Off Armageddon Reef

Safehold Series, Book 1

By: David Weber

Narrated by: Oliver Wyman

Length: 29 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's summary

Humanity pushed its way to the stars—and encountered the Gbaba, a ruthless alien race that nearly wiped us out. Earth and her colonies are now smoldering ruins, and the few survivors have fled to distant, Earth-like Safehold, to try to rebuild. But the Gbaba can detect the emissions of an industrial civilization, so the human rulers of Safehold have taken extraordinary measures: with mind control and hidden high technology, they've built a religion in which every Safeholdian believes, a religion designed to keep Safehold society medieval forever.

800 years pass. In a hidden chamber on Safehold, an android from the far human past awakens. This android, Merlin, emerges into Safeholdian society to begin the process of provoking technological progress, which the Church of God Awaiting has worked for centuries to prevent. To conceal his formidable powers he finds a base of operations in Charis, a mid-sized kingdom with a talent for naval warfare, where he plans to make the acquaintance of King Haarahld and Crown Prince Cayleb, and maybe, just maybe, kick off a new era of invention. Which is bound to draw the attention of the Church…and, inevitably, lead to war.

It's going to be a long, long process. And David Weber's Off Armageddon Reef is going to be the can't-miss Sci-Fi epic of the decade.

Listen to more in the Safehold series.

©2007 David Weber (P)2006 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers LLC

Critic reviews

“Wyman rises nicely to the near Herculean challenge of performing this 30-hour epic. His clear, expressive reading never falters while he skillfully navigates his way through a labyrinth of plot twists and multiple characters. Whether describing high-tech space battles or the covert activities of courtiers and spies, Wyman brings Weber's intricate world of Safehold to life.” —Publishers Weekly

Not really sci-fi, FYI.

The book is good for what it is, but if you are looking for a good sci-fi, look elsewhere.

Oh, it starts like many sci-fi stories do, but that is all just background setup for the real story: what might happen if the world went back to a pre-Industrial Revolution technology level, and there was a worldwide church that was in full control? Now, add a robot with memory of space traveling level tech to the world, but they have to act in secret because the church is anti-technology and very serious about it.

Basically, the book is a religious/political drama with some nautical warfare. It's okay, but not good sci-fi at all. I didn't hate it, but feel no need to go further in the series.

A little slow at first but worth it in the end

This book has a lot of political talk, but delivers a scifi set in a future time on a human colony planet with a feudal political system and technology to match. The narration was really good. It added to the story without bringing attention to itself; which should be the goal of every narrator. I was really looking forward to reading the rest of the series until I realized that every book in the rest of the series costs 2 credits. The first book is one credit to draw you in; then the rest are 2 credits. Bad form Audible; Bad Form! It's a shame. I was about to cancel my membership because I couldn't find anything to spend my credits on. When I found this I thought I would be around at least long enough to finish the series, but these books aren't really worth 2 credits, and podcasts are free.

meh

Bhe book at its best can be summed up as "Interesting concept and good battle scenes". At its worst is overly repetitive and boring. The author skips over how things work which is why I like the premis of restarting civilization or technological progression stories. But the depth of this book is about an inch deep and a mile wide. go read the Nantucket series.

Awesome. Again

I have listen to this book and the series all over again Everytime a new book in the series is released. Love the series!

solid storytelling.

really engaging storytelling. not quite as tight or well edited as the honor harrington books, but if you like age of sail military stories, here's a good one with a neat little scifi meta narrative.

A new favorite series

I would recommend this series to any science fiction fan who also enjoys 18th century political intrigue and naval battles. I found the book to be very well written (as I find all of Mr. Weber's work to be) and I really enjoyed the narration. I've given it so many stars because I've already listened to it 3 times from start to finish! Can't wait to hear the next one.

Simply Amazing

a fantastic story through and through can't wait to start the next one! this was recommended to me by a good friend and he did not lie when he said how long and well detailed this story was nor how exciting it was.

I loved the books, the audio is better

Keeping track of all the characters in the book is hard because there are so many and some have similar names. The narrator made that easier with the accents he applied to different kingdoms and the different voices behind those accents. combined with Weber's grasp of religion, history, and, well space opera, outs a great tale.

Love these books, but why so much filler?!

The story, characters, intrigues, world, etc is flawless. I love spending time in Webers worlds. This is the first time I've listened to one of his books though.

I never realized how much I skimmed when I read Weber books. While listening to this, I skipped up to 10 minute blocks while waiting for forward movement in the story. Internal monologs of 5 to 10 minutes long between dialog responses. Unnecessarily long descriptions of actions or motivations or scenery, often with two or even three rediscriptions of the same thing.

Any editor that read this, or author who put as much love and care into their books should have noticed how horribly this destroys the pacing of the story.

If I were to have rated this book prior to listening to it, I'd have given it 5 stars. After listening to it, I give it 3. The narrator was excellent and gets 5. the flaw is purely on the writing.

good book.

i liked the book, it had an intresting story. the narration was very good and the chars where fleshed out.... well i'm about to be done on the toilet, so i'll finnish this reveiw. give the book a try.