How Firm a Foundation, David Weber
How Firm a Foundation, David Weber
8 Rating(s)
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How Firm a Foundation
A Novel in the Safehold Series (#5)

Author: David Weber

Narrator: Charles Keating

Unabridged: 28 hr 23 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/13/2011


Synopsis

David Weber's How Firm a Foundation is the latest novel in the New York Times-bestselling Safehold series begun with Off Armageddon Reef, By Schism Rent Asunder, By Heresies Distressed, and A Mighty Fortress.

The Charisian Empire, born in war, has always known it must fight for its very survival. What most of its subjects don't know even now, however, is how much more it's fighting for. Emperor Cayleb, Empress Sharleyan, Merlin Athrawes, and their innermost circle of most trusted advisers do know. And because they do, they know the penalty if they lose will be far worse than their own deaths and the destruction of all they know and love.

For five years, Charis has survived all the Church of God Awaiting and the corrupt men who control it have thrown at the island empire. The price has been high and paid in blood. Despite its chain of hard-fought naval victories, Charis is still on the defensive. It can hold its own at sea, but if it is to survive, it must defeat the Church upon its own ground. Yet how does it invade the mainland and take the war to a foe whose population outnumbers its own fifteen to one? How does it prevent that massive opponent from rebuilding its fleets and attacking yet again?

Charis has no answer to those questions, but needs to find one...quickly. The Inquisition's brutal torture and hideous executions are claiming more and more innocent lives. Its agents are fomenting rebellion against the only mainland realms sympathetic to Charis. Religious terrorists have been dispatched to wreak havoc against the Empire's subjects. Assassins stalk the Emperor and Empress, their allies and advisers, and an innocent young boy, not yet eleven years old, whose father has already been murdered. And Merlin Athrawes, the cybernetic avatar of a young woman a thousand years dead, has finally learned what sleeps beneath the far-off Temple in the Church of God Awaiting's city of Zion.

The men and women fighting for human freedom and tolerance have built a foundation for their struggle in the Empire of Charis with their own blood, but will that foundation be firm enough to survive?

Safehold Series
1. Off Armageddon Reef
2. By Schism Rent Asunder
3. By Heresies Distressed
4. A Mighty Fortress
5. How Firm A Foundation
6. Midst Toil and Tribulation
7. Like A Mighty Army
8. Hell's Foundations Quiver
9. At the Sign of Triumph

About David Weber

David Weber is a science fiction phenomenon. He is the author of the popular Honor Harrington and Honorverse novels and the Safehold series. Since selling his first novel in 1989, he has perpetrated 67 solo and collaborative novels (with 2 more delivered) and an unconscionable number of anthologies upon an innocent and unsuspecting public. Thirty-five of his books have been New York Times bestsellers. Weber has a bachelor’s degree from Warren Wilson College, and attended graduate school in history at Appalachian State University. He lives in South Carolina.

About Charles Keating

Charles Keating has won multiple AudioFile Earphones awards for his audiobook narrations. His credits include works by P.D. James, Mark Haddon, Charmian Hussey, and Terry Brooks. He is British actor of stage, screen and television in addition to being an audiobook narrator. He has acted with the Royal Shakespeare Company, played Rex in ITV’s celebrated Brideshead Revisited miniseries, and had roles in television shows including Sex and the City, Another World, All My Children and As the World Turns. In 2001, he played the role of Carney/Oscar Wilde in the Lincoln Center Theater Performance of A Man of No Importance, and in 2007, he played the role of Clement O'Donnell in the Guthrie Theater production of The Home Place.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jeffrey

David Weber's latest Safehold novel, titularly science fiction, has now swept straight into the alternative history segment of the field. True its an alternative history not shaped by events on Earth, but set in a far distant world, but its mostly a story about the conflict between a sailing empire......more

Goodreads review by Guy

Same strengths and weaknesses as the previous book (A Mighty Fortress), with one additional weakness: it read at times like a series of vignettes / set pieces that had been thought out beforehand and then glued together. I liked the vignettes, as well as the things I usually like about Weber's books......more

Goodreads review by Dan

Superb, the whole series is.......more

Goodreads review by Liviu

How Firm a Foundation has an interesting structure in the series and while a lot happens I found it the least satisfying novel to date because all the great moments - and it has a lot of them - are repeats from the earlier four novels - eg we find out what the key is and it is not as mind blowing as......more


Quotes

“Charles Keating's flawless narration adds a heightened dimension to David Weber's words. In fact, I think narration is the wrong word to describe precisely what Mr. Keating does with this novel. It's very much a one man performance of How Firm a Foundation.” —The Page of Reviews