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

Boring.......!

The beginning of the story had a good start. But this is not the book for you if your looking for action pack sci-fi. I felt like I was listening to hours of political and religious schemes. Couldn’t finish it I was so bored.

Awesome!

Favorite audio book series to listen to while Trucking.
Wish I purchased the digital version first.

Long developing but very exciting.

At points it felt like it was dragging and I kinda wanted the story to speed up a bit. But the overall story and premise is excellent. Definitely looking forward to the next installment.

very good book

This is one of my favorite story's. it is very hard to stop listening to it

Read Basilisk Station NOT Safehold

Excellent concept and excellent performance. When listening it seemed that this must be Weber's first work, showing the promise that eventually became Basilisk Station and the Honorverse. Unfortunately that is not the case. Here Weber again recounts the Great Age of Sail and the wars against Napoleon; unlike the Honorverse he gets to do it with masts, spars, and a square-rigged blue-water navy.

A good writer conveys context and background by showing and doing. In this book Weber explains. At. Interminable. Length. And yet one could overlook this in setting up an excellent series. But it also suffers badly from being far too pat, too simplistic. Everything is superlative at what it is; everything happens precisely when / as it needs to.

Yet the concept was interesting and the listening was entertaining if extremely slow in places. So I finished this and tried the second book. This too I finished, in order to avoid rushed judgement. But in terms of things being just too easy,, that one was even worse than the first book. Even as a young adult I would have been rolling my eyes and going "put-leeze!" Perhaps due to Weber's success, editorial guidance was completely lacking in this project. He must have been paid by the word.

And the worst is yet to come: Weber spends ten books just dealing with the religious wars on Safehold itself. Dealing with the threat of humanity's original terrible enemy is still unseen over the horizon. One fears that it will take another ten books to get off the planet; suffering this unimaginative YA style of writing to get there is completely inconceivable. I took a refund on the second book and cut my losses.

Up and Down

What did you love best about Off Armageddon Reef?

The scifi aspects, the techno-magic, the spies, the intrigue, the politics, the characters were really great for the most part.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

A lot less about upgrading the artillery, ammunition, cannons, guns, and naval warfare--it went on and on--what a snoozefest! I had to put those sections on 2X speed.

Which scene was your favorite?

When Merlin burst through the skylight to foil the traitor! I'll try not to spoil it.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Epic adventure and intrigue across planets, across time, and across galaxies!

Off Armageddon Reef

This book was very well written and researched. If you enjoy reading long detailed narratives of 17th and 18th century weaponry and naval warfare, then this is the book for you! You can also look forward to lots and lots of political scheming, in (what was for me) excruciating detail.

Admittedly, I'm not a fan of this type of "medieval" sci-fi. It is however well written, and if you like stories that heavily involve the aforementioned subjects, then you will find this book, and I imagine the series, interesting.

Fantastic

All the makings of an epoch scyfy saga. Alien threat, endangered humans, government, fanatical religion, and war.

Decent

Any additional comments?

I've listened to many books from audible. This one is decent but no where near the best. The concept is interesting and has potential, it is just that it takes a very long time for things to happen. The beginning is interesting, and so is the end, but the middle is just a slog of political maneuvering that is just blah blah blah. A lot of that could have been cut out and replaced with more events.

Also there is very little suspense. The main character is basically indestructible and wiser than he/she should be. Where is the betrayal? Where are the major setbacks? Where is the fear of a complete failure? The author essentially tells us what is going to happen before it occurs so there is little surprise. The story is amusing but doesn't seize me in the way that the Red Rising series, Mistborn series or Dawn of Wonder does (all of which I HIGHLY recommend).

Additionally there are too many names used, which is made worse by the fact that many characters have a first and last name that the author uses intermittently. It becomes difficult to remember who is who. So much so that I gave up trying and instead relied upon the content and context of the discussion to figure out at essentially what was happening.

I not entirely sure if I will continue in the series. It depends on if I run out of better stuff to listen to and on what the reviews are on the following books.

Really good story

Really good story with lots of characters and the guy did multiple voices really well!