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The Shiva Option

The Shiva Option

List Price: $7.99
Your Price: $7.19
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Boring
Review: Rushed to get the book within a few days of release, however, took 3 months to finally finish the book. the reason= very boring, the only interesting parts were the paragraphs discussing bug tactics. you can read one chapter and guess what will be in the next chapter.the story becomes unilateral with the only tactics employed were the huge numbers of ships, missiles etc.the bugs lacked numerical, technical and tactical advantage. on top of that the "Shiva option" really gave the allies an edge that was not needed.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Another bug-war, Another space opera
Review: Sorry, I've always been a big fan of David Weber and his partnership with Steve White started out pretty well. Unfortunately, I found I had to work my way through this last book in the series, just as I had to work my way through Weber's last book in the Marvelous Honor Harrington series.

Reading Space Opera should be joyous, not laborious.

There's so much introspection, over-explanation and presentation of EVERYBODY's point of view ..... come on, guys! These are fictional characters. I want to know why they do what they do, but it's not necessary for me to BOND with them!

As always, the characterizations are good. ...

I think the most monotonous thing about this epic is that all the space battles seem the same. Sure, they're thrilling battles, but of the 'variety' is rarely more than some new gadget cooked up by one side or the other.

By the last battle, it seemed "They came at us in the same old way, and we killed them in the same old way."

The best part? For a few pages, the Alliance has to engage in battle against The Bugs on the ground. It's not quite "StarShip Trooper" quality, and it's very much underplayed, but what a refreshing change!

(Note to Weber and White: bring back Lieutenant Kincaid, he's a keeper.)

This book would have been much more readable if it was 100 pages shorter. And believe me, it's really difficult for me to say anything bad about any project in which David Weber is involved, this over-writing is a trend that has developed over the last few years. From now, let's pay Weber by the book, not by the pound, eh?

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Quick buildup and slow finish
Review: The first 150 pages are very exciting, but the book leads inevitably to victory. At no point in the story did I feel that there was a risk that the Bugs would win the war. Why do the bugs feed on intelligent aliens? What is the motivation for their expansion? It is somewhat simplistic and not as satisfying as the beginning of the novel

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Stepping on the Bugs
Review: The last book ended leaving you hanging. The Bugs had been stopped, but were still a mysterious and lethal prescence. This book picks up with the delayed Zephrain offensive, and it never stops moving. It's harder core science than a lot of sci fi books, almost the Larry Niven style, though not as grounded in today's physics as Niven is. The war is not going to be easy, and the Alliance knows this, but it begins as did the Russian Campaign after Stalingrad: On the attack. This is a great book. The people are well-defined. The new allies are interesting. The loose ends are tied up.
The battle scenes are always good, and the Bugs have retained their nasty tendency to spring traps. Weber continues his practice of letting you really like a character, who then dies in the war. Moreover, it's not an especially 'heroic' death, it's just...death. Like real life. No final speeches, no gasped last words.
The book has a few weaknesses though. First, the Bugs are pretty much a known quantity. The mystery is stripped away, you discover where all those ships came from, and the Bugs are just faceless bag guys, not the invulnerable force of nature they were when THEY led attacks in IDG.
Second, Weber or White has succumbed to the temptation for Hollywood-style 'coincidences.' The Bugs somehow managing to keep a small world alive is one, but that's not the most unforgiveble. I won't get into that one, but let's jsut say that the whole scene involving ONE GUY in a SPACESUIT after a battle was just too contrived, and ws horribly out of place with David Weber. He takes an almost perverse delight in killing off his main characters on occasion. As such, Star Trek style saves, where only the faceless guys die, stand out way too much. Other than that, though, this was an excellent book!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Long But Realistic
Review: The Shiva Option is the fourth by Weber and White in the Starfire series. The first volume, Insurrection, chronologically follows this novel, but the other two are prequels. While it can be read separately, this story is a continuation of the events described within In Death Ground.

This duology describes a war similar in many ways to the Pacific theater of World War II. The enemy has the worst aspects of the Japanese military, but exaggerated to the ultimate degree. IDG has the desperate battles prior to Midway and the Coral Sea and TSO has the grinding battles thereafter, successively retaking island after island until finally Okinawa is taken. The Divine Wind is prominent in this book, but the amphibious assaults and ground combat of that war are mostly eliminated by the Shiva Option. Considering that the defensive phase of war in the Pacific took only a few months yet the offensive phase took four and half years, it is obvious why this book is so long. If the enemy can be stopped, it most often must be done quickly or not at all; defeating the enemy, however, is long and hard.

The prologue occurs shortly after the failure of Operation Pesthouse. Fleeing the Bugs, Survey Fleet 19 encounters a new set of sentient beings, the Star Union of Crucis, who have already had violent contact with the Bugs. This new group joins with SF19 to destroy the pursuing Bug fleet and then both withdraw to the Star Union.

Meanwhile, back at Alpha Centauri, the Joint Chiefs of the Grand Fleet, and their staffs, meet to discuss strategy now that the Bugs have terminated their current offensives. Naval Intelligence reports that a new class of warships, designated Monitors and even larger than superdreadnoughts, has been deployed by the Bugs. They also state that analysis of the Bug artifacts has shown five distinctly different construction techniques, probably indicating five separate manufacturing centers, designated as Home Hives. Moreover, the initial Bug contact was probably with Home Hive Five.

After a spate of shipbuilding and stockpiling, the Grand Fleet takes the offensive at Zephrain. Sixth Fleet sneaks into the enemy system through a closed warp point. Since the warp point is not known to the Bugs and therefore unguarded, Sixth Fleet precedes under cloaking and successfully engages their initial targets before being detected. After they destroy the Orbital Weapons Platforms and fight off a suicide attack, they send in the fighters to attack the planet with weapons of mass destruction. The resulting megadeaths create a traumatic disturbance in the surviving Bug population that greatly degrades their performance and the fleet sterilizes the system. Later analysis determines that the system was Home Hive Three.

The remainder of the novel is a series of strategic offensives against the remaining Home Hives. Like its prequel, this volume is full of spatial warfare. It also includes several nuclear bombardments of enemy planets -- the Shiva Option -- and one planetary assault with subsequent ground combat.

The Arachnid civilization in Starfire owes a lot to the Bugs in Heinlein's Starship Troopers, but the approach in this series is entirely different and much wider in scope. These novels concentrate primarily on naval combat and equipment; the only use of armored combat suits is by the Telikans in the above mentioned planetary assault.

It is obvious from this novel that the Arachnids are telepathic and form group minds within each Home Hive system. Since Bug telepathy cannot bridge warp points, smaller group minds must exist within each separated system or fleet unit. Moreover, the Arachnids have specialized warrior and worker castes and, since there are Bug analysts, probably also have a thinker caste. No information on Bug propagation is available in this novel, so it cannot be determined if the hives are organized around a queen as in the Heinlein novel.

This novel also makes it obvious that the Arachnid civilization has never developed psychosocially beyond the pure survival level. Since the entire Arachnid population can be considered to be only five true individuals, social relationship would obviously remain simple. Thus, each Home Hive and its auxiliary units would behave much like its spider namesake: rapacious and efficient. Maybe it's good that we don't know anything about their sex life or reproductive methods.

My one criticism of this novel is the portrayal of politicians; everyone of them has the civilian mindset. So do the reporters, but who cares. Why aren't there any ex-military politicians? Surely the Fringe Worlds, at least, would sent a few reservist to the Legislative Assembly.

This novel is recommended to those who like realpolitik, naval combat, and politician bashing -- i.e., Heinlein fans -- and inside jokes (think Operation Bughouse). If a sequel is forthcoming, I hope it takes less time. And I further hope there are a few knowledgeable politicians -- such as in HH novels -- in the next one.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Heaving a Deep Sigh
Review: The Shiva Option, for those of you who aren't (like me) David Weber fanatics and actually have a reasonably well-paying day-job, should be bought in paper, borrowed from a friend or the library. It's too much money for what it ends up being.

In Death Ground blew me away. It was so tight I had trouble breathing, and I was sobbing openly when Antonov and Avram died. So when I heard about The Shiva Option, I cheered and pre-ordered it. When I got it, I opened it and settled in for a long, happy read.

Even though I read fast, I couldn't possibly get through over 600 pages in one evening, and have a life of my own. So Shiva spilled over into another day.

Then, oh dear, I found myself editing.

This is a bad sign. I didn't draw my red pencil, because the mistakes weren't grammatical, they were matters of two adverbs in one sentence, or an unnecessary addition, i.e., "without doubt, certainly," which is near the end and sticks in my head. It sticks because by the time I got to that one, the red pencil tempted me.

Granted, that's a matter of taste, not grammar. On the other hand, it's indicative of what's wrong with this book, and why I'm only giving it three stars.

The Shiva Option is too long. It's also too choppy - and how can I say that when we have 20 to 40 page passages for a single battle? - there are different viewpoints on each battle (and yeah, yeah, yeah, I know we have to have the bug's eye view (pardon me), but oh, lord, did it annoy me) and we have the Bugs' opinion. I don't care about the Bugs' opinion, they are the bad guys, and they're incomprehensible, so why bother?

And let's face it, there are only so many ways to say, "We killed lots and lots and lots of them."

I've been contemplating the pitfalls of the word processor, recently, and I think that it may be at fault, here.

I have long loved David Weber, and nothing, but nothing will sway me from my loyalty. No matter what, I'll buy anything he writes in hardbound, and down it at one gulp, or as close to one as I can manage. This one just wasn't up to the mark.

Steve White made an unfortunate impression on me when he grabbed the Sarmatian bucket legend and ran with it, but that's quite another review.

As usual, I haven't kept up with the "gossip", so I don't know who wrote what. I am not a literary scholar who can analyze word usage and do the same. I just don't care that much about the writers, I care about the words on the page. This book disappointed me.

I'm betting the next Weber book I get won't.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: one for the beach
Review: There are a lot of people who decry "beach books", that is, novels and such that are best read under a beach umbrella with the sounds of waves and laughing kids in the background. For all its violence and bravado, SHIVA OPTION is one of these, and not a bad example of the species.
The second, and much longer, part of the story begun in IN DEATH GROUND, this volume is a solid space opera, much like the kind put out years ago by the famed author of the LENSMAN series, EE "Doc" Smith.

Its not great literature but its a "ripping" tale and done well, in the workmanlike manner Weber and White have shown both in collaborations and individually.
The story is basic SF: humanity and its allies contact a telepathic species that consider all other races to be nothing more than food sources. Highly paranoid, the "bugs" have only one strategy behind their expansion; to attack and domesticate every species they encounter. No compromise, or even communication is possible with this predatory race that does not even recognise other races as being anything but "enemy". Thus, battle with the "bugs" is automatically a question of species survival.
The outline of the war takes some 1000 pages in total, between the two books, and while the story sometimes gets bogged down in endless recitations of military hardware, the book is difficult to put down, if you like that kind of thing. I do, and it looks like lots of others do as well.
I recommend this to anyone looking for a good, solid, fun SF read. If you aren't, then look elsewhere.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: No Suspense
Review: There is no suspense. Upon reading the first few chapters, you have read all the rest. I have enjoyed David Weber in the past, but this is definitely not up to his best work. In fact, this is well below any of his other books.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Ponderous and boring
Review: This book is very hard reading. It was as difficult and unplesant to read as getting a root canal. Weber goes into infinite detail about the numbers of ships in each battle and on and on and on.

Part way through the book I realized that it was actually boring. Not much character development. Not even much of a storyline. Just battle after battle and numbers and numbers.

I considered not finishing the book, but set it as a challenge for myself. I will finish this book. I did finish it. Now I'm ready to make an appointment for that root canal.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Fitting Conclusion
Review: This book was a fitting conclusion to "In Death Ground." I especially enjoyed learning more about the Bugs. The book's failures are not due to story-telling but rather due to inevitability of the Alliance's victory. There was not as much suspense as in the previous book due to this fact.

Something interesting to note: In "Insurrection," a battlegroup of about 8 Monitors and 10 SDs is desrcibed as being bigger than any group to fight in a single battle in IW4 - which is the war being discussed in this book if I am not mistaken...of course, far larger fleets are involved in individual battles in this war...I wonder if the authors didn't read "Insurrection" prior to writing "IDG" and "TSO"...

I would appreciate a book concerning itself with the Orion - Human relationship (or any of the other allies actually).

Worth buying? Of course...now if we can just get a book that takes place after "Insurrection"...


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