: 978-1427200655

Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 5.3 x 2.7 inches

Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds ()

From Publishers Weekly
Weber's latest opus is a complex tale of action and intrigue set early in the 25th century, hundreds of years after the near total annihilation of humanity by the Gbaba, an alien race hell-bent on eradicating humans from the universe. After decades of war and facing certain defeat, the last remnants of the human race escape and settle on a distant planet, appropriately named Safehold. To ensure they remain undetected by their enemies, the leaders of the survivors ban technology, and genetically adjust the populace to remain in a perpetual pre-industrial state. However, 800 years later, an android of the old world awakens, charged with the task of guiding humanity back onto the path of science, technology and, eventually, the stars. Wyman rises nicely to the near Herculean challenge of performing this 30-hour epic. His clear, expressive reading never falters while he skillfully navigates his way through a labyrinth of plot twists and multiple characters. Whether describing high-tech space battles or the covert activities of courtiers and spies, Wyman brings Weber's intricate world of Safehold to life.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Earth has been destroyed by an alien invasion, and survivors are clinging to a precarious and primitive existence on a planet they have named Safehold. But they are divided into two major factions: a theocratic church opposed to all technological progress, and a secular class of aristocrats and merchants who support not only technology but expanding the habitable area of Safehold. There are factions and internal conflicts on both sides, and each has infiltrated the other. A good many of the book's main players are seafarers and naval officers, and they sail Safehold's seas in ships that Horatio Hornblower might find familiar. They are drawn as well as one expects of Weber, although they are so numerous that, despite the appended cast list, readers may feel mnemonically challenged. Staunch Weber fans may be disappointed by the lack of any Safehold life-form as irresistibly charming as the treecats of the Honorverse (the world of his space-faring heroine Honor Harrington). Safehold's abundant pelagic life is mostly predatory and sometimes outright deadly, and its land dwellers are only slightly cuddlier. Altogether, there is enough conflict to allow a natural storyteller like Weber to make a large, splendid novel that opens another saga. The saga being Weber's form of choice and high achievement, hopes for the rest of it are definitely elevated. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Reader Reviews
This review is from: Off Armageddon Reef (Hardcover) My wife and son and I love David Weber, but this is one of a number of recent very disappointing books that have taken Weber off of my family's "automatic buy" list. Although Weber's action scenes are as good as ever, Armageddon Reef just doesn't work. The plot holes are gaping and intrusive and the stylistic defects are annoying enough to detract seriously from the story. The worst plot hole is Merlin, the AI/android who is the story's protagonist. We are supposed to believe that mankind has been locked for centuries into a desperate life-and-death struggle against a large, implacably hostile, but only slightly more technologically advanced civilization. Furthermore, these aliens do not innovate at all; their tech base is completely frozen. Obviously, humanity's only hope is to force the pace of science and technology development. At the same time, we are told that humanity has the ability to produce AIs that duplicate in every way the minds, memories, knowledge, and abilities of specific living humans. Merlin thinks, feels, and acts in every way like the real person he is based on, except that he has superhuman strength, reflexes, and mental processing speed. So of course, in these desperate circumstances, mankind would use this technology to replicate its leading scientists, engineers, technicians, and military cadres, vastly multiplying the productivity of its R&D efforts and making it much easier to staff its star fleet. Need a dozen Einsteins? You got 'em. Need 20 copies of your greatest fleet Admiral? No problem. Need 600 starship engineers, all with the knowledge and abilities of the greatest starship engineer available? Coming right up! Oh, yes...the copies think and act faster than the originals, never need to eat or sleep, and never get fogged out by fatigue or distracted by bodily aches and pains. Um, no. Weber tells us that this technology is used ONLY for RECREATIONAL purposes! We are supposed to believe that the human race would let itself be wiped out rather than make use of a technology that could easily multiply its scarcest intellectual resources a hundred-fold. Nor are there any ethical considerations that would explain it. After all, this is the same society that creates a secret colony by MIND-WIPING tens of thousands of colonists. Apparently they have no problem with the idea that desperate times require desperate measures. I'm as willing as the next SF lover to believe 6 impossible things before breakfast, but the conventions of SF require that the impossibilities at least be logical and internally consistent. This is neither. It's just plain dumb...sloppy, self-indulgent, contemptuous of the reader, and DUMB. There are other gaping plot holes, but compared with that one they seem trivial. The worst stylistic problem is Weber's treatment of names. The book is written in early 21st century English. All of the place names are written normally. Yet ALL of the character names (except Merlin's) are bizarrely transliterated, using a pseudo-phonetic spelling. Weber takes normal names, substitutes vowels & consonants at random, adds H's, turns many different vowels into Y's, and changes J's, G's, S's, Ch'sand Sh's into Z's & Zh's. Coupled with Weber's continued obsession with giving half of his characters "J" names, the result is hopelessly confusing. John becomes Zhan, Gerald becomes Zherald, Jason becomes Zhasyn, Janet becomes Zhanayt, Jennifer becomes Zhenyfyr, Jim becomes Zhym, James becomes Zhames, Jeeves (a valet - I kid you not!) becomes Zheevys, Jasper becomes Zhaspyr, Jack becomes Zhak, Joseph becomes Zohzef, Joshua becomes Zhoshua, Jacob becomes Zhaikeb, Johnson becomes Zhansan, Jepson becomes Zheppsyn, Jessup becomes Zhessyp, Jolson becomes Zhoelsyn, George becomes Zhorzh, Samson becomes Zahmsyn, and so on. There is absolutely no justification anywhere in the book for the altered spellings. In fact, given that the colony world starts with an absolutely universal culture and language and that writing everywhere remains stable and uniform, the idea that the spelling of names - and ONLY names - would have drifted this far is patently absurd. In addition, the proliferation of unintelligible but very similar names, loaded with Z's, H's, and Y's, balks the reader at almost ever line, utterly ruining the story continuity. I particularly treasured one section in which two minor characters named Zhaspahr Maysahn and Zhames Makferzahn - or is it Zhames Maysahn and Zhaspahr Makferzahn? - spend 3 pages talking and it is virtually impossible to tell them apart or to remember afterward who was a spy for whom. Any author who creates a sprawling novel with many major and minor characters needs to give careful thought to naming his characters in ways that help the reader tell them apart. Making it this hard for the reader is either extremely sloppy or arrogantly insulting. The attitude it conveys is, "I'm so great I'm above the rules. I can shove any stupid thing down the reader's throat and get away with it." This attitude was evident in the later Belisarius novels and has become blatant in Armageddon Reef and Hell's Gate. Much as I love some of Weber's books, he's starting to remind me of another beloved author, Robert Heinlein, whose output became increasingly undisciplined, self-indulgent, and forgettable once he reached superstar status. I would not recommend this book to anyone but a die-hard and completely uncritical Weber fan.

Off Armageddon Reef
List Price: $59.95
Available from Amazon
Price: $29.61
Updated on 12-28-2008.