Hell's Foundations Quiver
A Novel in the Safehold Series
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4.4 • 189 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Hell's Foundations Quiver: David Weber's New York Times-bestselling Safehold series begun with Off Armageddon Reef, By Schism Rent Asunder, By Heresies Distressed, A Mighty Fortress and Like a Mighty Army.
TURNING OF THE TIDE
Centuries ago, the human race fought its first great war against an alien race-and lost. A tiny population of human beings fled to distant Safehold. Centuries later, their descendants have forgotten their history; for them, life has been an eternal Middle Ages, ruled by the Church of God Awaiting, whose secret purpose is to prevent the re-emergence of industrial civilization.
But not all of Safehold's founders were on board with this plan. Those dissidents left behind their own secret legacies. One of those is Merlyn Athrawes, cybernetic avatar of one of Earth's long-dead defenders, now reawakened after a thousand years to restart human progress and reclaim our place in the universe. Merlyn has intervened in the small Safeholdian realm of Charis, seeding it with ideas and innovations and helping it to rise to challenge the hegemony of the Church.
It's been a long and bloody fight, but aided by a stream of inventions--breech-loading rifles, signal rockets, claymore mines, new approaches to manufacturing and supply-Charis and its few allies seem to have finally gained the upper hand. Now major realms have begun to consider switching sides.
To all these ends, Merlyn Athrawes has been everywhere, under multiple disguises and wielding hidden powers. The secret of who and what he is has been closely held. But a new player has arrived, one who knows many secrets-including Merlyn's own.
Safehold Series
1. Off Armageddon Reef
2. By Schism Rent Asunder
3. By Heresies Distressed
4. A Mighty Fortress
5. How Firm A Foundation
6. Midst Toil and Tribulation
7. Like A Mighty Army
8. Hell's Foundations Quiver
9. At the Sign of Triumph
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Weber's strong eighth Safehold military SF novel (after Like a Mighty Army) is certainly not a suitable entry point into the series, but confirmed fans will appreciate the battlefield action and political maneuvering that fill these pages. On a distant planet, humans built a religion around antitechnology beliefs to protect themselves from discovery by more advanced aliens. Centuries later, Merlin Athrawes and Nimue Chwaeriau, two copies of a long-dormant android, continue the push to revive high technology, providing leadership to those in the Empire of Charis who are fighting against the repressive Mother Church. The Imperial Charisian Army is triumphing over the Army of God on all fronts, though the naval battles are not so one-sided. These setbacks begin to disrupt the unity of the church-ruling Group of Four. The battles and intrigue keep things moving, but Weber does slow the pace considerably every time he inserts lengthy passages on military engineering.
Customer Reviews
Wait for the discount paperback
Based solely on the rest of the series, it can't be worth paying a premium price for this book. Certain to feature some great battle sequences, but wait for the bargain rack.
Editorless bloat
Each book keeps getting longer more and more pages with less and less story. If someone could get an editor around David Weber’s pontificating bloat again, and force him to write about characters and a developing plot instead of this egotistical mental vomit, and we might actually get a product worth buying much less reading.
Mostly a disappointment
I really enjoyed the first few books of the series: interesting premise, good characters, good military fiction. Alas, now it has become a question of how many more volumes the author can get out of this series to keep the money flowing.
80% of this book is logistics, with 10% forwarding the plot and 10% appendix. The logistics could easily have been improved by maps which showed the areas in better detail. I was constantly referring to maps that did not show the location of the current action.
I long for a book with an ending, and feel ripped off reading a story in installments. In the case of this book, there was even less plot or character progression than the last . This author can and should do better.