By Schism Rent Asunder by David Weber
|
Book Summary Author: David Weber Edition: Hardcover Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published) Published: 2008-07-22 ISBN: 0765315017 Number of pages: 512 Publisher: Tor Books Product features:
|
| New | New Usually ships in 1-2 business days | $4.47 | ||
| Used | Used Usually ships in 1-2 business days | $0.27 | ||
| Collectible | Collectible Usually ships in 1-2 business days | $7.50 |
Your purchase is protected by the A-to-z Safe Buying Guarantee. Amazon.com automatically transfers your payment to the merchant so you'll never need to pay a merchant directly. Amazon.com A-to-z Safe Buying Guarantee covers both the delivery of your item and its condition upon receipt.
Book Reviews of the By Schism Rent Asunder
Customer Review: By Logic rent asunder or Clubbing baby seals II
Summary: 1 Stars
"Off Armageddon Reef" had the saving grace of blowing stuff up. "By Schism Rent Asunder" has all the excitement of regrouting the kitchen. The problems with this series are almost without numbers. For example, the really good characters are the 'bad' guys, while King Cayleb and Queen Sharleyan are simply too perfect to be anything but place holders for the "good guy" slots. However this might be overlooked if not for some really horrendous plot holes or rather plot canyons that swallow the entire story whole.
1: The SNARC robotic spies. In chaper 5 Merlin "explains" why he can't use his robot minions to eliminate some of the opposition.
". . . it wouldn't have been particularly difficult for him to maneuver several of them deep into the Corisandian's ear canal and use their combined charges to eliminate him while he slept. Unfortunately, he wouldn't be able to disguise what had happened. . .an explosive burst of flame. . . would be hard for any postmortem exam to miss . . . inevitable allegations that the Charisians must have done it using black arts."
This sounds entirely too much like the author trying to do a patch job, not unlike the original Star Trek and the transporter beam problem. (how do you build tension when the hero can simply beam out of trouble?)
Let's look at some alternative solutions:
a)Counter claim that the "Group of Four" are the ones using black arts and GOD is smiting them.
b) Replace the suicide charge on the SNARC remotes with a toxin.
c) Use the suicide charges to blow up powder stores and factories. Black power has a tendency to do that without any help so it wouldn't be hard to make it look reasonable. And, even it the "accidents" might not look reasonable, who cares. If your enemies keep dying- If their cities and warships and forts keep burning down to the point that you win the war it doesn't really matter what anyone suspects or thinks. Especially if you have a reasonably good propaganda bureau. The Charisians simply have to keep insisting that it's the Group of Four that is on the side of evil and that is why their generals and bishops keep dying. An the more battles they win, the more 'truth" will be on the side of the Charisians. Winners write the history.
2) Merlin has got satellites and SNARC spies for real time intelligence on armies, navies and individuals. Even if he only had weather prediction he'd be better off than WWII commanders. As it is Merlin et al are in the position of fighting an enemy who is blind, deaf and almost mute. The ONLY way the Group of Four can succeed is if the author twists the plot to the breaking point to give them a momentary win.
This could have been a great SF series, examining the battle between reason and superstitions, religious reformation, cultural growth, etc. Instead it's a rather pedestrian space opera/fantasy at best.