Oath of Swords

War God, Book 1

By: David Weber

Narrated by: Nick Sullivan

Length: 14 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's Summary

Bahzell is no knight in shining armor, and besides he has too many problems of his own to be messing with anybody else's problems - let alone the War God's. Unfortunately, the War God has other ideas for him.

©1995 David M. Weber (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Critic Reviews

"Weber builds [worlds] with a nice eye for detail, above-average knowledge of history, and a pleasing amount of wit." (Booklist)

Almost Returned This One

And that would have been a mistake. I now eagerly await a chance to get the sequel. Aye, ye ought to give good listen and not give up less ye've given good time and reason. Expect that style of language to be presented by some of the main characters. I did not find this distracting in an audio format and feel it lends some identity to the characters. David Weber is a great writer and I was impressed with the progression of his protagonist. Now that I have had the pleasure of enjoying at least four of his series I would say I am a true fan. However, there are some things different about this tale than other books that Mr. Weber has written and it may not be a fit for everyone. This is magic oriented, not space, and the battles take place in a middle earth setting. Also, the battles are more one on one rather than involving commanding a legion of ships or men. The story is also more adventure based with a hero, companions, and an evil antagonist to defeat. Yet, in the end, we have an intelligent fearless hero who does the right thing despite the consequences, and these were some of the elements that drew me into this tale.


Sword of Oath is tale of swords and sorcery with many races of creatures like dwarves, halflings, elves, wizards, cultists, Gods, and men. We begin with Bazhell Bahanakson who is a prince and great warrior of his people, the Hradani. He is not human and his race has been cursed with the "rage" which is some sort of a berserk war cry that lends strength when facing an enemy. Bazhell is special in that he can overcome the recklessness of this rage and control it with great clarity and precision to the devastation of his enemies. He is a very noble and honor driven creature, and when it comes that a women is being raped by prince Harnak, he has no choice but to come to aid and rescue her from his clutches. Unfortunately, he is a political hostage of this prince Harnak's family. Over time he has become humbled to insults to prevent war for his people. But rape is too much and he figures he must now flee because there is no good way out of this situation. And so begins his journey for a new life; a journey involving many different cultures, creatures, and Gods. He is a reluctant hero, but does the right thing, which tends to lead him into trouble because there is much strife, evil men, and different ways of life in the lands ahead.

Although I had a hard start absorbing the details and making up my mind on the protagonist and style of language used, these issues were resolved shortly. I found myself liking the story more and more as it progressed. I should mention the same sort of thing happen to me with Honor Harrington and now I am an avid fan of that series. Audibles has a great return policy so consider listening to at least half of the first part before giving up, because I don't think you will regret it.

Very Good Read

Would you consider the audio edition of Oath of Swords to be better than the print version?

The way that the reader identified each character by changing his voice and easy at which he portrayed the lighter moments made the audio version better than the print version.

What did you like best about this story?

The story had a feel of a young adult fantasy series. Put simply it just flowed and was a pleasure to listen to.

Which character – as performed by Nick Sullivan – was your favorite?

I loved the way Nick Sullivan portrayed Bazell

Any additional comments?

I would recommend this series to all ages of fantasy readers.

Great story overal, but gets bogged down in parts.

Oath of Swords was my first David Weber read, so I was unfamiliar with his writing. I was pleasantly surprised by his treatment of the well worn genre of fantasy. He took some different an interesting takes. The cast of characters were great, and I really enjoyed interesting history behind the different races and how this particular world came about. Nick Sullivan's narration was MASTERFUL!

Character development was good and bad in this story. Bahzell and Brandark connected with me quickly, which made going through the story fun. However, most of the story dealt with the heroes, I felt that the antagonists were very under developed, almost to the point of being an afterthought. The main battle too, along with the resolution seemed short and anti-climatic.

The appearance of the different gods at every turn made them seem commonplace. Also, the over simplification, over humanization, and over explanation of the relationships between the gods and man, made the gods seem more like mascots, or genies than all powerful beings.

The battles were fantastic. Weber knows how to do an epic fight. With Sullivan's narration, you can feel your pulse elevating. These are the parts of the book that you fly through.

There were times where the story got bogged down though, attempting to flesh out Weber's fantasy world, and the characters relation to that world. There was tons of inner-monologue, and page after page of narrations about their histories. It sometimes seemed like the actual current events were little islands in a sea these narrations and soliloquy's.

As I said before, Nick Sullivan's performance was simply outstanding! He is one of my Top 5 book narrators! His depth and range of voice is amazing. He doesn't simply read the story, he acts out the characters for you, and their personalities just pop out in the voices.

Sullivan goes from American, to English, to Scottish, and Irish accents without missing a beat. Simply stunning voice acting.

Overall, I enjoyed the story, but I was really blown away by the narration of Nick Sullivan. Absolutely one of the best narrators on Audible.com.

Fast, Fantastic and Funny!

Wow... I couldnt put it down! I finished the book in 2 days time. I loved the banter between the two main characters! The world is interesting and the fight scenes are fast and furious! I cant wait to get the other books in this series on my Ipad!

About Time! Epic Fantasy inside

If you could sum up Oath of Swords in three words, what would they be?

Awesome Epic Fantasy

What did you like best about this story?

I love that David (The Mad Wizard Weber, or MWW) writes fantastic fantasy as well as scifi. The use of gods in this universe is very well done. The maigc systems are to MWW done in a way that is logical and has rules, you can wave a hand and destroy a world without the right tools, and magic is never used as a crutch.
The Bloody Hand is born in this novel folks, and if you are a fan of Elizabeth Moon's Fantasy you will enjoy this story

What about Nick Sullivan’s performance did you like?

David has always said that Bahzel's accent is irish, and he hits it very well

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The argument between Bahzel and Tomanik is one of my favorite parts of this story, and of course the very end but no spoilers i think

Any additional comments?

These books are alot of fun MWW has always said that these first 4 books (Oath f Swords, War God's Own, Windrider's Oath, and Warmaid's Choice[forthcoming]) are the basic backdrop on which is

Fun fantasy

I`m a fan of Webers Harrington series so i figured id use a spare credit to check this one out. Its start out really generic, and i actually stopped listening to the book and moved on to other ones.
But i figured hey i bought it so i shud at least listen to the entire thing. And it gets a lot better. Some great ball busting humor between the story's to main character and some good action scenes.

Good beginning to a series.

Started a little slow but by the end I couldn't stop listening. I think it's going to be a really good series.

Great story, great performance.

What about Nick Sullivan’s performance did you like?

His voice acting really helped bring the story and the individual characters to life. I loved the accents he selected for the characters in the story.

Great story that grabs you from the start

This may have been the only "pure" fantasy (vs urban fantasy) books I have read in a long while. I have read Weber's Reef series but that has a serious SF element. Not that I haven't read fantasy ever (100's of books disagree with that estimate) but it's not my primary genre.

I gotta say that I liked this book. The story kept me interested the whole way through and I turned around and bought the next book in the series right after finishing this one.

As to the story? It helps that it is an interesting world, populated by both the standard races (humans, dwarves, elves) as well as the unique (like our lead character and sidekick, who are hridani, a tall human like people with different ears). Bahzell is at his core a good guy, and therein lays the problem, as his tendency to do good gets him into deeper and deeper trouble. And then the Gods and Mages get involved....

I very much look forward to reading the next book.

Thoroughly Enjoyable

I thoroughly enjoyed this book on many levels. First the main characters where rich, believeable and funny. I enjoyed the wry humor thrown into the character conversations throughout the book and the narrator, Nick Sullivan, did a fantastic job bringing them to life.

Secondly I thought the twist on how magic is used and it's rules were a nice change of pace. Sometimes fantasy writers simply use existing principles and rules and do not put much thought into their own realm. David Weber did and it was a nice surprise.

Lastly this was just a good story beginning to end. It was paced well and kept me up at night on more than one occasion. Couple this with the items above and you end up with a very good book. Highly recommended for fans of the fantasy genre.