The last $15 I'll spend on a David Weber book

jockmama wrote:As the man once said, "Opinions are like a*sholes: everybody has one." I can't say I have all Weber's books: only all the Honor Harrington, all the Safehold - and this. I just wish I could get them for $15... Yes, this story ended with a huge deus ex machina, but it was one I'll bet NO one saw coming! Until the end, I was convinced that the Shongairi would be stopped by a super-race that was keeping watch over the Hegemony. Y'know, "bigger fleas"... But I did NOT, repeat, NOT, feel cheated about the way it did end. As a matter of fact, I was quite delighted. What a wonderful cross of genres! The plot owed a major homage to Harry Turtledove's "Invasion Earth" series, and even the surprise ending owed much to the way Harry ended his saga. The bottom line for the universe to learn is, don't screw with the Earthlings.

Weber isn't (yet) a Master Storyteller of the caliber of Heinlein, Asimov or Anderson. He turns me off sometimes in getting hung-up with long, laborous descriptions of technical details (especially weapons systems), and although I've read each of the "Safehold" books more than 20 times, I gave up quite early on making a list of the holes in his plots. But Weber writes nice stories I enjoy reading over and over and over. I enjoy them so much that on more than one occasion I've read the same novel twice in the same WEEK! I wish he wrote them faster, but the quality might suffer. (Bad example of this: James Patterson.) But I still wait with bated breath for the next installment.

William Elder wrote:I've loved everything up until this point. Maybe that's why the astonishingly-bad deus ex machina in the last twenty pages of this book felt like such a kick in the crotch. I'm gobsmacked that David Weber would let such an astonishingly bad ending go to print.

Screw it. I've spent hundreds of dollars on Weber books in the past, but no more.

Michael Everett wrote:If you want to read a bad sci-fi book, I must specifically NOT recommend Battlefield Earth by Ron Hubbard. For those of you silly enough to seek it out, I must warn you that you are unlikely to get even half way through it before giving up in disgust. The very few of you who do finish it, well... I guess you have at least some masochistic tendancies. Or are Scientologists.

That book is the WORST sci-fi book I have come across. And I include the Glove Of Darth Vader in that category, just to show you the depths that Battlefield Earth has so effortlessly plumbed.

Has anyone come across a worse book? Just curious.

Awaiting comments.

Michael Everett wrote:If you want to read a bad sci-fi book, I must specifically NOT recommend Battlefield Earth by Ron Hubbard. For those of you silly enough to seek it out, I must warn you that you are unlikely to get even half way through it before giving up in disgust. The very few of you who do finish it, well... I guess you have at least some masochistic tendancies. Or are Scientologists.

That book is the WORST sci-fi book I have come across. And I include the Glove Of Darth Vader in that category, just to show you the depths that Battlefield Earth has so effortlessly plumbed.

Has anyone come across a worse book? Just curious.

Awaiting comments.

Thirdbase wrote:

Michael Everett wrote:If you want to read a bad sci-fi book, I must specifically NOT recommend Battlefield Earth by Ron Hubbard. For those of you silly enough to seek it out, I must warn you that you are unlikely to get even half way through it before giving up in disgust. The very few of you who do finish it, well... I guess you have at least some masochistic tendancies. Or are Scientologists.

That book is the WORST sci-fi book I have come across. And I include the Glove Of Darth Vader in that category, just to show you the depths that Battlefield Earth has so effortlessly plumbed.

Has anyone come across a worse book? Just curious.

Awaiting comments.

I read that a long time ago. I was sick and it was the only thing I had that I hadn't already read. I kept waiting for the science fiction to show up.