Off Armageddon Reef / David Weber

Off Armageddon Reef

(Safehold 1)

by David Weber

military SF

copyright 2007

read in February 2017

rated 7/10: well worth reading

This book starts off with battles in space. Lots of people, not much military action. Not much, that is, except... We're all gonna diiiiie !!

Eight hundred years later and we're into the real story. Swords, sailing ships, a world religion. Confused yet?

Really, it all makes sense. The battle in space sets the scene. The religion frames the conflict. The story is naval, military... science fiction. Or fantasy, escept for the immortal android.

Forget all that :-)  This is a story of naval technology, naval tactics, naval battles. Set in a world where sail technology is still developing, engines do not exist. This is pure military science fiction / fantasy, set at sea.

There are characters that I like. Or, at least, admire. Not much depth, ridiculously heroic... Though the villains are quite shallow in their villainy. Perhaps they just seem shallow because they are so easily defeated by the good guys.

Now I come to think about it: The villains are not all bad, yet the good guys tend to be all good. I think it's just that the author sees potential good in everyone. And I like that.

What about the plot? What plot?!

There are some complex machinations going on. But that's not important. It's all about the naval battles...

The naval battles are described in detail. The naval technology is described in detail. The naval tactics -- and the naval tactics which are rejected -- are described in detail.

This is *military* SF. It is the military *history* of a planet.

And I quite enjoy it.

I care enough about the good guys that I hope they win. The technology and tactics are interesting. There's action aplenty, mostly with accompanying bloodshed. Some significant characters die but they are not meaningless deaths. The deaths are part of the history -- which is more important (in this book) than the characters.

But the characters... There are hundreds of them ! And dozens of placenames ! Can I remember them all? Not really.

When we moved from space to sea I thought, good, no need to remember all those space men and women. Wrong! Many of them become significant historical characters, with influence on the present day. Oh well.

I lost track of people and places. I could remember a few of the major places and players. And still... I enjoyed this book. And, perhaps, I learnt a lot about naval technology. Big boys and their toys, eh?!

There's enough detail -- interesting detail -- that I may reread this book.

I will certainly keep my eyes open for a copy of the next in this Armageddon series.
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21apr19: Read it again. Enjoyed it again :-)

This time I check Wikipedia... Oh, there are ten books in the series... riiiight… must start to look for them. Before there are more than I can read :-)

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Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
Agamedes Consulting / Problems? Solved.
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"Before your dreams can come true, you have to have those dreams" … Dr Joyce Brothers