Torch of Freedom

"Fall of the Empire"

Every time Empire crumbles, provinces are the first who try to gain independence and grab something more, usually nearest to them.

Torch is settling, and getting ready to research it's own wormhole. Try to guess where it leads?
Erewhon is arming, perhaps not on the same scale as PRH and Manticore, but still Mafia blood has some influence.
Local SLN Commanding Officer trying to get a piece of his personal Empire.
And a pair of Super Spooks are going into the jaws of the beast.

PS
The book takes place sometime from the middle of the "At ALL Costs" to the beginning of "Mission of Honor"


NEXT BOOK IS "Mission of Honor"

Peter Larkin did a good job with the narration. The book does have a great battle scene in the battle of Torch and a bit of suspense with the spies in Mesa but the long and often repetitive dialog which is to help one under stand the history and politics of the situation was over done in this book. Would like more in-depth character building of Queen Berry and of Torch. With all the people (former slaves) coming into Torch one should be able to build all types of stories about building a new homeland.
Looking forward to more in this series.

It filled the back story in for Torch. More detail on the trip to Mesa and the Green Pines event. If you have read or listened through the main story and loved them, you should listen to this.

More Detail on the tertiary characters and sets the stage as the story on the main line completes.

I love listening to his performances, but I like Alyson Johnson's reading better on the main books. Part of it is that pronunciations of some names are not the same and it tripped me up a bit while listening. Part of it is Alyson Johnson's reading has cemented character voices in my head. But still a good listen.

Yes, I ended up listening to it until I fell asleep and had to restart the next morning to finish the story.

I've read a number of books by David Weber and considered him the most talented Sci Fi writer I'd come across in a long time but I've changed my opinion after finally wading through this one. The plot and action sequences are up to Weber's usual excellent standards but somewhere along the line he apparently has become convinced that his books have to be very thick to be good. I was through over half the book before anything resembling actual action had occurred. The inane sequences in the ice cream shop and at the dinner table had a Brady Bunch quality to them that was almost intolerable. I've gone back to listen to a number of my favorite audio books over more than once and have even brought the print version so enjoy them more fully - I doubt many readers would say that about this book. I also agree with one previous reviewer that the reader doesn't help the book at all - his attempts at a Scottish accent are pretty woeful. I'm through with being Torch-ered - and off to find a new favorite author.

This is the most disappointing novel I've yet read from David Weber. The characters spend a LOT of time just talking, and their witty reparte (somehow they're almost all witty with a wry sense of humour and sarcasm) takes up the bulk of the book. There's very little combat or action, and very little new plot. What plot there is, is really just a bit of backstory on some of the happenings in the larger Honorverse. I won't say it should be avoided, but it might be better to read it where you can skim through some of the boring bits - like the beginning, when almost 1 hour or more is spent on a long, drawn out political discussion with little context as to what it has to do with the rest of the story.

I'm a David Weber fan from the beginnings of the Honorverse. I enjoyed the first Torch novel, "Crown of Slaves" I also like Eric Flint's work. But in this book, the whole is definitely not greater than the sum of the parts.

There are some memorable characters and situations, but as I listened to this book on a couple of long trips, (I do service work and do a LOT of driving) I found that the book just couldn't keep my attention.

The Honorverse books are long and feature a lot of political detail. But the stellar character of Honor Harrington made it tolerable. This book doesn't have a strong character to carry it and simply falls short.

WOW! I don't know what to say...

I absolutely love David Weber's work and Peter Larkin is one of my favorite performers, but the wheels really fell off this one. I don't blame Mr. Larkin, he did his best. He is very polished, but this book, like some other types of matter, just can't be polished.

This is the first co-authored Weber/Flint series I have started and I choose to believe that the co-author, Eric Flint, wrote the entirety of this novel and David Weber made the monumental mistake of signing off on it before reading the thing. The first offering was not on the same level as the Safehold, Honor Harrington or Prince Roger series, but good all the same. This one can knock the stink off a gut wagon.

because I am a big Weber fan. I haven't made more than an hour dent in it. There are so many characters and connections that I'm going to have to try to read this and make notes. The reader is flat and everything runs together.

Wonderful book. The narrator on the otherhand speaks way to fast and his fake accents are horrible. In some places pretty much impossible to make out what is actually being said.

I have enjoyed many of webers books, but this one just goes on and on and on on political background and I could not keep any interest in it