By Schism Rent Asunder

Classic Weber. I believe i stayed up till 4am to finish this book. the mixing of classic era warfare with futuristic technology. I am eagerly awaiting the next books in this new and upcoming series.

I don't want to give any of the story line away (unlike others!), so I'll remain vague. The focus in this book moves away from Merlin and toward the developing schism between Charis and Zion. It reads like the midgame in chess in which the pieces are being moved around in order to set up the endgame. Although some in the Church (read: Clyntyn) seems to take the occasional shot with his queen deep into enemy territory, these moves don't pay off just like they rarely do in a chess game.

Cayleb is astutely arranging for the future which means that the story can appear a bit slow at times (as others have noted). But, I appreciated the growth of the characters from caricatures to full-blown individuals. It all has me wondering where this is all going to end up. I hope that David eventually takes us forward to the inevitable conflict with the Gbaba!

The second book in the series is more based on political intrigue rather than action (though there are some intense action pieces too). You can see that David Weber is building up for the next book which I can almost guarantee will be action packed. I wonder how many books are going to be in the series as there is a long way to go.

writing style is good as you can expect from David. Some times the names can get confusing trying to keep who's who in the political maneuvering.

I hope you enjoy this book as much as I have.

Not a bad follow up to the first book, but a lot of stuff left hanging. As many have said (myself included), this series is an expansion on a theme from one of the books from the Dahak series. I am enjoying it because Weber has had the time to develop some of the things that I feel he glossed over very quickly in that book. While others may have found some of the book tedious, I have always enjoyed Weber's character development, so I liked that in this book. Also some of the revelations were very interesting. Anyway, I await the next book in the series, and I do not expect it to end at a trilogy.

My title pretty much says it. I would sometimes listen to Weber's books in audible format, but you can't skim an audio book. How about this? Weber "highlights" paragraphs: green for action, yellow for sections with vital plot points within ten pages, and red for vast pages and chapters of dissertation that involve zero plot advance.
Those of us who are shallow can make our selections accordingly.