Rating: 
Summary: Well, at least there's closure?
Review: I'm a little disappointed in that it was not the hard hitting, in your face, extremely fluid reading "In Death Ground" was, I re-read the prequel prior to the sequel and I found the reading of the sequel, a little dull. The two stars is primarily for the character out of the first book whom I never expected to see, her story was well thought out and purposeful, unfortunetly it had gotten lost with everyone else's quest for purpose. Too many questions still linger and too many things were left hanging. Finally, are we to expect yet another novel with the Bugs in the far off future? This book would suggest, yes. Probably not worth the wait for all of us diehards, but I just had to know.
Rating: 
Summary: A great end to the series!
Review: I've been waiting for the next release in this series for 5 years - and it's not a disappointment. Took a while to get into the plot again - but that's what the intro was for. We meet a new sapient species that has also been 'a bug squashin' for a long time, learn much about the bugs, their methods and hardware.Plenty of military jargon (as you'd expect!) and tons of action. If you're a fan of the series, get it. If you've never read the series, you'd probably want to skip it. You really need to have the history of the series to appreciate and enjoy this book. As military SF, it's very good - although not as good as Drake's "With the Lightenings" or Weber's own "Honor Harrington" series. It's space opera - many of the really great characters in the series get killed off in these books, the baddies are really, really, evil, and many events are predictable.
Rating: 
Summary: Good but not quite as powerful as "In Death Ground"
Review: In Death Ground, the prequel to this story, was one of the best space opera shoot'em ups I ever read. Lots of detailed battles with massive tons of spacecraft being demolished in the process...then spending time inside of the survivor's heads. The battles were described in such forensic detail, that I felt like it was the Saving Private Ryan of space opera books in many ways. Many years later there comes the sequel. Right off the bat, IDG was going to be a hard one to follow up. Does it succeed? Yes and no. The story reads more like an assessment of the war from the command seat rather than the cockpit. There's lots of detail leading up to every battle(about the ships, the strategies and the characters) but none of the fighting itself really exceeds 2-3 pages as opposed to IDG where battles could last 20-30 pages before cutting away to something else. This is a long book and for it's length I was surprised by the lack of detail in the space battle scenes that I've really grown to love Weber for. There's some great stuff in this book and some good dialogue, though Weber/White can't resist using a few of hero "one liners" here and there. Overall I recommend it but don't expect another IDG. In some ways that's good...why bother to write the same book again? But in the same token, they have diluted what was so great about the earlier book a bit too much for my liking. j
Rating:
Summary: Good book for the summer....
Review: In Death Ground, Weber and White started a story that I had to follow to the finish. The Shiva Option is a satisfying sequel, entertaining and a wonderful summer time diversion, all 674 pages of it. It's no secret that the Alliance would most likely defeat the Bugs, that victory was probable and the Alliance species would survive. But victory was not foreordained. More than one of the key Alliance worlds, including Alpha Centauri or Earth itself, remained vulnerable to the Bug fleets if they had been able to exploit a lapse on the part of the Alliance and smash through the wrong warp point. The authors had a vast canvas to paint a good conclusion to their epic. OK, it's a long book. But the story didn't drag because it is told from different personal perspectives and vantage points. There was plenty of scope for action with a little character development thrown in. If you have the time this part of the year to kick back and spend a few leisurely hours, go for this tale.
Rating:
Summary: A Study in Predestination
Review: In this, the sequel to In Death Ground, the Grand Alliance takes its vengeance and eradicates the Bugs from the galaxy. This, of course, is not a spoiler, as it is made abundantly clear in Insurrection (the first published Starfire novel, which takes place last chronologically) that the Bugs are smashed by the Terran Federation and its allies, the Orions, Gorm, and Ophiuchi. We see the Alliance smash Bug hive after Bug hive at grievous cost to itself, and are introduced to the Star Union of Crucis, an interstellar multispecies polity (like the Alliance) that is on the other side of Bug space. Now, over the course of this novel, we witness a great many space battles, many dwarfing the magnitude of previous battles. Unfortunately, they are rarely detailed as much as previous examples, mostly because there are *so* *many*. In fact, it becomes somewhat repetitive...the warp point assault, followed by the fighter/gunship clash, the gunship/battle line clash, the fighter/battle line clash, and, to end with, the battle line/battle line clash. To be fair, there's not that much they can do to avoid the repetition; when one is fighting a powerful enemy, you'll have a great many individual battles. They do try to liven it up with ground combat and other options. Also, luck has a way of benefiting the Alliance far more than the Bugs...but, then again, the Alliance does make a lot of its own luck, and the Bugs get some very good luck of their own. All in all, this is a good book, and I'm not sorry that I bought it. If you're uncomfortable, check out the Baen website, which has the first ten chapters, and see what you think, or wait for paperback.
Rating:
Summary: It is not the end
Review: It is not the end of it all. I bought the book within a month after it was released, and because I'm near hardcore Weber reader, I didnt put it down for two days, and finished it.
For those who also read it, and paid attention, the Bugs had managed to conceal a nearby system, on a planet, though with a fairly hostile enviroment, with a pre-industrialized civilization. It is inferred that they survive, and it does a real job on the imagination.
The book itself i thought was a bit rushed, and wouldve given it a 4 1/2 star if i could. Other than that, i have no real complaints
Rating:
Summary: mixed feelings
Review: Let me say right up front that I am a big David Weber fan; currently he is my favorite sf author. I have been waiting for the sequel to IDG for a long time, so I was very excited when I finally got my hands on it. However....I must say I was less than happy with Shiva. In some of his most recent writings, Weber has been concentrating heavily on hardware and tactics, but this is the first time he has let it get in the way of the story. On the other hand, that might not be entirely his fault; I have read a book by Steve White called "Prince of Sunset" that had much the same feel as Shiva, so I think he contributed quite a bit more than on previous collaberations. It was good to close the story, but I think he may have rushed it, because it doesnt feel as clean and finished as most of his other work.
Rating: 
Summary: Paid By The Word
Review: Obviously, Weber and White were paid by the word to produce a 125 word (max)novella written in 674 pages of [language] so strong that I eneded up throwing the hardback copy across my den. Never have I gotten so tired of every new scene starting with a long, flashback that had no substance whatsoever, just excruciatingly boring filler...
Rating: 
Summary: Shiva Option
Review: Ok so the end is predictable. The story is so well written and compelling it's worth the read. The desperate struggle seen in In Death's Ground leads to the Alliance taking the offensive in Shiva Option. It pits the commitment of the alliance against the unblinking purpose of the bugs.
Rating:
Summary: hard core sci fi
Review: one of the best book. E E Doc smith would be Proud
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