Hell's Gate

Multiverse, Book 1

By: David Weber, Linda Evans

Narrated by: Mark Boyett

Length: 37 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's Summary

They thought they knew how the universes worked. They were wrong!

In the almost two centuries since the discovery of the first interuniversal portal, Arcana has explored scores of other worlds - all of them duplicates of their own. Multiple Earths, virgin planets with a twist, because the ''explorers'' already know where to find all of their vast, untapped natural resources. Worlds beyond worlds, effectively infinite living space and mineral wealth. And in all that time, they have never encountered another intelligent species. No cities, no vast empires, no civilizations, and no equivalent of their own dragons, gryphons, spells, and wizards.

But all of that is about to change. It seems there is intelligent life elsewhere in the multiverse. Other human intelligent life, with terrifying new weapons and powers of the mind...and wizards who go by the strange title of ''scientist''.

©2006 David Weber & Linda Evans (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

next time

Too much information. Hard to follow story line. Mark Boyett is one of my favorite narrators and even he couldn't keep my attention.

we'll get there...eventually.

inter dimensional combat between two totally different civilizations. awesome! But first...Let's talk about the three major religions of one of the civilizations, since the 12 different factions from that civilization will need to form One government, we'll need to go in depth into their religious beliefs.
do you know that person that gets sidetracked while telling you a story? that is this for 32 hours. as Bill Cosby used to say, "I told you that story to tell you this story."
It's a pretty good story. It feels like the author has seen these two worlds and wants to tell us all about them. unfortunately, he only focuses on one of the worlds in this book. maybe the next book focuses on the other world. I'll never know.

So much narrative. Show, don't tell. Balance.

The authors live to hear themselves write. Hell's Gate overflows with narrative, with little dialog and action. Whole chapters ooze by with exhaustive narrative, telling us everything that happens and everything that is thought. There's long, long passages telling us about the exhausting multiple worlds. There's little dialog to let us connect with the characters.

This flood of words leaves me drowning in details about the multiple worlds, confused by the made up words and never-ending details that add facts, not information.

Good story but repetitive and slow moving

I liked the main characters and how their personalities were developed, I was very disappointed for how repetitive this book was. The plot was extremely slow. I thought I would pull my hair out when the author expressed over and over and over and or again how horrified everyone was over some violent situations that took place. That was the point where the story peeked my attention and I wanted to know what was next, but I had to suffer it out far to long just to remain curious though out the rest of this volume. The content was good,but writing style and long windedness is the reason I gave it a poor rating

Such wasted potential

I am a huge fan of Weber's work. I love the Honorverse and the Safehold stories. I don't know Evans' work, but figured that it had to be good if Weber was associated. But this book fell flat. I liked the universe building. Having two earth-based worlds with different histories and then throw in magic, and there is a great potential. World building was challenging though because the authors were had to work with two different worlds, with multiple countries, and multiple cultures. It made it a bit complicated for an audio book. The info dumps were huge. At times it was hard to follow all the names of the countries and the associated stereotypes.

But what was frustrating was the style of writing. This book definitely needed an editor to tighten up the action. Every single event triggered lengthy and in depth description of every character's emotional response. And the emotions described were just over the top. Everyone was experiencing such intense emotions, that required what felt like 10 minutes of internal dialog to explore. This definitely important for some of the main characters who suffered trauma, but it was so melodramatic that it grew tiresome. It seemed like every character was melodramatic and it became overwhelming. Then about halfway through the book, the action picked up and the melodrama decreased a bit. Emotions are needed, but some of the characters who should have been more detached, weren't.

The odd thing about this book is that I liked the characters, universe, and the basic plot. I just cannot get over the plodding, melodramatic style of writing. I want to know how the series ties up all the loose ends, but I won't be listening to it, it's too painful.

Sorry Mark wasted his time narrating this one

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

Linda Evans

Has Hell's Gate turned you off from other books in this genre?

No, I have other David Weber Books, I know that with 20 books a year he has to have help putting them out..

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

The detail about every thing was great. It's to bad it was about things that didn't matter. There was a whole chapter in detail about a horse that you never saw again.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Hell's Gate?

This book should have been abridged.

Good story but a little slow paced.

spent too much time on tangential characters. diluted the story a bit. A decent study of transportation issues and some early logistics that may get more in depth later.

Well written, and well told story. One snag...

Larry here.
The place names, and the names of persons are so very hard to keep pace with. Three times I was tempted to give up in confusion, having to relisten to segments over, and over again; I was still confused. The story, & reading were so well done I hung in there in spite of that challenge.
Yes, I'm moving on to the next novel in the three novel series; that good...
Well done! 👍

Could have been half as long.

I feel like I was dragged over the coals of an abandoned CJ Cherryh Novel.
There is more history and blah blah in this book than remotely required. On more than one occasion I found myself saying "Shut the * up." and more often "I don't care"
It isn't necessary. 4000 years of history isn't required to push thus story along. It distracts from story line.
I find myself saying "I will NOT be paying for the last 2 books." hopefully the library will have copies.

Great narration

Really good book you get a lot for your dollar on this one. The narrator was the best I've ever heard.

Do not do it !!!

if you have 82 hours free to waste only to be left with no conclusion to a long story buy this series........... the author has some great ideas and fascinating plots but he goes into great detail and gets bored. The result is he takes you on a roller coaster ride and just as your about to hit the down slope it stops and leaves you hanging. This series like so many others has NO FINISH it is frustrating and annoying. BE WARNED you will regret embarking on this long journey to no where

unfinished unconvincing story

didn't finish this book first time I've given up love sci go and fantasy but found this book completrly unappealing

Great Start ! Overall , slowish to get into but worth while.

Came across this series by trying to find other things Mark Boyett has narrated . I really enjoy his narration and his performance he did not disappoint.

Having read the Honourverse novels I knew I liked Webber and the concept of multiversity (is that a word?) in this series is well handled. As with most Epic Sci Fi / Fantasy it takes a while to get your head around who all the players are but when you do the story really starts to come alive.

The only potential criticism is you can see a number of common sense ways to stop the escalation that occurs in the story. I ended up shouting " but why not just do X!!" at the speakers on occasion. However if they did this there wouldn't be much of a story.

Overall , slowish to get into but worth while. Off to download the next in the series.

Very interesting meld of Sci-Fi and Fantasy

Where does Hell's Gate rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

As is normal with David Weber books the story is well developed with good character background and Scene setting. If you like a fusion of fantasy, culture shock and good old devious internal politics between to very divergent human cultures then this one is for you.

Who was your favorite character and why?

I liked the story and whilst pacing can be an issue with David Weber stories no one can say you do not get your money's worth.

Which character – as performed by Mark Boyett – was your favourite?

Mark Boyett has a good range of character voices and he has the ability to keep you metaphorically turning pages. He certainly adds to the work.

Any additional comments?

I am not sure how many books will be in this series , I know of at least one more available now and would be astounded if that concludes the work. However please please give us more Honor Harrington in the near future.