Midst Toil and Tribulation

Safehold Series, Book 6

By: David Weber

Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins

Length: 28 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

David Weber's New York Times bestselling Safehold series of military Science Fiction adventure, which began with Off Armageddon Reef, continues with Midst Toil and Tribulation

WAR AND FAMINE

Once the Church of God Awaiting dominated all the kingdoms of Safehold. Then, after centuries of stasis, the island kingdom of Charis began to defy the edicts of Mother Church—egged on, some say, by the mysterious warrior-monk Merlin Athrawes, who enjoys the Charisian royal family's absolute trust.

What vanishingly few people know is that Merlin is the cybernetic avatar of a young woman a thousand years dead, felled in the war in which aliens destroyed Earth...and that since awakening, his task has been to restart the history of the long-hidden human race.

Now, reeling from the wars and intrigues that have cascaded from Charis's declaration of independence, the Republic of Siddermark slides into chaos. The Church has engineered a rebellion, and Siddermark's all-important harvest is at risk. King Cayleb and Queen Sharleyan struggle to stabilize their ally, which will mean sending troops—but, even more importantly, preventing famine. For mass starvation in Safehold's breadbasket is a threat even more ominous than civil war...

©2012 David Weber (P)2012 Macmillan Audio

Agree with everyone else, ban narrator

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Listening to it, maybe not so much. I should of read it, at least then I would get the names right.If you are going to change narrators at least make the put in the effort to listen to the previous books so they can get a feel of how the story is being told, and how to pronounce the damn names.

What didn’t you like about Kevin T. Collins’s performance?

It ended? the complete lack of knowledge on the style this series as been performed in the previous books, and the failure to get the names right, had me going crazy.

Do you think Midst Toil and Tribulation needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

yes, but use the first narrator.

Any additional comments?

Spend a little time with your narrator. Make sure they know, how to pronounce words and listed to the book before you start selling it.Books have editors, why the hell doesn't an audio book.Maps would also be nice to track what is happening where.

Great book, awful narration.

Drama. Most of us have the sense to think that pouring tea or talking about economic affairs does not require the same gut-wrenching dramatic reading as, say, a burning orphanage. The narrator chosen for this audiobook sadly does not. Imagine William Shatner in his overacting prime without the charmingly ill-placed dramatic pauses.

The narrator's preparation for this book was also apparently zero, as he unilaterally changed the pronunciations for around eighty percent of the series-specific names and words. Everyone of the uncountable linguistic missteps pulled me out of the enjoyment of the story and made the experience that much less enjoyable.

Another author like Robert Jordan!

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

This series started out exciting...now it seems to be mired down in a bog! Just lke the Wheel of Time, several of the books could have been deleted, or at least condensed into one.

Would you ever listen to anything by David Weber again?

Yes

Have you listened to any of Kevin T. Collins’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I perferred Jason Culp. It is difficult for me to enjoy a new narrator.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Yes

Any additional comments?

I wish David Weber would go back to what made the book exciting, and get away from his enjoyment of "playing civil war"!

I think the narrator may actually explode

I am quite frustrated with the producers for changing narrators so many times on this series. The first two books were narrated by Oliver Wyman who I feel did a very good job bringing the characters to life. The sent two books were narrated by Jason Culp who was different than Oliver Wyman, but still quite good. That brings us to the fifth book. The fifth book was narrated by Charles Keating who I was literally concerned may pass away during the recording of the book. He clearly has a lot of experience, but his voice makes all the characters sound to in their mid 70s. His inability to clearly distinguish vocal qualities made it difficult to follow at times, but overall a sleepy book to listen to. Now the sixth book kind of has me reeling. Kevin T. Collins speaks with such forcefulness and overacts points that call for just speaking, not melodramatic inflection that makes you feel your head may explode. After the first fifteen minutes listening to Kevin T. Collins I am finding myself looking forward to a break to allow my blood pressure to come back down.

I am truly looking forward to book 7 and Oliver Wyman's performance. I am thoroughly enjoying the series, and think that David Webber makes even the non-action sections of the book interesting. I could do with a little less of the recaps of the PICA abilities though.

Good story that moves slowly, but not well read.

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Yes, but only because it has important plot developments in the overall story. As usual there are a few excellent action sequences, with an awful lot of inner reflections and tutorials on 19th century technology, which is great is you like military or scientific history like me.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

The author is rather self-indulgent with all the long internal reflections by characters on their situation. Some of this is OK, but it gets repetitive and tiring. He also uses a few expressions far too frequently (e.g. "and then he sobered") which can start to grate a bit.

How could the performance have been better?

This reader almost made me give up. His delivery is certainly clear and precise, but there are two big problems. He speaks every sentence with emotional intensity, and never lets up, which means there is no real contrast between moods or atmospheres. Much worse though is it seems he never bothered to listen to any of the earlier books, so he pronounces almost every name completeley differently from the previous reader. I don't know whether that is just bad preparation, or an oversight by the series publisher, but such an obvious mistake should never be made in today's audiobook industry.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

No, it would not work even in a series. A movie would lose all the underlying complexity and would probably not make much sense.

Narrator puts a damper on things

To be perfectly clear, I love the author, the book series and the book itself. However, it's become pretty tedious switching to new narrators and the narrator of this book has decided to pronounce the names of main characters' and important locations differently. He also seems to over dramatize every single conversation, but maybe that's just me.

Story good narration bad

The storyline is well done, but I cant help but wonder if we will ever get to the Gbaba at this rate. Also the narration was terrible I know many people found the last book less than satisfactory but compared to this fellow the last books was great. It seems he hasn’t gone back over the previous novels and heard how previous narrators have pronounced the various name and place's.

The Forever Saga

I agree with other reviewers that the quality of narration is way below that of previous volumes in the series. I generally like the story but Weber is way too wordy and his lengthy descriptions impair story flow. You have to be a dedicated Weber fan to wade through these massive books. After six volumes, we seem to have progressed only through 5-6 years of story. As Safehold is still only in the early stages of industrialization, it's going to take a long time for the planet to progress to interstellar capability at the present rate of progress. I know I'm not alone in urging the author to tighten up the stories and move towards a conclusion. I'm older than Weber and would like to see the story concluded sometime during my lifetime and his.

So sad!

It's sad when a narrator ruins a book to the point that I can't stick with it to the end. Moving on to the next book in the series.

What were they thinking?

My first comment regards the reader of Book 6. For reasons known only to him and his editor he has the sheer arrogance to pronounce critical place and character names completely differently than done in the 5 books (and more than 120 hours) before him. He may indeed be a very fine narrator but he is totally out of place in this series.
The second observation concerns the author and here I have very mixed feelings. I started this series intrigued by the opening premise, alien annihilation - restarting civilization etc. I have stayed with the series due to occasional flashed of genius in what is otherwise very linear plot and character development.
By the second book (yes, it took that long) I realized there was a major problem. This author uses paragraphs to convey what another might in a single sentence. Worse still, this author's sentences are often paragraph length and infuriatingly convoluted. Book 5 offered a little hope that he realized the problem, alas book 6 is back to form.
I now realize why the Gbaba are so intent on eliminating all humans. In David Weber's universe every human is afflicted with an incurable, highly contagious but unfortunately not fatal, case of circumlocution. Sorry, I have to go - there must be a Gbaba recruiting station around here somewhere...