Continuing Stories

David Weber continues to describe the struggle of human beings to reinvent technology so they can overcome a conspiracy designed to restrict it to the most basic levels in Midst Toil and Tribulation, book number six in the Safehold series.

The Safehold books translate the Protestant Reformation into a science fiction setting, as humanity's last remnant hides from the genocidal Gbaba alien race. The original colonists created the Church of God Awaiting in order to cement their plan to keep technological innovation below the threshold the Gbaba could detect. But some rebels disagreed and before they were destroyed, they created an android designed to awaken many years later and counteract the Church. Midst continues telling the story of the Charisian Empire's fight against church forces in the vast Republic of Siddermark, devastated by Church forces the previous year. We also see the android Merlin reflect on the amount of death his actions have caused and wonder if he is on the right path, and follow the journey of the daughter of a murdered prince as she decides for herself what faith she can follow and remain true to the God she believes in.

Weber handles this all fairly well, regressing a few times into his mode of conversation after conversation instead of story movement. He does not do as well with Merlin's self-reproach and Irys Dakyn's spiritual quest as he did with How Firm A Foundation's "close-up" stories -- the contrast between the vulnerable human gaining faith while the invulnerable android begins to doubt would have strengthened the story if the connection had been drawn more clearly. But he relates a number of battles very well, playing to one of his strengths. If you're been sticking out Safehold so far, Midst won't give you reason to quit.

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After an interlude in his past, Jack Reacher returns to the present, hitchhiking though the Midwest on his way to Virginia. He's still got an idea of meeting the military policewoman he "met" via phone in 61 Hours, but he's not going to get there just yet. The car he grabbed a ride from has three people in it who are not what they seem, and two of them are even more not what they seem as the story unfolds.

Reacher will wind up teaming up with a dubious FBI agent to uncover dual conspiracies, and although one of them is on the side of the good guys, that may not matter to them when he crosses their lines. Which, being Reacher, he will definitely do more than once.

Wanted Man's action goes back and forth along rural stretches of highway in Nebraska and Kansas as pursuers and pursued double back to avoid detection and reach their respective destinations. Child seems to do the same with his story, as Reacher and the FBI agent rehash the "I should arrest you/No you shouldn't" dance several times. In some places, it seems like Child has read some parodies of his own work and is trying to outdo them. Wanted Man is by no means as bad as Bad Luck and Trouble or Nothing to Lose, but it reads like a book that would have been better as a short story. Still, if you're a Reacher fan, Wanted Man gives you no reason to leave the series behind (We'll let Tom Cruise do that).

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The Measure of the Magic concludes Terry Brooks' two-volume tale of what happened to those spared from the Great Wars' catastrophes by the magic of Hawk in The Gypsy Morph. In the five hundred years since the Great War, the humans, elves and others living in the valley shielded by Hawk's magic have flourished, but they are not ready when that shield finally comes down and the outside world begins to work its way into their peaceful lives. Far from the empty wasteland they believed it to be, that world has its own people, who have their own ambitions. And it has a demon, whose goal is to kill the bearer of the Black Staff of magic.

That bearer is Panterra Qu, a former tracker and friend to tracker Prue Liss as well as Elven princess Phryne Amarantyne. They oppose the power-hungry religious leader Skeal Eile and the usurper of the Elven throne, Phryne's stepmother Isoeld. As well as the nameless demon, who begins to manipulate behind the scenes for his own ends.

Because his Shannara books have generally been cut from the same cloth, and because his "Jerle Shannara" trilogy was one long chase scene strung over three books, Brooks has often been accused of lazy storytelling. It may or may not be true in other places, but it's beyond evident in Measure. The plotting is sloppy, the characterizations messy and the continuity difficult to follow.

Passages that display evidence of time and work ride next to stretches that scream "I'm fresh out of the word processor without benefit of any editing beyond spellcheck!" One character -- in a pre-industrial society half a millennium removed from the technology involved -- refers to adhesive tape as casually as would you or I. Phryne seems like a different character every time we meet her, and several characters have the same "I just killed someone and I can't handle it" response almost down to the dialogue. Brooks seems to set up potential sequels with Measure's end, but unless he tries a whole lot harder to convince readers there's a story there I can't see the point. Weber's and Child's latest entries in their respective series may not make you decide to quit them, but Brooks has come within a sheet of paper of prompting that very decision.