How Firm a Foundation

Safehold Series, Book 5

By: David Weber

Narrated by: Charles Keating

Length: 28 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

The Charisian Empire, born in war, has always known it must fight for its very survival. What most of its subjects don’t know even now, however, is how much more it’s fighting for. Emperor Cayleb, Empress Sharleyan, Merlin Athrawes, and their innermost circle of most trusted advisers do know. And because they do, they know the penalty if they lose will be far worse than their own deaths and the destruction of all they know and love.

For five years, Charis has survived all the Church of God Awaiting and the corrupt men who control it have thrown at the island empire. The price has been high and paid in blood. Despite its chain of hard-fought naval victories, Charis is still on the defensive. It can hold its own at sea, but if it is to survive, it must defeat the Church upon its own ground. Yet how does it invade the mainland and take the war to a foe whose population outnumbers its own 15 to one? How does it prevent that massive opponent from rebuilding its fleets and attacking yet again?

Charis has no answer to those questions, but needs to find one… quickly. The Inquisition’s brutal torture and hideous executions are claiming more and more innocent lives. Its agents are fomenting rebellion against the only mainland realms sympathetic to Charis. Religious terrorists have been dispatched to wreak havoc against the Empire’s subjects. Assassins stalk the Emperor and Empress, their allies and advisers, and an innocent young boy, not yet 11 years old, whose father has already been murdered. And Merlin Athrawes, the cybernetic avatar of a young woman a thousand years dead, has finally learned what sleeps beneath the far-off Temple in the Church of God Awaiting’s city of Zion.

The men and women fighting for human freedom and tolerance have built a foundation for their struggle in the Empire of Charis with their own blood, but will that foundation be firm enough to survive?

Listen to more in the Safehold series.

©2011 David Weber (P)2011 Macmillan Audio

Here's a tip...

Great story but you're going to want to speed up the playback to about 1.25 speed.

Mr. Keating is a poor fit but...

Mr. Keating is a poor fit as a standalone voice actor, he doesn't do enough to distinguish different characters, and every character ends up sounding like an old man with, at best, a slight twist. That said Mr. Keating does the emotion of the characters well, you can clearly tell what a character is feeling even if its hard to tell who exactly is speaking, and he would make an excellent narrator with his soft, grandfatherly voice. I could (and did at parts) listen to him explain how sailboats maneuvering works.

The book itself is as good as any other, the author seems to REALLY like boats more than even the previous books, with multiple pages of just explaining what exactly a ship is doing. While I had little clue what any of the lines, types of sails, or rigging he wrote about was beyond the basics, I just pictured scenes from Pirates of the Caribbean and hoped that was mostly accurate. Judging from the number of lines, sails, etc, it was not. Still a good read if you don't mind the literally hour long diversions from the story to talk about boats.

Keep them coming.

Weber does not disappoint. Bring on the next one. The characters remained fresh and dynamic. Very hard for a series with so much detail. Well worth the credit.

can't wait for the next book

I am greatly enjoying this series. the characters are well developed and it is easy to emerge oneself into story.

Loved it, exciting and full of intrigue

I love the action, and intrigue, but will miss some of the characters. The late Mr. Keating did an excellent job narrating, but I personally would have preferred Oliver Wyman again as narrator.

Story Good, narration is Terrible!

I feel like im watching the federal government try to produce audiobooks, seriously the narration and continual switching of who's doing it is THAT BAD!!!

So The Characters are Now 80 yrs Old

What did you love best about How Firm a Foundation?

As with the rest of the series, you have to endure some overly long dialogue about mundane things before you get to the meat of the story.

How could the performance have been better?

With this narrator not only have the pronunciation of names and places changed from earlier books, but all of the characters now sound as if they are 80 years old and desperately seeking a place to lie down and take a nap.

Just gets better

The safehold series is an epic journey with fantastic character development and emotional connection to the characters themselves only found in some of the finest stories written.

another great installment in the series

I liked this book. the series has been consistently good from book to book. will enjoy the next one as much as the previous

Totally compelling.

The story moved on a bit slow at times but totally compelling, nevertheless.
Once again, couldn't, put it down. U