How Firm a Foundation (Safehold) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

I'm a Weber fan. I've read almost everything he's written--several times. I liked this book. In fact, I've had very little sleep since I started it day before yesterday. As soon as I finish this review, I'm going to collapse into bed and try to catch up on my shuteye. I loved the first and second books in the series. I almost gave up reading it with the third book. I just hate long scenes in the minds and counsels of the bad guys where nobody is doing anything except talking about their evil plans. I love action scenes which Weber does superbly. There just weren't enough of them in the third book. I truly think that a canny abridger could cut out half or two-thirds of that book and produce a far better product. The fourth book was somewhat better. And I thought this book returned to the quality of the first two books in the series. It had lots of action.

Someone complained in an earlier review about the lengthy sea battle and the lengthy storm at sea. I eat this stuff up. I've been a long time fan of the Horatio Hornblower series and Aubrey-Maturin series, and I think Weber is doing just as good a job with his naval scenes as the authors of those two series. Several people complained that he spent too much time with minor characters, but this is the way Weber works. He has huge casts of characters and as major characters are killed off, they are replaced by formerly minor characters. For instance in that long sea storm, we see the development of the Hector Armahk character. Yes, he has been a minor character in the past books. I don't think he's going to be minor in future books. Likewise, Irys Daikon has been a minor character in past books, but based on the events in this book, I think Weber has big plans for her. Someone else complained that nothing happened to advance the plot line. I disagree. I don't want to create any spoilers, but there was one very major problem that the Charisians knew they were facing from the very first book which they finally get a grip on in this book.

This book is intended for those readers who like really loooonnnngggg series. The Honor Harrington series is over 20 books now if I remember right. I don't expect this series to be any shorter. I just hope both Weber and I live to reach the end. Neither of is a spring chicken anymore. 8-)

Now to MY complaint and the reason why I gave this book 4 stars instead of 5. I hate graphic torture scenes. I don't mind bloody battle scenes, but torture hurts my mind. I have torture scenes still stuck in my head from books I read 35 years ago. I don't want any more of them, and in this book he provided several. I will mark those passages in my copy of the book and won't be reading them again when I reread the series. Please Mr. Weber. You've convinced me that Clyntahn is a monster. You don't need to give me any more proof. Leave the graphic details out of the future books, I beg you.

Although I rather enjoy the premise of this series, the lack of progress in this volume is disappointing. A book this large and perhaps a year or so is covered? At this rate perhaps our grandchildren will get to see how the story turns out! While I appreciate the author's talent for detail and nuance I'd like to see the storyline advance at a pace a little faster than "glacial". Minor characters tend to often take center stage, while more interesting and relevant ones languish.

All in all, an enjoyable series that unfortunately encourages one to skim more often than I'm accustomed to. C'mon, Mr. Weber, let's get the story MOVING!

Take a story you've written before, and done fairly well at; it was a single sub-section of a book with several separate disparate storylines. You want to elaborate on the story, and take it from being a smaller subset of a single book to being its own full-fledged novel. Great. Now take that story and stretch it into a series that will likely end up as 10+ books, using a combination of substantially longer time period, larger scale, and quite a bit of filler.

This was not a poorly written book; in fact, its quite well-written. The problems lie in how much 'filler' it contains. Instead of describing events, it foreshadows them; using just as much time to foreshadow them as to describe them, if not substantially more. This is book 5, quite likely a halfway point, or a one-third point, in a series Weber could have easily told in less than 5 books, and done just as well. I could easily imagine this series being vastly improved by taking the entire story including the conquest of the Temple which is likely several books to come, putting it in three books, then doing another 3-book trilogy about the development of a new spacebound terran race, and the Charisian space navy's war with the Gbaba.

However much I might despise the way the series drags on, I keep being drawn back to it, wanting to know just how things turn out in a given plot, only to be disappointed yet again.