Many other reviewers on this site have noted that this book was written at two different times. The “old stuff” was published as the novel “Path of thMany other reviewers on this site have noted that this book was written at two different times. The “old stuff” was published as the novel “Path of the Fury”, and 450 pages of “new stuff” was added years later at the beginning to remake it into “In Fury Born”. Several reviewers here have commented that the two halves do not fit very well together. Most of these have been fans of the original book and don’t like the “new stuff”. I certainly agree that the old and new stuff do not sit very well together, however unlike many of the other reviewers, my first experience was with “In Fury Born”, not with the original novel. In fact, other than a brief mention on the copyright page this whole issue took me by surprise. Upon finishing reading the book I decided that the novel was seriously flawed and decided to write my very first review on GoodReads commenting on the flaws. So it was only after reading the entire book that I read the other reviews here and the history of how the book evolved. Unlike the readers who were already familiar with the “old stuff” that makes up the last 2/5th of the book but dislike the “new stuff” in front of it. I quite enjoyed the first 3/5 of the book. However the transition from the new stuff to the old stuff did not work at all. It shattered the unspoken compact between author and reader and suddenly introduced a dissonant element as a central concept of the rest of the novel. This sour note kept grating on my sensibilities and kept me from fully enjoying the rest of the story. The first 32 chapters of the story are hard science fiction space opera. It tells the story of Alicia DeVries military career from recruitment with extensive coverage of her first assignment to be an Imperial Marine Recon Trooper, her transfer to the Imperial Cadre as a Drop Commando, Her first drop as a Drop Commando, and an episode when she lead a company as its Captain. It is a very good story that is well told. When reading this first half, I was frequently reminded that when Robert Heinlein wrote his masterpiece “Starship Troopers” over 50 years ago, it was well before it became clear that computers were ever going to become man-portable, let alone wearable. It was also long before the Cyberpunk movement with its man-machine neural interfaces and surgical implantation of cybernetic improvements. David Weber has done a masterful job taking Heinlein’s Mobil Infantry suit and upgrading it to the Cadre Drop Commando’s heavy armor - with the computers, interfaces, and augmentations that make the result cutting edge science fiction. I don’t toss around favorable comparisons to “Starship Troopers” lightly, but the long first person viewpoint Drop Commando battle sequences frequently reminded me of “Starship Troopers”. Now since this is officially a “review”, I guess I ought to warn that there is a spoiler ahead, but honestly, I think any new readers are better off having this “spoiled” as soon as possible. Because the whole problem with this book is that Tisiphone is not introduced by name or description until chapter 33 and the introduction is a huge jarring note. It does not fit at all with anything that came before it. I would have enjoyed the remainder of the book (the “old stuff”) a lot more if the translation between the old and the new stuff had been handled better. Actually my whole problem with the book is with the few paragraphs where Tisiphone is musing about her own creation by the Greek Gods. Here is the offending snippet. <<<<< Faith had summoned their creators into existence; however they might have denied it, and her selves had known that when that faith ended, so would those she/they served. But what of her and her selves? Would the work of their makers' hands vanish with them? Or had they, unwitting or uncaring, created a force which might outlive them all? >>>>> There is the problem. After 32 chapters of hard SF. After lovingly describing how every weapon and starship drive and gadget works. Weber, without further explanation or apology, drops in a major character who has a Fantasy backstory. You can’t do that in chapter 33 of what until then has been a hard SF story! You can do that in chapter one or two. It probably worked great in “Path of the Fury”. Drop Tisiphone into the story at the very beginning and the reader thinks “OK, I have a hard SF story here with a Fantasy crossover element – Great! Genius!” But by chapter 33 the contract has already been set. You can’t add such a dissonant element into what has been a purely hard SF novel that late! It feels wrong. It grates. Every time Tisiphone says or does anything (and she is a major character) the reader is reminded that she does not belong in this story. And the worst part is, that it would have been so easy to handle this better. Weber could have made the “new stuff” less hard SF. Maybe add some other fantasy element, or give some alien race the ability to cast magic spells. Something to give us a hint that fantasy elements are in play. Heck that quote I gave above could have been in the first block of Trispone’s musings (in the prolog) rather than in the 4th. Just tell us early enough that the Greek Gods are in play! Don’t drop it on us past the halfway point of the book! But I think the easiest and best thing would have been to remove the Fantasy element and replace it with a hard SF element. It is very easily done. I spent an hour or so lazing in bed on a Sunday morning and decided that all you had to do is remove that quote up above and replace it with something like… Tisiphone was an Alien created AI. Aliens who lived in a universe beyond wormhole space had created Tisiphone and her sisters and sent her into our universe. The alien universe is totally different from our own. It has different laws. Her powers are based on a technology totally alien to ours that was developed and maybe powered in a universe totally different than ours. She has never been to her creators’ home universe. She does not know any details of their technology. She was designed to interface with and study human minds. She would join with a human host and use her “magic” to help while she studied his mind and studied our universe through his eyes. She spent several hundred years in Bronze Age Greece before the aliens shut down the experiments. They have not summoned her to report for over 3000 years. Once you drop that into the introduction to the “old stuff”, you don’t have to change a single other thing. She is still Tisiphone. She is still the exact same Tisiphone that was back in ancient Greece. She still has magic-like powers. She is exactly the same except that she has a SF background except for a Fantasy background. I found that once I made that RetCon in my own brain, I was enjoying the last half of the novel much more. ...more
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