Rating: 
Summary: A wonderful look at war.
Review: I am a big DW fan, and this is the first DW book I read. I liked the cover, got it at the library. When I read the back, I almost didn't open the book. Bugs? Get real. Sounded like a bad Star Trek book.
Then I read the intro leaf. Kept reading. And reading. This is a long, long book. It's not easy going. You get attached to the characters, and Mr. Weber has no compuction about killing them off. This isn't Star Trek, and sometimes, the good guys die.
The story is of a future galactic society of Humans, Orions, Ophiuchi, and Gorm, who are all at peace. It has been 60 years since Crusade. Then a survey flotilla enters an uncharted system, and, well, all Hell breaks loose. I won't get into it too much but let's just say that the Bugs are perhaps the most chilling enemy you've seen in a long time.
They are alien beyond any concep of humanity. The book sometimes has their perspective, and it's chilling. Go read the book. Then go read The Shiva Option, which is the sequel, and just came out.
Rating: 
Summary: A mediocre Sci-fi war campaign novel.
Review: First off, I want to say that I'm a huge David Weber fan, so naturally I devour his books like potato chips. I've read every book he's written and quite a few of the shorter stories that have appeared in anthologies. I love this guy!Usually, David Weber's writing is right on, creating whole universes with imaginative merging of character, technology and action. This formula has made him an extremely popular author, and rightly so. In Death Ground however falls short of his usual excellence. Based in the Starfire universe (in which other such books as Crusade and Insurrection are set), it follows a human federation's war against an insidious and non-understandable alien race. Sounds good at first glance, but unfortunately, this book was a little too disjointed for my taste. There were a great number of sub-characters who showed up once and disappeared. That's all good and fine, but the sheer amount of them was overwhelming, and I for one like to see characters reoccur and develop over time. A few did, but that was the exception not the norm. To make matters worse, the action got pretty disjointed at times. I found myself losing track of exactly what was going on. I got overwhelmed and had to set the book down. The next book (this is the first volume in two about this war) comes out in the near future (of this review). I'm hoping that it is more carefully crafted. I can't really recommend In Death Ground. If you enjoy David Weber, go for it, But my advice is to try 'Path of the Fury,' 'Insurrection,' or any of the earlier Honor Harrington novels if you haven't read him before. Any of those books are far better than this one.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding space action
Review: Anyone who has an interest in good old fashioned rip-roaring space battles, who ever loved a story of a war between good and evil, who ever stared with fascination at movies of space aliens battling brave human spaceships will *love* this book. It's almost non-stop action, but intelligently told, with incredible space battles on an epic scale for enormous stakes. The aliens are mysterious and unfathomable, and relentless, and you know from the start (as one of the characters says) it will be a battle to the death between them and humanity and its allies.
Rating: 
Summary: For fans of Weber only...
Review: Here's a simple test to determine if you will like this book:
1) Did you enjoy Weber's Honor Harrington series?
2) Did you think it would have been better without 95% of the politics and all of the details of Harrington's life? (In short, everything but the naval combat?)
If so, this is for you.
Of course, focusing on the war only works if you care about the people or the tactics. There's no reason to care about the people - and contrary to what a lot of other reviews have said, there's not much to care about in the tactics either. In fact, in several key battles, the authors skip the tactics entirely, and we only see the outcome. When the battles are the only reason for the book, that might not be the best choice.
I didn't realize this was based on a computer game until I read it here, but it doesn't surprise me. Each of the alien races has their single advantage and disadvantage - the Orions with their expert fighter pilots but lower technology, the Gorns with their advanced drives but greater need for life support - and of course humans as the 'perfectly balanced' middle ground.
My recommendation: If you want space-navy tactics, try the Harrington books instead. You'll have to get past the Mary-Sue main character, but Weber does a better job there in making the conflict interesting.
J
Rating: 
Summary: Great read, hope they get the sequel out soon...
Review: I really enjoyed reading this third addition to the Starfire universe, but I wish that the authors would go more in-depth on the periods of history the books skip, and the periods before the books - the Orion wars perhaps? To answer Ronald Stepp's question about "military" and "civilian" drives: The books are based on a space-combat RPG called Starfire (it has a website). I believe that the drives (and beams, missiles, armor, etc.) are all based on the game's "level" system. Primaries are a higher level of Force beam, military drives are faster than civilian but less stable, and so forth. Each different race gets a bonus somewhere - the Terrans to production and the Ophiuchi to fighter combat for example. I think that's why the spec's are all the same for each race; they're all defined on the same scale. The Starfire website makes mention of another group of aliens as well - at least three new species. Lots of room there for more books, I just wish they'd WRITE them!
Rating:
Summary: Could be better
Review: OK lets get one thing straight. The evil aliens are formulaic instant parallels to Gamesworkshop's Tyranids, Heinlein's Bugs and the Buggers from Ender's Game (minus the character) and no doubt a whole host of other things besides. Also all of the other aliens (bar the Zarkoloyans in the second book) are humanoid animals.
On the other hand they are well realised and to counter this relative lack of imagination, the physics of the universe are innovative and rather cool, in particular the warp points lead to excellent writing.
The characters are rarely well done, with the exception of Kthaara'zarthan and Ivan Nikolayevich who'se hatred of politics (and accompanying descriptive language) is a refreshing attitude.
The space combat however (and face it this is what you bought it for) is excellently done with real descriptions of what is going on, so rare in this genre (in my experience) well to the fore, in particular the Pesthouse battle near the end is brilliantly realised.
Get this book it'll bring you back for seconds. (but next book they must do one about ISW three because they always mention it but never tell you much.)
Rating:
Summary: not the best
Review: Weber & White like to make things explode. If you like lots of explosions, you'll like this book. If you like telegraphed plot turns (see page 459 for an absolutely classic example of Famous Last Words, just for one example) you'll like this book. It'll do for light reading. People looking for serious work should look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: The best of the series...
Review: Of Weber's series with Steve White, I thought this was by far the best--straight ahead, linear action, with multiple groups of aliens and cultures. The beginning of the exploration of the Orion culture was a nice touch. It is the ultimate Space Opera. What I do wonder though is what Steve White contributed to this series. Weber's fingerprints are all over this--it seems just like part of the Honor Harrington world, with similar descriptions of space battles, many similar terms (superdreadnaughts, for instance). This series seems to be an excuse for Weber to do something without Harrington and in a different political circumstance--but the military action is very familiar, and well done.
Rating:
Summary: Great fights, uninspired story, poor delivery; lack of depth
Review: To begin with, there are several things Weber seems to have copied from other people's material. Take for instance Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game (1994), where implacable telepathic insects are bent on displacing the human race and colonizing Earth or Heinlein's Starship Troopers where power armor (like Weber's zoot suits) is used to combat mankind's enemy, the insects. He also seems to have 'borrowed' the concept of an honorable, rigid, non-adaptive feline race from Larry Niven's Man-Kzin Wars (1988) and/or Master of Orion's (1994) Mrrshan species. Weber's avian race in Shiva may have even been inspired by an avian race in Master of Orion. It seems as if Weber visited a zoo to come up with the inspiration for the alien races in his book. All of them, however, are essentially the same. Inferior to humans economically and strategically and despite their outward appearances all seem to be like humans biologically. Where the avians have vestigal wings, are more like mammals and the felines are more like furry monkeys with cat fangs rather than full-fledged lions/tigers. The alien races he created in these books are annoying. He gives shallow and poor explanations for their behaviour, biology and history and they are all in some way inferior to one group or another, especially to human beings. One more thing further deposing any creativity or imagination that might have been put into this book is its parallels to World War II history and historical perspectives. Take the humans for example, a sleeping capitalist giant that produces most of the galaxies armaments. Then conflict begins and the first few years of the war the good guys are losing on the defense. After that, it's a war of motion, new technology rolls out, an offensive coalition is formed and we strategically outwit the alien reprobates who refuse to change strategy (much like the Axis during WWII). With the final segment of the story dealing with the use of weapons of mass destruction to end the war. How lame is that? I think Weber could have thought of a more original plot. The characters he created are all 1 dimensional and extremely stupid. Within their given categories they are all essentially the same as their next fictional fellow with few variations. The humans produce these glorious, brilliant and charismatic leaders who are mostly identical characters to one another; while, their civilians are simpering cowards that produce annoying and troublesome non-military politician leaders. The warrior felines are hot tempered and big on honor with one exception where there is a lone female feline officer caught in a patriarchal society. Even she is cardboard. Other races like the Kuala like "Combat Momas" all pretty much have the same description. They are "Combat Momas" and they appear in battle when they are most needed but don't have much dimension. The avians in the second book are all feathery distinguished elites who have imposed imperialist rule over other species in their part of the galaxy. And the grunts they only act like the stereotypical ground pounders and stay within those bounds. The point I am making is within their respective categories, all these characters are flat and lack the ability to cross over and/or mesh with another category. As well, none of them have depth. To fill the reader in on the xenocidal insectoids thoughts and intentions, Weber used an italic monologue of what is presumably one insectoid speaking for the hive mind. This came off as cheesy most of the time and could have been executed better. As well, the overuse and/or overemphasis of female protagonists, military dynasty families and formulaic names like "Agamemnon" grew awfully annoying. I don't mind the use of female characters as strong protagonists in books (see - Niven) but Weber's use of them is prodigal. It also makes me think the author has some issues with the females in his life. In the two In Death books, Weber would poorly mix some western names with Japanese names in what seems an attempt to create ethnic diversity. The only effect that had was to make it seem like the human world was dominated by Western-Japanese hybrids and nothing else. This is the most diverse names get throughout much of the two books. Weber could have taken some time to research names further instead of what seems like picking names off the top of his head and combining them with Japanese names. Mostly British names conjoined to Japanese names. Thus, it came off as a thoughtless stab at diversity. The story is rather shallow and unimaginative. I'll give Weber credit in that some of his ideas were original. Take for example the jump points that allow interstellar travel. However, he delivers these ideas horribly and unconvincingly. A video game of all things, called Descent Freespace (1998), did a better job at delivering a similar plot, with similar plot elements, about implacable insectoid aliens than In Death. To boot, it had great space battles.
Rating:
Summary: Good War, Bad Propaganda
Review: I wish the authors had studied the psychology of military leaders as assiduously as they studied their tactics. Here we have captivating naval battle sequences surrounded by hawkish didacticism. As cliched as the evil bugs are (how nice to have aliens devoid of anything redeemable so there is no moral ambiguity in this straw-man war) the military geniuses populating this book are even more so. Each one is a bland hero, universally competent, suitably burdened by command and tediously self-sacrificing. Really? Doesn?t sound like any general I know. And where are the grunts, wondering about their fates? Where are the incompetents, the vainglorious generals who have directed the flow of history? The authors have a very dull ax to grind: warriors good, politicians bad. Yet, I enjoyed the battles enough to recommend this book. Just read the Forever War or even Ender?s Game afterwards as a tonic.
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