Setting the Stage

With Like a Mighty Army, David Weber brought the war between the Charisian Empire and the forces loyal to the Church of God Awaiting to an end -- more or less. The Charisians didn't crush the Church as they will probably need to do at some point because cooler heads took charge and sued for peace. Since the Church's mission is to perpetuate a system that keeps technology on the world of Safehold at a minimum to escape the notice of the genocidal Gbaba, it's bound to find itself at odds with the Charisians again. Because the Charisians are led by a synthetic human from the days of Safehold's founding, and that being's goal is to re-equip and rearm for round 2 with the Gbaba and teach them why humanity's a species best left alone.

Weber has said in interviews that a second arc of Safehold's story will deal with that part of the story, which makes 2019's Through Fiery Trials a kind of hinge between the two arcs. He re-sets the board and readies new pieces for their play and their own moves. Guided by Merlin Athrawes -- an android with the memories of Nimue Alban from the time of the founding, as well as a second android of Nimue herself -- Charisian inventors gradually build up the technological base of their world while not advancing so far that the orbiting satellites left by the Church's designers rain destruction down on them all. But Merlin and Nimue may be running out of time: A "prophecy" from the founders says they will return after a thousand years and even though they don't necessarily know when that clock started, they know they're in their world's tenth century.

Trials is a maddening book of the kind Weber is so good at producing -- some fine scenes and tidbits mired in acres of world-building minutiae and repetitive dialogue. The second arc of the Safehold series will require new minds, ones born into the world being remade by Merlin, Nimue and the Charisians. That implies new characters following in the footsteps of old ones, some of whom are faithful to the cause of their parents and some of whom have other goals and designs. And in Trials, we're introduced to every last one of them ad tedium.

Trials is 700 pages of table-setting, an egregious faux pas in any series but even more so when it's the tenth volume of a series of 500-plus-pagers bursting with opportunities for editing. In more than one interview Weber said it began as a prologue to the first book of the second arc that grew into its own book, which erases any guilt I may feel about slapping one star onto a series and an author I regularly enjoy. Pure unadulterated gems of mood and character like the betrothal and marriage of Princess Alahnah and Lywys Whytmyn drown in speechifying blather and accounts of old people passing away and new people taking their place. An excellently-designed cliffhanger ending might never be seen as readers throw up their hands and set this book on the pile to go to the second-hand store.

Weber is, in addition to being an author, a licensed local pastor in the United Methodist Church. As your humble reviewer can attest, preachers can all too often be tempted by love of their own words to wander high and low before coming to a point. The same tendency is evident in the world of creative universe-building authors, and the double whammy makes too many of his books patience-testing exercises in judicious page-skipping. Through Fiery Trials is very much one of those.