Off Armageddon Reef: A Novel in the Safehold Series (#1)

David Weber

Jan 2008 · Safehold Book 1 · Sold by Macmillan

About this ebook

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 "rebirth" was set in motion centuries before, by a faction that opposed shackling humanity with a concocted religion. Via automated recordings, "Nimue" - or, rather, the android with the memories of Lieutenant Commander Nimue Alban - is told her fate: she will emerge into Safeholdian society, suitably disguised, and begin the process of provoking the technological progress which the Church of God Awaiting has worked for centuries to prevent.

Nothing about this will be easy. To better deal with a medieval society, "Nimue" takes a new gender and a new name, "Merlin." His formidable powers and access to caches of hidden high technology will need to be carefully concealed. And he'll need to find a base of operations, a Safeholdian country that's just a little more freewheeling, a little less orthodox, a little more open to the new.

And thus Merlin comes to Charis, a mid-sized kingdom with a talent for naval warfare. 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 epic Off Armageddon Reef is can't-miss sci-fi.

Safehold Series
1. Off Armageddon Reef
2. By Schism Rent Asunder
3. By Heresies Distressed
4. A Mighty Fortress
5. How Firm A Foundation
6. Midst Toil and Tribulation
7. Like A Mighty Army
8. Hell's Foundations Quiver
9. At the Sign of Triumph

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Ratings and reviews

So this is for the first 4 books. I actually like the book/series and it would be a solid 4 stars. But actual writing is only part of the book. There is an incredible amount of exposition filler that you can skip many pages before you get back to the actual writing that moves the story along. I really find it amazingly tedious to read pages and pages of what someone thinks of the drapes before I get back on point. So ok not drapes but I’m just making a point. Something that should take a few sentences or at most a few paragraphs goes on and on and on. Not sure if this is a cynical way of stretching 3 books into10 but I forced myself to finish the first 4 books that I paid for and I had enough. I really went back and forth on 2 vs 3 stars, (other then the massive amount of frivolous filler some of the plot elements seemed pretty weak. EX: the plan to expedite development seems pretty poorly planned and executed. Merlin should know that his introduced tech would leak and he should have a timeline of “releases” and use his means of production to meet demands) But at the end 3 it is.

Never before has a book stimulated my thought process and entertained me with action and adventure all at the same time like David Weber’s Off Armageddon Reef. Weber provides a thought provoking, fantastic look into the future (and past) of mankind and explores the idea of mass deception and suppression. Brilliantly developed characters keep the story alive and a clever plot keeps readers wondering. For those who enjoy adventure, there is plenty to be found, but be warned; the author is very thorough. The plot of this story is really as original as it gets. In the 24th century, humanity is a space-faring race with advanced technology. However, that technology reveals the humans to an alien race called the Gbaba, who are bent on exterminating the human race. Forty years into war with the Gbaba, humanity rallies for one last hope of saving their race: Operation Ark. Nibue Alban, the protagonist of the story, volunteers to sacrifice her life, along with the rest of the human space fleet, to make sure the operation succeeded. But even though all those who volunteered died, nearly 900 years later, Nibue happens to wake up on the planet Safehold, home of the descendents of Operation Ark’s population. However, she finds that in this new society, the Operation’s administrators had used mind-control techniques to conjure a religion in which everyone on Safehold believed. The religion’s goal: to forbid the invention of advanced technology forever. Anyone who tested this belief was believed to be a servant of the Devil, and whose soul would be forever damned. But a select few in the original Operation’s command knew the truth and history of humanity and wanted to secure human ingenuity and freedom again. So they left Nimue a small stash of technology and a cybernetic body in which her personality still lives. Along with that equipment, they’ve given her the responsibility of destroying the suppressive religion and those who defend it. Now it’s her job to make sure humanity is freed of its limitations and allowed independent thought and belief. David Weber ingeniously blends the topics of politics, religion, war, government, and moral law into an action packed story in Off Armageddon Reef. It makes one think about society today and how ideas are forced upon society and accepted by it, yet no one can say why these ideas are correct; we’ve just be taught to “know” that they are. It‘s always important when the reader can relate a novel to life today and it is this relation that makes books meaningful to us. Off Armageddon Reef may be a science fiction novel but I think that the author examines humanity in its most desperate situations and the desperate measures we go to escape these situations and thoroughly imbeds those themes in to his plot and into his characters. The world of Safehold may be alien and imaginary, but the ideas on which it is based are very human and very real.

Good story, imaginative characters, probably worth reading. This book would greatly benefit from better editing. Its 800 or so pages could have been cut to 300 or 400 pages and the book would have been better. I noticed this with David Weber's "Honor" series; the first were really good, but the later ones were far too wordy with too much unnecessary detail.

About the author

David Weber is the author of the New York Times-bestselling Honor Harrington series and the Safehold series. His many other novels include Mutineers' Moon, The Armageddon Inheritance, Heirs of Empire, Path of the Fury, and Wind Rider's Oath. He lives in South Carolina.