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

A transition book

Treading water. When you get a series that has such breadth and scope such as the Safehold series (in particular when you are talking about a book that spans the entire world where the fastest objects are moving at around 20mph) you sometimes have a book where most of the story is spent getting things tidied up from the last book and preparing the ground for the next. Midst Toil and Tribulation is one of those rebuilding books.

Sure, some things happened. Fights occurred, progress was made, troops were moving across the world. But in the end you find yourself wanting, waiting for the next book because that is when the interesting stuff is going to happen. I appreciate the series and look forward to the next but this book just whets your appetite for the next book, leaving you unfulfilled and wanting.

Slow down

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Yes. I would change the performance. I felt I was running every moment He read. I finally as a chance to listen at .75 speed. Still felt I was being urged to run just a little slower. I will never buy another book that has him as the narrator.

Would you be willing to try another one of Kevin T. Collins’s performances?

Never Never Never.

Did Midst Toil and Tribulation inspire you to do anything?

No

good story, bad narrator

The story was a good follow up but the quality of the narrator took away from the story, especially after how good the last one was.

Re-record this and fire this narrator.

This narrator needs to be banned from any and all voice work in any media.

excellent book ruined by terrible performance

if you're going to change the narrator halfway through a series, please, please force them to do some research and stick to the same pronunciation for book specific terminology used by previous narrators. also, if you're going to be in there writing a book that uses old and Middle English terminology or other rare words, it might be a good idea to actually research how they are pronounced. I was extremely pleased to see the next book in the series goes back to the previous narrator, because this one is nearly made me want to quit listening to them in audio and just read them.

Narrow over the top at start, but it works out :-)

Another great book in the series. It took a little getting used to the new narrator who does follow the lead of the previous narrators in pronunciations and enthusiasm. But I found him good from a third into the book.

Narrator sucked!

Why the author let this narrative out is beyond me. Terrible performance. Greatly disappointed!!

Story seems to suffer as well. Getting to be somewhat formulaic.

An epic story

I see some reviews that say this story line does not have clear story arcs or resolution in each book. That might be true, this might not be the normal type of story that wraps of all the plot lines neatly in each book, but it is epic and the author does a truly wonderful job of keeping hundreds of characters consistent and distinct. Strongly recommend reading the story from the first volume to get a true feel for the story,s development and scope. By this volume the sense of scope and tension the author has skillfully created is amazing. The authors level of knowledge in the development of medieval warfare is truly insightful. If you want a short story to occupy an afternoon, that neatly wraps up all the different threads into a nice package this is probably not the series for you. But if you want a story that is detailed well thought out, with a caudry of core characters supported by a diverse cast of other players this might be a good series for you. With over 10 entries into this series it is a story best read as close together as possible to get the full effect of the authors skill in creating a world not just telling one story in it. This series is best thought of like an anthology with many stories with a common theme but all the separate stories building towards a common core story. Excellent Series and an excellent addition to it, I hope the author keeps adding to it.

Bad Narrator

I love the safehold series, but the narrator on this particular book was awful. His voice was overly emotional and breathy. I could hardly listen to it.

Narrator ruined the book.

Obviously the narrator did not listen to the previous books. He pronounced all places and names completely differently. Cheese-Holm Really? A place where mice live? It sets my teeth on edge.