Rating: Summary: Pure Space Opera Review: Definitely a book that satisfies the palate and the mind. It concludes the story of the war with the arachnoids started in In Death Ground. A war of righteousness and of survival. In which the Orions and the Terrans fight for their very survival, together, as they were meant to. New leaders of the Navy, of both races, will take up the fight and rise to the challenge. New alliances will be sought, after all the enemy of my enemy is my friend.The conclusion will feature several battles that lead the way to victory. We will find out more about this mysterious enemy of the Terrans and how to eradicate them once and for all. The map which contains the space lanes will be your guide, your map, and your game board. It will show the movements of friend and foe alike, as they grope through the darkness. I found myself rather attached to that mind, looking at it and seeing how close the enemy was to a specific star system. Certainly it makes logistical sense. This book is fine space opera, featuring the battle of humanity vs the aliens combined with Weber's military sci-fi prowess.
Rating: Summary: It's a buy, Read SB 1 or God as well. Review: I caught myself about quarter the way in realizing this is quite a stray from its ancestors. But at the same time I thought with all the miltary jargon, it is a more real attempt. I have noticed many authors lately being panned hard for dull writes, what I have concluded is that authors like this are trying to get closer to reality in terms of what actually could be scientifically speaking. These authors are attempting a great deal of reality of the could be in the war. I appreciate that and believe a good reader will realize this. I want to recommend a book that goes into the battle of Armageddon in an extremely real approach with new weapons, also has the first account of any book on the new F 35 Fighter in a real life dog fight, Karl Mark Maddox's paperback, SB 1 or God
Rating: Summary: Tooo long Review: I found this book to be greatly in need of a good editor. The good guys fight the Bugs, numbers of various classes of spaceships are enumerated, the fight is described in great detail, then afterward our heroes agonize about their personal relationships, strategy and tactics. This same general scenario is then repeated over and over and yet, over again. Some character development but this is overwhelmed by all the descriptive and enumerative detail about warships and weapons. Alien races are only sketched in a rather cartoonish way. The book needed to be much tighter, focused much more on character development, and in depth treatments of the aliens in the coalition against the Bugs and less on endless lists of combatant machinery.
Rating: Summary: Not My Kind of Science Fiction Review: I got about half way through this book and put it down. I just could not take anymore boring space battles. I like my sci-fi to have some heart and soul and this book has neither. Its like reading Captain Kirk's log book entries for a year straight. Its just one big space battle after another. The writers seem to care much more about the technical issues associated with space battles than the plot. The characters even feel like they were ripped off from star trek. The whole concept of the bugs invading earthling space is such a rip off from Enders Game (which I happened to be reading at the same time) that I was just disgusted with this books lack of originality. What can I say, boring and unoriginal hack work? Yeah, that's about it. I don't recommend this book. Its not utter crap, but its a far cry from what I would call good sci-fi. Although in fairness to the authors, its a well-written book and the space battles are pretty realistic but I think more is required to engage a reader than how many ships get blown up.
Rating: Summary: Lots of action and pseduo-military jargon - and nothing else Review: I read many other Weber's books and enjoyed most of them.... However, this book (a sequel to In Death Ground) does not cut it. There is not much of a story, just an unending series of colorful descriptions how the "fighters scream to get vengeance", and undeing tally of the quantities of ships commited and number of KIA and WIA. The tactics are reasonable in some cases, and stupid in others. The humans are either heros or villains/cowards with no middle ground. There is unending repeatition of the advantage of one weapon over the other (how many times do you need an explanation what is a primary pack, and what is it good for?). The book is BORING!! The only reason I give it 2 stars and not one, is that it continues "In death ground", which also tends to repeat itself similary, and if you loved the first (I did not), you entitled to read the other. However, "In Death Ground" contained some story, and it brought the concept of the bugs, while this one does not. In my opinion, Mr. Weber wamted to capitalize on the previous book and readers will pay to see a story brought to an ending. It is not worth it - it's his worst book up to date.
Rating: Summary: Excellent Conclusion to the Saga! Review: I understand that with the completion of the Shiva Option, David Weber has abandoned the StarFire Universe at least for the moment. If so this is a fitting coda to his Starfire collection. Not the last historically, of course, but certainly the most complete with nearly all loose ends tied up neatly. The Bugs are vanquished (sort of), their enslaved worlds set free, True Love has triumphed several times, and Weber has declared what a Golden Lion is really good for: Making the statement, "Ain't Gonna Study War No More" personal and touching.
Rating: Summary: Tedious sequel to In Death Ground Review: I waited eagerly for The Shiva Option. When I got it, I actually went back and re-read In Death Ground first. I'm sorry to say the book turned out to be, dare I say it, monotonous. It's just bug battle after bug battle without the story and character development I've come to enjoy so much. Even the system maps in the front appear to be a careless afterthought. Between the undefined symbology and no cross references to the terms used in the story (try to find Anderson 3) it's a disappointment. This is the first (and please the last) David Weber book I actually had to plow through. Let's all hope the upcoming War of Honor is up to the usual Weber standards!
Rating: Summary: Shiva Option Review: I was reading this book one day , relaxing, when my brother visited and asked " Whats the Shiva Option?"...and that would be the question, I will tell you. The Shiva Option is the last decision that the Federation wanted to make. There is no turning back once its started. Shiva Option is the book following "In Death Ground" by David Weber, and it is as terrifying as the first. Imagine Humanity faced with an enemy that could not be beaten, would not give ground, and even met with the total military might, of three combined space faring Civilizations,did not even stutter, or slow. this is the part two of the conflict, of a story that should have been told along time ago. It has been a long time since a book has made me shiver, only stopping so I could fully ponder and understand the events of the story, they are so mind numbing, I can reccemend this book without hesitation, but will warn you of 2 things, buy "In Death Ground" and "Shiva option" at the same time as you will not want to wait, and to clear the time to read it as u might be awake untill its done!
Rating: Summary: A Different Tone . . . Review: I will not try to write a full-scale review since at this point many good reviews are already listed. I do feel that a few observations may still be helpful. I read the earlier book, IN DEATH GROUND, which begins the story told in THE SHIVA OPTION. One aspect of IN DEATH GROUND that kept me on the edge of my seat was the defeat of mankind and his allies. From the first collision with the bugs, the war began to go badly for man -- and it went more and more wrong. At the end of IN DEATH GROUND man and his allies were fighting a desperate last-ditch battle at Alpha Centauri, which in this story was the web link directly to Sol -- and Earth. This battle was only won by a hair-- and by some extraordinary good luck. In other words, mankind was hanging on by their fingernails, and the bugs were prying those fingers loose! When IN DEATH GROUND ended, mankind was in imminent peril of going down to annihilation. The continuation of the story in THE SHIVA OPTION has an opposite character. Men and their allies begin winning early in the book, and the victories are big. In every battle, while there are losses on both sides, Terra wipes out ten bugs for each human (or allied) death. As men and their allies rack up a chain of major victories, the book actually gets less and less interesting. By the midpoint of this book, the ending seems a foregone conclusion. Man is sure to win "by a knockout." As we plow through the final half of this very large book, we wonder if we really need to "observe" each and every individual bug planet go down to destruction. One very interesting new element that adds to THE SHIVA OPTION is the reemergence of the bugs' "old enemy." Men are the bugs' new enemy, of course. The old enemy had disappeared by fleeing the bugs centuries before-- a last strategy to avoid racial destruction. Now, suddenly they are back! It is very bad karma that the bugs should once again collide with their old enemies while in the middle of a war of attrition with mankind. They are already losing-- now they have to divert a major part of their fleets to counter this new threat. I liked THE SHIVA OPTION a lot. But unfortunately, one-third into the book you realize that the end is a foregone conclusion--that mankind is stretching out a great technological lead and increasingly wiping out fleets of bug ships. So where's the suspense? I still plowed through to the end because the battle descriptions are so well done. Weber (with White, I suppose) has to be one of the very best future war writers out there, along with David Drake and Keith Laumer.
Rating: Summary: Space Opera on Steroids Review: I'll give this book four stars, but only in the acknowledgement that it represents the ultimate of its kind. If you don't like this kind of fiction, you wouldn't rate this even one star. After all, if you want to follow this story, you are going to have to know and care about the difference between AFHAWK2 from an SRHAWK from an SBMHAWK. Or all sorts of ship classes like MT, BB, GC, a "gunboat" and so on. Further, you will wade through literally tens of thousands of words about all of these munitions and vessels that will never exist, let alone that ever existed, are used. If none of this turns you on, you will be bored beyond all imagining. On the other hand, you will be treated to an in depth tactical description of one bloody, desparate space battle after another. Each one is successively worse than the last, serving up wholesale slaughter that is bloodlessly reported. The destruction of dozens of large ships, each carrying thousands of crew, most often merit no more than part of a sentence or two. It is repetitive. Consider the phrase "thousands died, but nothing could have stopped them all" (or some slight variation) and that must be repeated at least seven times over the space of 600 pages. When the characters aren't fighting, they are talking about fighting. (Except for one G-rated post-coital scene.) The plot takes the cheap way out and avoids all possible moral doubt about the war going on. The enemy, the "Bugs," which invoke the artifacts from "Starship Troopers," are so alien that they cannot be communicated with and so implacable that there is no option but to destroy them, or be destroyed. So there is nothing to get in the way of all the fun. As I said, for what it is this is the best you will find.
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