Through Fiery Trials: A Novel in the Safehold Series

David Weber

Jan 2019 · Safehold Book 10 · Sold by Tor Books

About this ebook

With new alliances forged and old regimes fractured, Merlin—the cybernetic avatar of Earth's last survivor and immortal beacon to humanity—and the colonies of Safehold have many adventures ahead in Through Fiery Trials, the continuation of David Weber's New York Times bestselling military science fiction series

Those on the side of progressing humanity through advanced technology have finally triumphed over their oppressors. The unholy war between the small but mighty island realm of Charis and the radical, luddite Church of God's Awaiting has come to an end.

However, even though a provisional veil of peace has fallen over human colonies, the quiet will not last. For Safehold is a broken world, and as international alliances shift and Charis charges on with its precarious mission of global industrialization, the shifting plates of the new world order are bound to clash.

Yet, an uncertain future isn't the only danger Safehold faces. Long-thought buried secrets and prophetic promises come to light, proving time is a merciless warden who never forgets.

“Vast, complex, intricate, subtle, and unlaydownable....The biggest thing in science fiction since Isaac Asimov's Foundation series.”—Dave Duncan on the Safehold series

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
10. Through Fiery Trials

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

Ratings and reviews

A pretty disappointing departure from the action of previous books in the series. Nothing interesting happens, yet it was the most expensive book so far. I'm not holding out much hope for another one, given most of Weber's recent books appear to be in conjunction with other authors. Fair play I suppose, given almost 60 years of writing! My head-canon is the ending is the second part of the N plan, and what happens next is left as an exercise in imagination for the reader.

As much as I like the original character development, the last several books could have been condensed to about 75 pages each and covered all the important aspects of the book. In this case we have many points of view and do spend a lot of time with the former enemies and their reconstruction effort. Unfortunately, most of the book is meetings and conversations. Very little action at all. We end up with the cliff hanger that makes us want the next book way too late. Even though a lot of time passed, we did not get much movement in the timeline. We did get introduced to what is probably the next generation of main characters. I guess we'll have to wait another couple of years...

while the most wordy it has moments of action spaced a bit far from each other the general premise of this book seems to be a lead up to book 11.... which isn't out yet but soon hopefully we will get to see some more action now that the heros and villains alike have gotten some time to develop and we have some insight into their way of thinking and their motivations

About the author

DAVID WEBER is the most popular living author of military science fiction. Aside from the Safehold series, he is also known for the New York Times bestselling Honor Harrington series, including A Rising Thunder (2012). He lives in South Carolina.