How do you rate TFT?

I am still a youngster at 72 but I have the same problem with the kindle maps. I use the Windows 10 magnifier in the Settings/Ease of Access menu. It takes some time getting used to, but it does the job without a loss in clarity.

ancient46 wrote:I am still a youngster at 72 but I have the same problem with the kindle maps. I use the Windows 10 magnifier in the Settings/Ease of Access menu. It takes some time getting used to, but it does the job without a loss in clarity.

I went back to the maps on my 8" Kindle Fire, and was able to blow them up so I could find Scheuler's (sic) Episcopate, and the Chindu (sic) Valley.

10" kindle fire rocks

TFT seems like an essential leap forward in time with a shift of focus to Harchong and the dissolution of that empire. Sort of a housekeeping book to extend the Imperial families with offspring and move rapidly into the Safeholdian future.

As a result, we miss the detail from 1-9 in favor of advancing quickly and laying to rest so many key characters like Ducharn, Thirsk, and the leader of Siddarmark Stohnar while the birth rate for the Inner Circle skyrockets.

That makes Firey Trials my least favorite overall but like all of Safehold for me, it still rates a 6.9.

As an Audible listener, Firey Trials is # 9 to Midst Toil and Tribulation #10 with the 5 Oliver Wyman narrated books at 1 thru 5.

All the books have been necessary (obviously) but I missed the detailed interchanges between their Imperial Magisties, the Picas, Narmann, Hektor and Iris. *excuse spelled names due to Audible listening - I know the spelling is different.

Honestly? I’m just glad this isn’t my first Weber book. If it was I probably wouldn’t be terribly interested in reading more. There was just so much skipping around as far as time, location, and plot that it was hard to follow and stay engaged in.

I liked a lot of the tech advances and the additional hints about what was inside the temple proper, and I loved the return. I just wish the return had happened earlier in the book. I guess I prefer introducing plot elements as required on an ad box basis a la the honor verse or starfire series.

10/10 going to keep reading the series going forward.

SilverbladeTE wrote:10" kindle fire rocks

I may upgrade to a 10" Kindle Fire for Christmas this year!!

Undercover Fat Kid wrote:Honestly? I’m just glad this isn’t my first Weber book. If it was I probably wouldn’t be terribly interested in reading more. There was just so much skipping around as far as time, location, and plot that it was hard to follow and stay engaged in.

I liked a lot of the tech advances and the additional hints about what was inside the temple proper, and I loved the return. I just wish the return had happened earlier in the book. I guess I prefer introducing plot elements as required on an ad box basis a la the honor verse or starfire series.

10/10 going to keep reading the series going forward.

Despite that this is a new arc, it's definitely not a good entry point into the series. From a marketing point of view, I hope the next book is a little more settled so that new readers can come in without having to read the rest of the series.

I really liked TFT but that's because it's mostly worldbuilding porn without a lot of slowing down for details or retreads of previously shown events. It's a very refreshing change from most of the recent Honorverse books.

noblehunter wrote:

Undercover Fat Kid wrote:Honestly? I’m just glad this isn’t my first Weber book. If it was I probably wouldn’t be terribly interested in reading more. There was just so much skipping around as far as time, location, and plot that it was hard to follow and stay engaged in.

I liked a lot of the tech advances and the additional hints about what was inside the temple proper, and I loved the return. I just wish the return had happened earlier in the book. I guess I prefer introducing plot elements as required on an ad box basis a la the honor verse or starfire series.

10/10 going to keep reading the series going forward.

Despite that this is a new arc, it's definitely not a good entry point into the series. From a marketing point of view, I hope the next book is a little more settled so that new readers can come in without having to read the rest of the series.

I really liked TFT but that's because it's mostly worldbuilding porn without a lot of slowing down for details or retreads of previously shown events. It's a very refreshing change from most of the recent Honorverse books.

I have to agree with the last sentence. Yes, there wasn't much action, but at least it advanced things a lot. Don't get me wrong, I do like worldbuilding, but some of his more recent books (in more than one series) have spent hundreds of pages to get through only a few months.

IMHO he could have cut out a couple of earlier Safehold books with perhaps a separate tech bible instead of describing each tech advance in the main story-line. While interesting, it really slowed things down and I found it frustrating to wait for two years for a book that ended up telling me so little of what happens next. :\ I preferred the pacing of the first couple of Safehold books.

So in some ways I rate this book higher than several of the others in the Safehold series. We have only a limited time to get through all the books he has to write, and I want to find out what happens!

bkwormlisa wrote: ...... We have only a limited time to get through all the books he has to write, and I want to find out what happens!

I agree that it could have been a worse book, and I am glad that we were spared a lot of plot refreshing, but as I read this I had an image of RFC pulling a David Bowie and writing faster and faster, until at the end he runs out of paper and writes all the way to the edge of the desk.

jgnfld wrote:I thought I posted my thots a day or two ago but cannot see them.

1. I read the book and will likely reread it at some point. And I will certainly read any other Safehold book that comes out before either DW or I die!

2. That said, this was a filler book along the lines of SoV in the Honorverse that moves the plot along very little. I see it as more placeholder/filler than serious plot development. This is ESPECIALLY true because of the--quite literally--deus ex machina-type ending which has precisely zero to do with the rest of the book (though I assume that DW plans to unite some of the strings put forward in the rest of this book in the next installment).

3. I'd rate it low in the series for that reason.

Operation androcles in the last chapter ties in with the rest of the book because if the angels made their appearance at the earliest possible time then the IC needed to focus hard on pushing innovation and economic changes as far as possible because to fail at that could mean an orbital decapitation strike. Once they were sure that was not going to happen it allowed them to set the stage for the 80 year run up to the next likely date. Given that level of time they could go ahead with operation androcles and let owl and norman start the end game of putting the truth about safehold out there in a way that could not possibly be ignored or dismissed out of hand and deliver it right to the people charged with preventing heresy.

Doing this a year or two before angels show up to contradict it is not that helpful but if you have 80 years for this to soak into the minds/culture of the world it is about the biggest wheel spike for future angelic appearances possible. You would not have a huge part of the worlds population reacting to that angel like a demon from shan-wei trying if they try to go back to langhorns original plan. You would get to the point you simply cannot kill enough people to stop the truth anymore. This also lets the IC slowly and steadly move to operating more out in the open and makes their recruitment of new IC members infinitely easier.

So yes it seems a bit out of the blue but everything in the book leading up to it has to happen to allow you to actually launch operation androcles with any prayer of success.