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A review by josephholsten
Off Armageddon Reef by David Weber
“Another thunderous rumble of thunder shook the palace.”
Unlike some works, you can see the author at work quite often here. It’s ambitious, and in later volumes the writing comes closer to matching that ambition. But really, you can practically see the flowchart of character influences, information disclosures and needful plot transitions beside the writing as this book info dumps its way into the world building and foundational character development needed to get to the events of later books.
Really, the biggest things going for this series are that it has an end in mind and it has great game diplomacy driven by the ever changing partial knowledge of the characters. It is not just a monster of the week open ended series like many authors’ main breadwinners, though it can feel like a Dragon-Ball-Z-esque grind through a never ending battle in the first few books.
Similarly, crucial info is not just a binary secret to public knowledge system like some diplomatic stories. Different groups know different mistruths at different times. In that way (and almost no others) it’s nearer to A Song of Ice & Fire than Shadow of the Hegemon. Somewhere near Wheel of Time levels of disparate information flow.
This should be required reading by any aspiring author who thinks they can whip out an epic series larger than a trilogy.
Unlike some works, you can see the author at work quite often here. It’s ambitious, and in later volumes the writing comes closer to matching that ambition. But really, you can practically see the flowchart of character influences, information disclosures and needful plot transitions beside the writing as this book info dumps its way into the world building and foundational character development needed to get to the events of later books.
Really, the biggest things going for this series are that it has an end in mind and it has great game diplomacy driven by the ever changing partial knowledge of the characters. It is not just a monster of the week open ended series like many authors’ main breadwinners, though it can feel like a Dragon-Ball-Z-esque grind through a never ending battle in the first few books.
Similarly, crucial info is not just a binary secret to public knowledge system like some diplomatic stories. Different groups know different mistruths at different times. In that way (and almost no others) it’s nearer to A Song of Ice & Fire than Shadow of the Hegemon. Somewhere near Wheel of Time levels of disparate information flow.
This should be required reading by any aspiring author who thinks they can whip out an epic series larger than a trilogy.