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Furies #1
In Fury Born (1)
Imperial Intelligence couldn't find them, the Imperial Fleet couldn't catch them, and local defenses couldn't stop them. It seemed the planet-wrecking pirates were invincible. But they made a big mistake when they raided ex-commando leader Alicia DeVries' quiet home work, tortured and murdered her family, and then left her for dead. Alicia decided to turn "pirate" herself, and stole a cutting-edge AI ship from the Empire to start her vendetta. Her fellow veterans think she's gone crazy, the Imperial Fleet has shoot-on-sight orders. And of course the pirates want her dead, too. But Alicia DeVries has two allies nobody knows about, allies as implacable as she is: a self-aware computer, and a creature from the mists of Old Earth's most ancient legends. And this trio of furies won't rest until vengeance is served.
In Fury Born is a greatly expanded new version of David Weber's popular novel Path of the Fury, which has gone through six large printings in its original mass market edition. David Weber has added considerable new material, revealing the earlier life of Alicia DeVries before she embarked on her mission of vengeance, and illuminating the universe of the original story. The result is a novel with almost twice the wordage of the original, and a must-buy for all David Weber fans.
In Fury Born is a greatly expanded new version of David Weber's popular novel Path of the Fury, which has gone through six large printings in its original mass market edition. David Weber has added considerable new material, revealing the earlier life of Alicia DeVries before she embarked on her mission of vengeance, and illuminating the universe of the original story. The result is a novel with almost twice the wordage of the original, and a must-buy for all David Weber fans.
864 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 1992
358 people are currently reading
2,241 people want to read
About the author
David Weber
375 books4,477 followersDavid Mark Weber is an American science fiction and fantasy author. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1952.
Many of his stories have military, particularly naval, themes, and fit into the military science fiction genre. He frequently places female leading characters in what have been traditionally male roles.
One of his most popular and enduring characters is Honor Harrington whose alliterated name is an homage to C.S. Forester's character Horatio Hornblower and her last name from a fleet doctor in Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander . Her story, together with the "Honorverse" she inhabits, has been developed through 16 novels and six shared-universe anthologies, as of spring 2013 (other works are in production). In 2008, he donated his archive to the department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University.
Many of his books are available online, either in their entirety as part of the Baen Free Library or, in the case of more recent books, in the form of sample chapters (typically the first 25-33% of the work).
http://us.macmillan.com/author/davidw...
Many of his stories have military, particularly naval, themes, and fit into the military science fiction genre. He frequently places female leading characters in what have been traditionally male roles.
One of his most popular and enduring characters is Honor Harrington whose alliterated name is an homage to C.S. Forester's character Horatio Hornblower and her last name from a fleet doctor in Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander . Her story, together with the "Honorverse" she inhabits, has been developed through 16 novels and six shared-universe anthologies, as of spring 2013 (other works are in production). In 2008, he donated his archive to the department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University.
Many of his books are available online, either in their entirety as part of the Baen Free Library or, in the case of more recent books, in the form of sample chapters (typically the first 25-33% of the work).
http://us.macmillan.com/author/davidw...
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February 10, 2013
"Oh, horsefeathers!" Direct quote from the AI entity birthed some 900 years into our future which is touted on the book's cover read.
Bring a sketchpad with you because David Weber has a thing for names. I am confident in saying that there isn't a single chapter in this 828 MASSIVE book that doesn't introduce some new character by name. (often there are several) There is a nearly 30 page section in the back which is dedicated to the names of characters. Yes that is right... 30 pages of names. If that isn't indication enough of his odd insistence in naming every meaningless character in a book, you had better draw a map to keep track of who goes where as you go.
Weber doesn't just stop with meaningless characters, he names all of his ships with human names and even planets.
The book is an adapted rewrite of a previous work from the same author. I have not read the previous novel but I feel safe in saying that I know EXACTLY where the added material lies. The newer "prequel" material is heavy politico-military intrigue and has almost no action in it whatsoever. The character cast is humongous and undeveloped. The military side of the novel is obviously the focal point for the author and while it is fun to read about a hero rising to their position by way of a sort of infallible happenstance of genetics and personality traits the protagonist feels unbelievable at best.
The early science fiction material feels like glitter sprinkled onto the very modern day analogues of the military structure and mannerisms. I am not sure how many times I read the phrase "Kicking ass and taking names" before I started to roll my eyes at the audacious transparency of the soldiers as they were written. Much of the book feels incongruous as the exponentially over powered special forces are repeatedly faced down by rebels. (That is in the 2 battles that take place in the novel before page 400.)
As you finally reach the point that the book transitions over into what the book reviews and covers claim it to be, you may realize that the entire preceding work of nearly 450 pages was completely unnecessary. Only a few of the characters mean anything at that point and the real development of the protagonist doesn't develop until after that point. Everything that occurs in the previous segments is covered in review as it becomes important. Anything previous to that point could have also been done in a much more concise and clean way that left it with more feeling and resonance on a personal level.
Which brings to point the whole theme of the book, fury. DeVries, the protagonist, is supposedly so taken with rage and hatred that a Fury forms a symbiosis with her out of mutual interest for vengeance. But, the fury never really comes across as real. The characters develop a friendship which comes across as a sisterly bickering and playfulness. As the AI, which seems very much like a teenager with a knack for old aged catch phrases, feels like a joke in herself. In an odd way there are not really even characters, and more like three shades of the same character. They don't distinguish and she basically has an inner monologue to herself from different perspectives.
My first Weber experience, this book left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I found myself chipping away at the book with a meticulous monotony which drained me of spirit and ambition to even finish it. I don't often give up on a book and I didn't in this case either, though, I wish I had. In the end I felt like the book disappointed me even in climax as the development and fruition never seemed to come. The consequences never felt serious and the characters never felt genuine or believable to me. The military focus might suit some readers' interests. I don't mind it myself. However, it felt empty and pointless in the grand scheme. You could simply read the cover synop and jump straight to the last 100 pages or so and call it good.
In the end I really felt like I hated this book. Some of the technology was fun but a lot of it started to drop away from imaginative technospeculation towards fantastic magical "I-dunno-hows". This is ok in small quantities but eventually gets old. The various levels of "synth" technology which allow the soldiers to see the world around them and communicate to each other electronically smacks of simple video game fare so loudly that it hurts. The obvious analogous transitions to modern day military corps, personalities, tensions, and settings all felt unintentional, implying to me that the writer likes to take representation of something else from another body of work and change the names on it.
I don't often shoot down an author on the first work of their's I have read but I doubt I will revisit Weber again any time soon.
"Oh, horsefeathers"
Bring a sketchpad with you because David Weber has a thing for names. I am confident in saying that there isn't a single chapter in this 828 MASSIVE book that doesn't introduce some new character by name. (often there are several) There is a nearly 30 page section in the back which is dedicated to the names of characters. Yes that is right... 30 pages of names. If that isn't indication enough of his odd insistence in naming every meaningless character in a book, you had better draw a map to keep track of who goes where as you go.
Weber doesn't just stop with meaningless characters, he names all of his ships with human names and even planets.
The book is an adapted rewrite of a previous work from the same author. I have not read the previous novel but I feel safe in saying that I know EXACTLY where the added material lies. The newer "prequel" material is heavy politico-military intrigue and has almost no action in it whatsoever. The character cast is humongous and undeveloped. The military side of the novel is obviously the focal point for the author and while it is fun to read about a hero rising to their position by way of a sort of infallible happenstance of genetics and personality traits the protagonist feels unbelievable at best.
The early science fiction material feels like glitter sprinkled onto the very modern day analogues of the military structure and mannerisms. I am not sure how many times I read the phrase "Kicking ass and taking names" before I started to roll my eyes at the audacious transparency of the soldiers as they were written. Much of the book feels incongruous as the exponentially over powered special forces are repeatedly faced down by rebels. (That is in the 2 battles that take place in the novel before page 400.)
As you finally reach the point that the book transitions over into what the book reviews and covers claim it to be, you may realize that the entire preceding work of nearly 450 pages was completely unnecessary. Only a few of the characters mean anything at that point and the real development of the protagonist doesn't develop until after that point. Everything that occurs in the previous segments is covered in review as it becomes important. Anything previous to that point could have also been done in a much more concise and clean way that left it with more feeling and resonance on a personal level.
Which brings to point the whole theme of the book, fury. DeVries, the protagonist, is supposedly so taken with rage and hatred that a Fury forms a symbiosis with her out of mutual interest for vengeance. But, the fury never really comes across as real. The characters develop a friendship which comes across as a sisterly bickering and playfulness. As the AI, which seems very much like a teenager with a knack for old aged catch phrases, feels like a joke in herself. In an odd way there are not really even characters, and more like three shades of the same character. They don't distinguish and she basically has an inner monologue to herself from different perspectives.
My first Weber experience, this book left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I found myself chipping away at the book with a meticulous monotony which drained me of spirit and ambition to even finish it. I don't often give up on a book and I didn't in this case either, though, I wish I had. In the end I felt like the book disappointed me even in climax as the development and fruition never seemed to come. The consequences never felt serious and the characters never felt genuine or believable to me. The military focus might suit some readers' interests. I don't mind it myself. However, it felt empty and pointless in the grand scheme. You could simply read the cover synop and jump straight to the last 100 pages or so and call it good.
In the end I really felt like I hated this book. Some of the technology was fun but a lot of it started to drop away from imaginative technospeculation towards fantastic magical "I-dunno-hows". This is ok in small quantities but eventually gets old. The various levels of "synth" technology which allow the soldiers to see the world around them and communicate to each other electronically smacks of simple video game fare so loudly that it hurts. The obvious analogous transitions to modern day military corps, personalities, tensions, and settings all felt unintentional, implying to me that the writer likes to take representation of something else from another body of work and change the names on it.
I don't often shoot down an author on the first work of their's I have read but I doubt I will revisit Weber again any time soon.
"Oh, horsefeathers"
February 4, 2010
"Combat isn't about 'fair', Alley. Combat is about shooting the other guy in the back before he shoots you -- or one of your buddies -- in the back. You aren't some hero out of a holo-drama, and you're not out there on some field of honor; you're on a killing ground. Never forget that."
David Weber, the author of this book, has a basic plot device that he uses in many of his books. And even though he uses it a lot, to me, it never gets old. I like to call it the 'uh-oh, you done messed with the wrong person' plot. So generally the plot goes something like this -- you have an alien race or a greedy megalomaniacal tyrant or just a group of space pirates who are busily minding their own business trying to invade and enslave a planet or murder a town or just plain old rape, kill and pillage. During one of their bad acts they come across our Hero/Heroine. They will have undoubtedly tried to enslave the hero's planet or murdered most of his town or raped, killed and pillaged his family. But, the hero manages to survive. And coincidentally, the hero or heroine is usually somebody who is a stone cold bad ass. And in the wake of their tragedy they are pissed. And that is when the 'uh-oh, you done messed with the wrong person." kicks in.
That is this story in almost a nutshell. Originally, a shorter version of this book was published under a title called Path of the Fury. It is a stand alone title that begins with the musings of Tisiphone, the last of the old Furies of ancient Greek myth. She is dying because of course her Gods have passed into antiquity. But she manages to find a flicker of pure fury and rage and latch onto it to come back to life.
The shorter book, Path of the Fury, starts out when Alicia DeVries, our heroine, is living with her family on a newly colonized planet called Mathison's World. Alicia is a soldier of the Empire. And not just any soldier, a super soldier. One of the Emperor's own elite force known as the Cadre. But, as Path of the Fury begins, Alicia has cashiered out and is retired even though she is only in her midtwenties. Something really bad happened during her service that made her feel that she had been betrayed by the Empire and could no longer serve. In the shorter book, all of this happened before the book began and is referred to in shameful/regretful/angry tones by everybody. So you know something really bad went down but you don't know exactly what went down.
At any rate, while Alicia is away from her homestead out hunting, a slick and well financed group of space pirates swoop in and kill and her entire family. Alicia returns while the pirates are still there, secure in the fact that they've killed everyone and can pillage at leisure. But Alicia is a Cadre Drop Commando who, although grieved that her family is dead, is stone pissed. Uh-oh, they done messed with the wrong person. She takes out all 25 pirates.
This is where the story gets interesting. Alicia, having taken some damage herself, is now content to die in the snow. But Tisiphone has other ideas. Having found the bright, shining spear of fury in Alicia's mind, Tisiphone roars to life and strikes a bargain with the unconscious drop commando.
When Alicia is found days later, by rights she should be dead. This puzzles her rescuers as she had been lying in subzero temperatures, exposed for more than seven days. Because of her status as a cadrewoman, her case is turned over to the military and she is reunited with members of her squad with whom she hadn't spoken in several years. The reunion is bittersweet as they believe she has broken under the pressure of her family's death as they hear her 'talking to someone who isn't there'. But Alicia is slowly coming to grips with the fact that there is an entity that is determined to help her bring down the entire pirating operation, which is bigger than anyone really knows. What follows is a story of this really pissed off woman who was truly the wrong person to be messing with. The remainder of book is an a true delight as you read as Alicia with Tisiphone's help, relentlessly pursues these pirates.
In this book In Fury Born, now about 400 pages longer than the original book, Weber takes us back and shows us all the events that led up to where Path of the Fury begins and we find out what happened that led Alicia to leave the corp. It introduces us to her as a bright eyed, super smart fourteen year old whose aptitudes and abilities mark her as someone special. We follow her to Marine Corp training camp and then onto where she becomes one of the Cadre. And it follows her until she ends up retired with her family and catches up to Path of the Fury started. So in reality DW added a 400 page prequel.
I loved the original book with the fire of the sun. It is one of my favorites that I think I've re-read like three times. It is chock full of all the David Weber hallmarks -- good characterizations on both the good-guy and bad-guy sides, superb descriptions of battles, and great action set pieces that are heart thumping in their excitement. But I do admit I have always been very curious about the details of what actually happened off-stage before that book began. So I think it was a good thing for him to go backwards and fill in the details of Alicia's life. I do however think this book could probably be a good 200 pages shorter. There were some passages that were unforgivably expositional. Although I will say the descriptions of her military augmentation, especially the phenomenon they call 'riding the Tick' are all kinds of awesome. And once you get to Alicia's first engagement as a member of the Marines, things take an exciting upturn and do not stop.
The actual incident that leads Alicia to resign her commission, is just as awful and heartrending and one could imagine and as all the oblique references of the short book infer. I will say that DW does an outstanding job of painting a hopeless battle situation. I was so tense reading those chapters, I think I drank a beer afterward just for the relief of it.
This was a great book. Made greater by the fact that is is military sci-fi fused with a touch of mystical and fantasy in the presence of a Greek Demi-goddess. It would have been outstanding a bit shorter, though.
Highly recommended. If an almost 900 page books seems daunting, then read the shorter version Path of the Fury. You won't regret!
David Weber, the author of this book, has a basic plot device that he uses in many of his books. And even though he uses it a lot, to me, it never gets old. I like to call it the 'uh-oh, you done messed with the wrong person' plot. So generally the plot goes something like this -- you have an alien race or a greedy megalomaniacal tyrant or just a group of space pirates who are busily minding their own business trying to invade and enslave a planet or murder a town or just plain old rape, kill and pillage. During one of their bad acts they come across our Hero/Heroine. They will have undoubtedly tried to enslave the hero's planet or murdered most of his town or raped, killed and pillaged his family. But, the hero manages to survive. And coincidentally, the hero or heroine is usually somebody who is a stone cold bad ass. And in the wake of their tragedy they are pissed. And that is when the 'uh-oh, you done messed with the wrong person." kicks in.
That is this story in almost a nutshell. Originally, a shorter version of this book was published under a title called Path of the Fury. It is a stand alone title that begins with the musings of Tisiphone, the last of the old Furies of ancient Greek myth. She is dying because of course her Gods have passed into antiquity. But she manages to find a flicker of pure fury and rage and latch onto it to come back to life.
The shorter book, Path of the Fury, starts out when Alicia DeVries, our heroine, is living with her family on a newly colonized planet called Mathison's World. Alicia is a soldier of the Empire. And not just any soldier, a super soldier. One of the Emperor's own elite force known as the Cadre. But, as Path of the Fury begins, Alicia has cashiered out and is retired even though she is only in her midtwenties. Something really bad happened during her service that made her feel that she had been betrayed by the Empire and could no longer serve. In the shorter book, all of this happened before the book began and is referred to in shameful/regretful/angry tones by everybody. So you know something really bad went down but you don't know exactly what went down.
At any rate, while Alicia is away from her homestead out hunting, a slick and well financed group of space pirates swoop in and kill and her entire family. Alicia returns while the pirates are still there, secure in the fact that they've killed everyone and can pillage at leisure. But Alicia is a Cadre Drop Commando who, although grieved that her family is dead, is stone pissed. Uh-oh, they done messed with the wrong person. She takes out all 25 pirates.
This is where the story gets interesting. Alicia, having taken some damage herself, is now content to die in the snow. But Tisiphone has other ideas. Having found the bright, shining spear of fury in Alicia's mind, Tisiphone roars to life and strikes a bargain with the unconscious drop commando.
When Alicia is found days later, by rights she should be dead. This puzzles her rescuers as she had been lying in subzero temperatures, exposed for more than seven days. Because of her status as a cadrewoman, her case is turned over to the military and she is reunited with members of her squad with whom she hadn't spoken in several years. The reunion is bittersweet as they believe she has broken under the pressure of her family's death as they hear her 'talking to someone who isn't there'. But Alicia is slowly coming to grips with the fact that there is an entity that is determined to help her bring down the entire pirating operation, which is bigger than anyone really knows. What follows is a story of this really pissed off woman who was truly the wrong person to be messing with. The remainder of book is an a true delight as you read as Alicia with Tisiphone's help, relentlessly pursues these pirates.
In this book In Fury Born, now about 400 pages longer than the original book, Weber takes us back and shows us all the events that led up to where Path of the Fury begins and we find out what happened that led Alicia to leave the corp. It introduces us to her as a bright eyed, super smart fourteen year old whose aptitudes and abilities mark her as someone special. We follow her to Marine Corp training camp and then onto where she becomes one of the Cadre. And it follows her until she ends up retired with her family and catches up to Path of the Fury started. So in reality DW added a 400 page prequel.
I loved the original book with the fire of the sun. It is one of my favorites that I think I've re-read like three times. It is chock full of all the David Weber hallmarks -- good characterizations on both the good-guy and bad-guy sides, superb descriptions of battles, and great action set pieces that are heart thumping in their excitement. But I do admit I have always been very curious about the details of what actually happened off-stage before that book began. So I think it was a good thing for him to go backwards and fill in the details of Alicia's life. I do however think this book could probably be a good 200 pages shorter. There were some passages that were unforgivably expositional. Although I will say the descriptions of her military augmentation, especially the phenomenon they call 'riding the Tick' are all kinds of awesome. And once you get to Alicia's first engagement as a member of the Marines, things take an exciting upturn and do not stop.
The actual incident that leads Alicia to resign her commission, is just as awful and heartrending and one could imagine and as all the oblique references of the short book infer. I will say that DW does an outstanding job of painting a hopeless battle situation. I was so tense reading those chapters, I think I drank a beer afterward just for the relief of it.
This was a great book. Made greater by the fact that is is military sci-fi fused with a touch of mystical and fantasy in the presence of a Greek Demi-goddess. It would have been outstanding a bit shorter, though.
Highly recommended. If an almost 900 page books seems daunting, then read the shorter version Path of the Fury. You won't regret!
April 17, 2014
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 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.
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.
January 30, 2011
Having recently finished the excellent Honor Harrington series, I decided it was high time to peruse David Weber's backlog of other titles. The war-related books didn't really interest me, but In Fury Born snared my attention.
Alicia DeVries a girl who excels at many things, and being the granddaughter of an infamous marine, one of those things is combat. Her sense of Honor and duty are, unsurprisingly for a Weber character, pristine and incorruptible. And that's really what the core of the book revolves around.
Sure, she spends some time as a marine, then moves up the ranks quickly to become a drop commando as one of the emperor's elite Imperial Cadre, and even becomes infamous for her success. But it's her sense of duty that drives her, and for the first half of the book, Weber spends a long time fleshing out her character. It's like a Harrington novel, replete with back-room shenanigans, long and often boring political maneuvering, and seemed to be Just Another Space War Novel. But I kept remembering the blurb on the back of the book, which promised an AI warship and a creature from the mists of Old Earth's ancient legends.
Hundreds of pages later, something I really should have expected from Weber by now, everything fell into place. Tisiphone the Fury does exist, and she finds in Alicia a rage unparalleled, coupled with a capacity for destruction honed by technology into something terrible. Alicia's sense of loss and honor demand retribution, and the corruption running rife through the empire must be purged, pirates slaughtering millions for political ends must be obliterated, even if it means her own demise.
That's where the real fun starts. After suffering for the first half of the book wondering when it actually got any good, Weber made up for it in spades. Not to say that the first half of the book is *bad*, just that it wasn't anything spectacular. After the Fury enters the scene, the reader is brought into the conspiracy, knowing that Alicia isn't insane, ready to savor her victories after so much wrenching loss. She deserves it, and the second half of the book becomes something of a fulfillment fantasy as all the pent-up potential unleashes itself in one single one-sided campaign.
Alicia, the AI ship, and the Fury absolutely dominate everything in their path. Fleets are demolished, space stations annihilated. Weber installs an Achilles Heel that, left unchecked, could transform Alicia into nothing more than vengeance unleashed. Considering her history of honorable combat, that would be the worst shame, a fall from grace that would immolate the galaxy, all driven by her rage and pain. Yes sir, that's certainly what I wanted to read.
But, oh the cost of getting there. Weber certainly needed to introduce Alicia properly, and at least one campaign with the Cadre was absolutely required to demonstrate her capability and resolve. But it went on, and on. There were no teasers, no hint at all as to the 180-degree turn the second half of the novel would make, save the foreshadowing in the title. Without the blurb on the back, a reader might think they picked up the wrong book entirely. I found myself checking a couple times to make sure I didn't grab the wrong novel from my Weber shelf.
So in one way, it's a typical Weber work: lots of boring introduction followed by an equal amount of gleeful payoff. It's a good read, but a grueling one.
Alicia DeVries a girl who excels at many things, and being the granddaughter of an infamous marine, one of those things is combat. Her sense of Honor and duty are, unsurprisingly for a Weber character, pristine and incorruptible. And that's really what the core of the book revolves around.
Sure, she spends some time as a marine, then moves up the ranks quickly to become a drop commando as one of the emperor's elite Imperial Cadre, and even becomes infamous for her success. But it's her sense of duty that drives her, and for the first half of the book, Weber spends a long time fleshing out her character. It's like a Harrington novel, replete with back-room shenanigans, long and often boring political maneuvering, and seemed to be Just Another Space War Novel. But I kept remembering the blurb on the back of the book, which promised an AI warship and a creature from the mists of Old Earth's ancient legends.
Hundreds of pages later, something I really should have expected from Weber by now, everything fell into place. Tisiphone the Fury does exist, and she finds in Alicia a rage unparalleled, coupled with a capacity for destruction honed by technology into something terrible. Alicia's sense of loss and honor demand retribution, and the corruption running rife through the empire must be purged, pirates slaughtering millions for political ends must be obliterated, even if it means her own demise.
That's where the real fun starts. After suffering for the first half of the book wondering when it actually got any good, Weber made up for it in spades. Not to say that the first half of the book is *bad*, just that it wasn't anything spectacular. After the Fury enters the scene, the reader is brought into the conspiracy, knowing that Alicia isn't insane, ready to savor her victories after so much wrenching loss. She deserves it, and the second half of the book becomes something of a fulfillment fantasy as all the pent-up potential unleashes itself in one single one-sided campaign.
Alicia, the AI ship, and the Fury absolutely dominate everything in their path. Fleets are demolished, space stations annihilated. Weber installs an Achilles Heel that, left unchecked, could transform Alicia into nothing more than vengeance unleashed. Considering her history of honorable combat, that would be the worst shame, a fall from grace that would immolate the galaxy, all driven by her rage and pain. Yes sir, that's certainly what I wanted to read.
But, oh the cost of getting there. Weber certainly needed to introduce Alicia properly, and at least one campaign with the Cadre was absolutely required to demonstrate her capability and resolve. But it went on, and on. There were no teasers, no hint at all as to the 180-degree turn the second half of the novel would make, save the foreshadowing in the title. Without the blurb on the back, a reader might think they picked up the wrong book entirely. I found myself checking a couple times to make sure I didn't grab the wrong novel from my Weber shelf.
So in one way, it's a typical Weber work: lots of boring introduction followed by an equal amount of gleeful payoff. It's a good read, but a grueling one.
October 1, 2021
Notes:
Hopefully, the next book will come out in audio sooner vs later. I do want to find out what happens next.
Ignore the blurb. It's a bit misleading in how the story unfolds.
Excellent intro, bogged down a bit in the middle and pace goes into lightning mode towards the end.
Hopefully, the next book will come out in audio sooner vs later. I do want to find out what happens next.
Ignore the blurb. It's a bit misleading in how the story unfolds.
Excellent intro, bogged down a bit in the middle and pace goes into lightning mode towards the end.
August 10, 2016
I like military sci-fi and I've enjoyed in the past other books by Weber. I was in the mood for a fun adventure in space and I wanted to like this book. But I really, really didn't.
The part about the Fury is not that bad (some scenes were amusing, like the chess game between Alicia and Tisiphone) but the rest of the book is worse than bad, it's boring. It's bogged down by Alicia's dull perfection and a cast of two-dimensional characters. And the repetition... her father has the exact same conversation both times he shows up (He knows they need the military even if he wished they didn't), they keep mentioning his mutation, people keep thinking just how wonderful Alicia is. One of them even thinks she's going to be able to brag about knowing Alicia in the future. And a doctor waxes poetic about her martial arts ability while performing a test. Ugh, Ode to Alicia.
I knew I really wasn't enjoying this book when and I just wanted to skip ahead.
The part about the Fury is not that bad (some scenes were amusing, like the chess game between Alicia and Tisiphone) but the rest of the book is worse than bad, it's boring. It's bogged down by Alicia's dull perfection and a cast of two-dimensional characters. And the repetition... her father has the exact same conversation both times he shows up (He knows they need the military even if he wished they didn't), they keep mentioning his mutation, people keep thinking just how wonderful Alicia is. One of them even thinks she's going to be able to brag about knowing Alicia in the future. And a doctor waxes poetic about her martial arts ability while performing a test. Ugh, Ode to Alicia.
I knew I really wasn't enjoying this book when and I just wanted to skip ahead.
June 14, 2013
Wow! This is the best SciFi I've read in a very long time! I think that the last time was Ender's game. I might have to re-read Ender's game to compare which one is the best... SciFi appeals to the little boy inside you to identify with the main character (even if it's a woman in this case) and here, it is damn good for the ego. She (Alicia) starts from being the best in school, then in the marine, then ... She grows so much and so fast: it feels good.
The action is where this book shine. I always read before I go to sleep to relax but reading this book feels like watching a very good action movie (pre-2005 good) or even playing an engrossing video game... When Alicia and her unit is in the fray it feel like we're with them... everything combats (and there's a lot) finish really quickly but their described in length and yet it feels right... like we're riding the "tick"... and there's a lot of combat!
There is a slowdown of about 30 pages in this 850 book when the Fury thingy started but then, you accept it and the story keeps building up like Alicia until...
The action is where this book shine. I always read before I go to sleep to relax but reading this book feels like watching a very good action movie (pre-2005 good) or even playing an engrossing video game... When Alicia and her unit is in the fray it feel like we're with them... everything combats (and there's a lot) finish really quickly but their described in length and yet it feels right... like we're riding the "tick"... and there's a lot of combat!
There is a slowdown of about 30 pages in this 850 book when the Fury thingy started but then, you accept it and the story keeps building up like Alicia until...
August 29, 2011
This is a reworked and massively expanded version of Path of the Fury, which was one of my favorite Weber books. Essentially adds a prequel to the existing title, unfortunately, Weber was unwilling to do much of a rewrite of the previous material. Whereas the original book jumped straight into a rather serious bit of action, spinning out a rather nice mystery as to just who and what Alicia DeVries was and why she was so amazingly badass, this rewrite gives a much slower paced start. The new material isn't bad, but the initial chapters aren't nearly as strong of a hook as the original. Still winds up in the same place, plenty of action and some food for thought on the difference between justice and vengeance and why it matters.
December 5, 2011
This is more or less an expanded version of Path of the Fury, with what can be considered a prequel to the original added at the start of the book. This fills out elements hinted at in Path of the Fury.
While Path of the Fury is a fun little book, this expanded version is horrible. Path of the Fury was written early in Weber’s career, when he was still writing hard hitting, fast moving, action packed military science fiction. Then he slowed down and became a word pooper. The new section is ponderous and verbose ad nauseam like his later works. I really tried but I could not get through the new material.
http://www.books.rosboch.net/?p=1470
While Path of the Fury is a fun little book, this expanded version is horrible. Path of the Fury was written early in Weber’s career, when he was still writing hard hitting, fast moving, action packed military science fiction. Then he slowed down and became a word pooper. The new section is ponderous and verbose ad nauseam like his later works. I really tried but I could not get through the new material.
http://www.books.rosboch.net/?p=1470
July 13, 2015
Man, I love David Weber's books! He really knows how to write action packed sci fi novels. I admire and enjoy that.
In Fury Born has a 4.19 out of a 5.0 rating on Goodreads, which is pretty darn good, but you'd never realize it by looking at the most recent reviews, many of which are pretty savage. Apparently it's because this book is based on an earlier book he wrote which contains the second half of this book. What he did with this book was write a 450 page prequel to turn it into a near-900 page beast of a novel, all of which I enjoyed as I hadn't read that earlier work. So no complaints from me.
Alicia DeVries seems destined for a military career from a young age. She listens to her retired military grandfather tell war stories and her parents fret. She turns out to be brilliant and goes to college quite early, I believe at 14, graduating at 17, before then joining the Marines, which probably disappoints her parents. In one of her first roles as a Marine, she acts as a sniper for her squad and methodically kills tons of bad guys in a bad skirmish. In fact, she distinguishes herself so well, that she's recruited away to become a part of the Imperial Cadre, the best of the best, the Emperor's own military force, where there is a cap of some 40,000 soldiers (in a universe of thousands of worlds with billions of people) and where they can't even meet that standard. The Cadre is bad. They're augmented, turned into types of human robots with internal computers and medical abilities, and something called the "tick," which slows things down and enables one to enhance their abilities to do just about anything. They're fierce. In her first action, Sergent DeVries is sent with a company of some 274 Cadre drop commandos to raid a place, only they drop right into a setup. The bad guys are waiting for them and weapons rip right through them. There are hostages they're there to rescue, some 600 of them. Alley and her company lose their commanding officers immediately and it becomes apparent that she's the last remaining officer, even though she's brand new. She rallies her remaining troops to her and they push through to their target, suffering horrible losses, but giving out horrible losses in return. They make it to the building housing the hostages and gather them together, waiting for Marine reinforcements. Out of the 274 Cadre personnel who went in, nine come out. Alley is one of them. Over 800 bad guys died. For this action (or for the next one -- I forget, sorry), she's given the highest military award there is. Only three living people have it, and one of them is her grandfather. She's the third. She's now a living legend, particularly after this next action I won't go into for time and length of review purposes.
Now, however, it's become apparent to her that there's a leak from inside the Cadre to the bad guys and she knows where it's coming from. They're always one step ahead of the Cadre waiting for them. Turns out it's an intelligence officer, a colonel I think, who she goes to confront and pretty much destroys before guards can pull her off of him. The thing is, she could have killed him with one punch, but she wanted him to suffer, so she broke just about every bone he had. As a result, she's told by her hero and friend, the Brigadier Sir Arthur Keita, that this man is going to be essentially retired, but not punished, as the powers that be don't want bad publicity. She's horrified and immediately quits the Cadre.
Whew! That's a lot. But the book's only half over. She returns to her parents' world out in the boonies and is out hunting one day when some pirates who have been terrorizing the various worlds out there descend and kill her family. She returns to find them there and goes freakin' insane, slaughtering all 23 of them and vowing vengeance upon those who ordered this. She was badly injured in the firefight and is lying in the snow in subzero temperatures when she hears a voice in her head asking her if she'd like vengeance. She said yes. She's asked if she'll give anything for it and she agrees, so at this point, in chapter 33, Tisiphone, one of the old Greek Furies, enters her head and vows to help her, keeping her alive for days and keeping her hate alive at the same time. Alley is found and brought to a hospital where she's heard talking to no one at all, Tisiphone. They think she's crazy. She's transferred to a military hospital, where Sir Arthur and her old best friend from the Cadre, now a doctor and a major in the Cadre, join her in an effort to help her. She tells them everything, along with an intelligence specialist. They think she's probably crazy, but that she believes she's telling the truth. Who knows, right? Well, Tisiphone spends her time digging into computer systems and learning. At some point she tells Alley it's time. Time to go seek vengeance. She helps Alley escape and they go to an airfield, where they barely get away and then to an orbiting space yard, where they snag a state of the art war ship with a state of the art AI, which the human pilot, Alley, has to synth mesh with. This is frightening, because in many cases, upon separation, both human and AI go insane, so this is permanent.
The goal is to find the pirates. To do this, they disguise the ship as a freighter and decide to become smugglers in an effort to find their way to the people dealing with the pirates and their stolen goods. The odd thing about the pirates, though, is that they're not really stealing that much. They're slaughtering people by the millions and not taking much. Why? They daring the fleet to come looking for them. And how are they getting so close to these worlds without warnings being sent away upon sight? Turns out they're in Navy fleet ships. A lot of them. They're traitors, and they go deep into the empire. Traitors everywhere. Alley gets closer and closer. The intelligence agent is on her trail. The brigadier is trying to keep abreast of things. Where will everything lead? The whole universe thinks that Alley is a crazed lunatic who has assaulted Cadre personal, stolen an expensive Navy ship, is armed and dangerous, and has a shoot on sight order. How is she going to get out of this?
Well, I'm not going to give away the ending of the book, but it's very exciting and very climactic and very satisfying. I only have two complaints. One is, as with all of Weber's books, he has to name each and every major and minor character one encounters in the 900 pages, thus making it impossible to know who the hell is who, as you're trying to remember hundreds of names, as well as names of dozens of planets. It's annoying as hell. Especially since about half of these people get blown to hell in a dozen pages. Did we really need to know their names and titles? Was that really necessary? My brain can only hold so many names at one time. The second complaint is the book is hard sci fi for the first 32 chapters and then, without warning, in the 33rd chapter we have this fantasy element appear in Tisiphone -- out of the blue -- and then she plays a hugely major role for the rest of the book. It's jarring. If she had been introduced earlier in the book, it would have been easier to take, but to get a major character halfway through? Well, that's stretching it.
Still, it's a very, very good book. I kept turning the pages to find out what was going to happen next. It was that exciting. Even though it's long as hell, I'm sure I'll read it again. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I strongly recommend it.
In Fury Born has a 4.19 out of a 5.0 rating on Goodreads, which is pretty darn good, but you'd never realize it by looking at the most recent reviews, many of which are pretty savage. Apparently it's because this book is based on an earlier book he wrote which contains the second half of this book. What he did with this book was write a 450 page prequel to turn it into a near-900 page beast of a novel, all of which I enjoyed as I hadn't read that earlier work. So no complaints from me.
Alicia DeVries seems destined for a military career from a young age. She listens to her retired military grandfather tell war stories and her parents fret. She turns out to be brilliant and goes to college quite early, I believe at 14, graduating at 17, before then joining the Marines, which probably disappoints her parents. In one of her first roles as a Marine, she acts as a sniper for her squad and methodically kills tons of bad guys in a bad skirmish. In fact, she distinguishes herself so well, that she's recruited away to become a part of the Imperial Cadre, the best of the best, the Emperor's own military force, where there is a cap of some 40,000 soldiers (in a universe of thousands of worlds with billions of people) and where they can't even meet that standard. The Cadre is bad. They're augmented, turned into types of human robots with internal computers and medical abilities, and something called the "tick," which slows things down and enables one to enhance their abilities to do just about anything. They're fierce. In her first action, Sergent DeVries is sent with a company of some 274 Cadre drop commandos to raid a place, only they drop right into a setup. The bad guys are waiting for them and weapons rip right through them. There are hostages they're there to rescue, some 600 of them. Alley and her company lose their commanding officers immediately and it becomes apparent that she's the last remaining officer, even though she's brand new. She rallies her remaining troops to her and they push through to their target, suffering horrible losses, but giving out horrible losses in return. They make it to the building housing the hostages and gather them together, waiting for Marine reinforcements. Out of the 274 Cadre personnel who went in, nine come out. Alley is one of them. Over 800 bad guys died. For this action (or for the next one -- I forget, sorry), she's given the highest military award there is. Only three living people have it, and one of them is her grandfather. She's the third. She's now a living legend, particularly after this next action I won't go into for time and length of review purposes.
Now, however, it's become apparent to her that there's a leak from inside the Cadre to the bad guys and she knows where it's coming from. They're always one step ahead of the Cadre waiting for them. Turns out it's an intelligence officer, a colonel I think, who she goes to confront and pretty much destroys before guards can pull her off of him. The thing is, she could have killed him with one punch, but she wanted him to suffer, so she broke just about every bone he had. As a result, she's told by her hero and friend, the Brigadier Sir Arthur Keita, that this man is going to be essentially retired, but not punished, as the powers that be don't want bad publicity. She's horrified and immediately quits the Cadre.
Whew! That's a lot. But the book's only half over. She returns to her parents' world out in the boonies and is out hunting one day when some pirates who have been terrorizing the various worlds out there descend and kill her family. She returns to find them there and goes freakin' insane, slaughtering all 23 of them and vowing vengeance upon those who ordered this. She was badly injured in the firefight and is lying in the snow in subzero temperatures when she hears a voice in her head asking her if she'd like vengeance. She said yes. She's asked if she'll give anything for it and she agrees, so at this point, in chapter 33, Tisiphone, one of the old Greek Furies, enters her head and vows to help her, keeping her alive for days and keeping her hate alive at the same time. Alley is found and brought to a hospital where she's heard talking to no one at all, Tisiphone. They think she's crazy. She's transferred to a military hospital, where Sir Arthur and her old best friend from the Cadre, now a doctor and a major in the Cadre, join her in an effort to help her. She tells them everything, along with an intelligence specialist. They think she's probably crazy, but that she believes she's telling the truth. Who knows, right? Well, Tisiphone spends her time digging into computer systems and learning. At some point she tells Alley it's time. Time to go seek vengeance. She helps Alley escape and they go to an airfield, where they barely get away and then to an orbiting space yard, where they snag a state of the art war ship with a state of the art AI, which the human pilot, Alley, has to synth mesh with. This is frightening, because in many cases, upon separation, both human and AI go insane, so this is permanent.
The goal is to find the pirates. To do this, they disguise the ship as a freighter and decide to become smugglers in an effort to find their way to the people dealing with the pirates and their stolen goods. The odd thing about the pirates, though, is that they're not really stealing that much. They're slaughtering people by the millions and not taking much. Why? They daring the fleet to come looking for them. And how are they getting so close to these worlds without warnings being sent away upon sight? Turns out they're in Navy fleet ships. A lot of them. They're traitors, and they go deep into the empire. Traitors everywhere. Alley gets closer and closer. The intelligence agent is on her trail. The brigadier is trying to keep abreast of things. Where will everything lead? The whole universe thinks that Alley is a crazed lunatic who has assaulted Cadre personal, stolen an expensive Navy ship, is armed and dangerous, and has a shoot on sight order. How is she going to get out of this?
Well, I'm not going to give away the ending of the book, but it's very exciting and very climactic and very satisfying. I only have two complaints. One is, as with all of Weber's books, he has to name each and every major and minor character one encounters in the 900 pages, thus making it impossible to know who the hell is who, as you're trying to remember hundreds of names, as well as names of dozens of planets. It's annoying as hell. Especially since about half of these people get blown to hell in a dozen pages. Did we really need to know their names and titles? Was that really necessary? My brain can only hold so many names at one time. The second complaint is the book is hard sci fi for the first 32 chapters and then, without warning, in the 33rd chapter we have this fantasy element appear in Tisiphone -- out of the blue -- and then she plays a hugely major role for the rest of the book. It's jarring. If she had been introduced earlier in the book, it would have been easier to take, but to get a major character halfway through? Well, that's stretching it.
Still, it's a very, very good book. I kept turning the pages to find out what was going to happen next. It was that exciting. Even though it's long as hell, I'm sure I'll read it again. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I strongly recommend it.
July 9, 2022
In general, this was a truly gripping story of adventure and revenge. So gripping, in fact, that I was at times cursing the efficiency of public transportation in my town which required me to put the damn thing down before I was ready!! Having read many of his other books including his Honor Harrington series, I would say that David Weber is one of the best at creating a true edge-of-your-seat adventure story -and this is certainly one of his best!
The negatives: I gave this book a three star rating despite its significant strengths for a few reasons. First and perhaps unfairly, I am still miffed at the unclear labelling of this book and "Path of the Fury". To any who are not aware of this, this particular novel is a rewrite (with a lot of new material added) of an earlier novel by Weber, "Path of the Fury". While I have to give praise where praise is due and say that this version is *much* better than the earlier one, it was very annoying for me to realize I had bought two versions of the same book. (Stupid of me, I know, but I do feel it wasn't exactly clear when I was looking at them both in the bookstore.) Second, I take issue with the extremely simplistic characterization of the terrorist movements in this book. By this I refer to the motivations of these individuals -I seriously doubt things are ever as simple and clear-cut as what Weber suggests in this regard. To my mind, terrorists don't simply exist out of insanity or an incomprehensible desire for disorder or destruction. It seems to me that while there probably often are truly deranged individuals at their core, the origins of such movements are usually more complex than can be understood by simply terming them 'malcontents', and in many cases find strength in real injustice. (And before anyone jumps on my case, I have never, nor will I ever, advocate or condone violence as a solution for any kind of problem -political or otherwise.) I would conclude this soapbox moment by stating that, IMHO and in many ways, many of the terrorist movements of today can even be said to have been 'created' (after a fashion) by the very entities they seek to destroy. While this may strike some as an inflammatory statement ,especially in today's world, it seems to me that many terrorist movements would in large part cease to exist if certain great injustices in our world did the same.
JMHO.
The negatives: I gave this book a three star rating despite its significant strengths for a few reasons. First and perhaps unfairly, I am still miffed at the unclear labelling of this book and "Path of the Fury". To any who are not aware of this, this particular novel is a rewrite (with a lot of new material added) of an earlier novel by Weber, "Path of the Fury". While I have to give praise where praise is due and say that this version is *much* better than the earlier one, it was very annoying for me to realize I had bought two versions of the same book. (Stupid of me, I know, but I do feel it wasn't exactly clear when I was looking at them both in the bookstore.) Second, I take issue with the extremely simplistic characterization of the terrorist movements in this book. By this I refer to the motivations of these individuals -I seriously doubt things are ever as simple and clear-cut as what Weber suggests in this regard. To my mind, terrorists don't simply exist out of insanity or an incomprehensible desire for disorder or destruction. It seems to me that while there probably often are truly deranged individuals at their core, the origins of such movements are usually more complex than can be understood by simply terming them 'malcontents', and in many cases find strength in real injustice. (And before anyone jumps on my case, I have never, nor will I ever, advocate or condone violence as a solution for any kind of problem -political or otherwise.) I would conclude this soapbox moment by stating that, IMHO and in many ways, many of the terrorist movements of today can even be said to have been 'created' (after a fashion) by the very entities they seek to destroy. While this may strike some as an inflammatory statement ,especially in today's world, it seems to me that many terrorist movements would in large part cease to exist if certain great injustices in our world did the same.
JMHO.
March 22, 2021
Third person POV. My first David Weber military space fiction, with a sudden jarring insertion of fantastical Greek mythology midstream. I thought this book was a bit silly and much too long (800 + pages). The Fury constantly called Captain DeVries “Little One” — ouch. The bad guys were entirely egregious, solely for greed murdering hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, yet their comeuppance was only a fraction of the book — about a paragraph.
June 16, 2017
I first read this as a paperback, and liked it so much, I ordered a first edition hard cover edition. I have since read it at least five times. It starts with a young woman highly motivated, wanting to join the military like her grandfather, one of the only living holders of a specific award for bravery and command intelligence. At her graduation from college, she went into the service, and found it very rewarding and challenging. Those around her were impressed with her thinking things through, as well as her ability to fight. In a major disaster, her unit was wiped out almost to the last man, and and she was awarded the same award her grand father was. Later she found the man that had betrayed her unit to the aliens, and gotten every one killed. She attacked him, almost killing him before she allowed the other military to pull her off him. When they refused to convict him because of the information he held on others sh left the service and emigrated with her family to an opening world for settlement. While there a pirate group attacked killing most of the planets population. She was badly injured and dying but wanted to hunt down and kill the men that got away. An alien entity at the fringe of space attached itself to her, keeping her alive until rescued. She was investigated because of her impossible survival. When she was ready she stole a state if the art space ship and started after them. This then becomes the best part of the book. A definitely good read, and remembering it want to read it again.
January 12, 2012
3.5 stars
I enjoyed this book, but the jacket copy on this edition must've been lifted straight from the original book Path of the Fury, because it didn't indicate at all that this rewritten version added a prequel - 600 pages worth! - before the events in the description even take place. I enjoyed the extra reading, but was a bit put off by how long it took to get there, just because of my expectations of where the book was to begin.
Overall a very good book in the military sf/space opera genre. I highly recommend it to fans of the Honor Harrington series by the same author.
I enjoyed this book, but the jacket copy on this edition must've been lifted straight from the original book Path of the Fury, because it didn't indicate at all that this rewritten version added a prequel - 600 pages worth! - before the events in the description even take place. I enjoyed the extra reading, but was a bit put off by how long it took to get there, just because of my expectations of where the book was to begin.
Overall a very good book in the military sf/space opera genre. I highly recommend it to fans of the Honor Harrington series by the same author.
June 3, 2010
Pure Awesomesauce.
In Fury Born is a book in two parts. The first half of the book ("the new stuff") is a story of the rise of one Alicia DeVries, in an interstellar special-ops military unit. I've always loved Weber's space battle stuff, and this was no exception. I was grabbed right from the start, and it never let go.
The second half of the book ("the old stuff") is apparently a big rewrite of Weber's earlier "Path of the Fury". It's a big revenge trip with sentient AIs and a mysterious entity from Greek mythology. Also great fun.
I could not put this book down. Extremely enjoyable. 5 of 5 stars.
In Fury Born is a book in two parts. The first half of the book ("the new stuff") is a story of the rise of one Alicia DeVries, in an interstellar special-ops military unit. I've always loved Weber's space battle stuff, and this was no exception. I was grabbed right from the start, and it never let go.
The second half of the book ("the old stuff") is apparently a big rewrite of Weber's earlier "Path of the Fury". It's a big revenge trip with sentient AIs and a mysterious entity from Greek mythology. Also great fun.
I could not put this book down. Extremely enjoyable. 5 of 5 stars.
March 18, 2010
Simply amazing! I've read a lot and a I work in a library so I have access to literally thousands but this blew me away. I was two thirds of the way through and had already decided I was going to read it again. I read it for the second time 4 weeks later and the thrid time 3 months after that. Plent of reviews on-line, a couple of them even insightful, I just wanted to share my enthusiasm. Was surprised to discover I rarely like other Weber's. I have, in fact, put down five because they didn't enthrall me. Love this one but that may say more about me than the book :-)
February 5, 2016
I -thought- I had read this, but as it turned out, it was the original... this is the extended version. Much better - more boom, more neat background, more everything! Still didn't like the Fury herself... but that's the schtick of the book, so you accept it. The only concern I have is that the main character doesn't seem to have any social life, but considering she's a genius and the life she chose, that's... not that surprising. But you don't care, because it's a romping ride through space!
May 28, 2015
I'm going to be waiting a while for the sequel huh....esp when he's not even done with Safehold or Harrington yet.
*sigh* Well it was nice discovering "new to me" Weberverses.
*sigh* Well it was nice discovering "new to me" Weberverses.
January 19, 2016
Strong female character, non-stop action! A great light read.
October 20, 2021
Ibland är science fiction precis vad man behöver. Detta är en samling av ...fyra? noveller kring samma individ. Jag rekommenderar den för genreläsare.
June 20, 2020
(--) The beginning of the book puts a lot of backstory, all in the wrong places: You're in the middle of a conversation, the conversation stops, a lot of stuff is thrown at your face and... the conversation just continues. Where did you stop? What where they were discussing?
(--) In between backstories, there is a bunch of characters. Characters and more characters are thrown in the story, perform something small, disappear for a while, and suddenly appear again and who the heck was that? Did they mentioned them before? Worse, some names are so close you don't even know if it is a new character or an old one.
(-) The first battles are too long and provide nothing about the future.
(--) I don't have a problem with mixing scifi with fantasy, but you have to build an universe for that (sad to say, but something akin to "Bright"), but when you suddenly add a Greek spirit... everything seems to fall apart.
(+) Some points are really well constructed. For example, there is a discussion between three characters and you don't need descriptions to know who's talking; their tone and words make things clear.
(=) The pacing only gets convincing the end, when everything is done.
Honestly, it could be a good story, if the spirit was removed, the backstories cleaned out, some stuff that doesn't affect anything in the long run (pointing that they happened, with short summary would suffice) and make it shorter would be a real improvement.
May 13, 2020
The first half of this book seemed to drag, too many details about things that had no bearing on the overall story. I liked Alicia as a character even though she wasn't particularly deep. The action sequences throughout the whole book were very good and exciting to read. The dialogue was less exciting and I skimmed though most of the less important talking since it didn't really seem that crucial to the main story. I didn't like reading whole paragraphs about people that were just going to get blown up in the next couple of pages. While that works sometimes, in this particular book, it just made it longer than necessary. I don't need a full life story on a pirate who is just going to get killed in the next scene. This book could have been way shorter than it was if all the unnecessary scenes and dialogues were taken out. The second half of the book seemed disconnected and discombobulated compared to the first half. The change of Alicia the marine/Cadrewoman to Alicia with the Fury in her head was very abrupt and didn't seem to jive with the rest of book. It felt very out of line with the rest of the book and that lost quite a few stars. The supernatural element in a military space opera book was jolting and didn't quite fit with the first half of the book.
Overall 2 out of 5 stars. I would have liked it much better without the supernatural component.
Overall 2 out of 5 stars. I would have liked it much better without the supernatural component.
January 30, 2023
Re-read, 2023: This time around, I enjoyed the original book "Path of the Fury" section more; it was this time that I realized that all three ancient furies ended up being present.... Tisiphone, who is in a sense summoned up by Alicia DeVries is the first. Later, When she bonds with the AI "alpha synth" ship, she names it Megaira, and thus the second fury is here. Only as we drew near the finale did I realize that Alicia herself manifests Alekto... but perhaps I am a little slow, 'Alicia' and 'Alekto' are such similar names I should have realized this sooner. More conceptual than usual compared to later Weber novels, here he had this idea behind the story which also drove the personalities of each fury in their traditional aspects (vengeful destruction / Tisiphone, jealous rage / Megaira, endless anger / Alekto) and was interesting to see play out. I'm still not sure Eumenides would understand.
From 2015:
The prequel (which starts the book) was pretty good. i kept bogging down in the original story (which followed). 4 stars for prequel, 2.5 for actual original story. Probably won't read this one ever again. All the same, I'm enjoying reading the early Weber books, just not as much as his other ones.
From 2015:
The prequel (which starts the book) was pretty good. i kept bogging down in the original story (which followed). 4 stars for prequel, 2.5 for actual original story. Probably won't read this one ever again. All the same, I'm enjoying reading the early Weber books, just not as much as his other ones.
December 27, 2020
Look, I’m going to list some things that I think slightly undermined this high adventure military space opera but these are not criticisms and still could not make this anything less than a 4 star book.
So before I start let me say that this was FUN. Adventure from beginning to end. Great plot, good ideas and interesting characters. Brilliant scene setting and world building and the military element was fantastically handled. The pace a breakneck and relentless. This is a movie, its top quality pulse pounding fun and I really enjoyed it.
But…..
There a few moments of exposition that felt heavy handed and unnecessary.
The ending felt a bit rushed and easy. I like a happy ending but it felt like we switched suddenly from the key moment of high drama to the ending.
I was going to say that the bonus first few chapters were not necessary to the plot (and they were not) but have changed my mind because of how much I enjoyed them.
David Webber writes great military Sci-fi. I read this book with a smile on my face and was engrossed throughout. It is great to read a book where, even when there are flaws, that makes you so happy to read it.
July 25, 2016
This book came to my hands when I needed it. It's a roaring tale, and it's also a discussion of justice and mercy and the need for rule of law. I read it avidly, and I cried. I loved it, and learned from it.
February 18, 2013
Truly Gripping from beginning to end.
June 28, 2015
Love this book!
Total, complete, and wholehearted recommendation to lovers of sci-fi. A non-stop romp through the life of Alicia DeVries as she takes on the universe.
Total, complete, and wholehearted recommendation to lovers of sci-fi. A non-stop romp through the life of Alicia DeVries as she takes on the universe.
June 19, 2016
Contains the whole Fury story
Takes the whole segment and rolls it into the full story. It's not as long or as intricate as some of his other story series but a good one.
Takes the whole segment and rolls it into the full story. It's not as long or as intricate as some of his other story series but a good one.
February 3, 2018
I really enjoyed this special ops military space opera. It’s all about our protagonist Alicia DeVries journey on becoming the most accomplished soldier out there. Actually, this is the second release of the book “Path of Fury” with additional 400 pages of earlier life events from Alicia DeVries journey, so the new title “In Fury Born”. This new book covers two different sides of her journey, her military stint, and her revenge crusade. Having first read the Path of fury, I essentially knew the ending of the new 400 pages additions, so basically I was robbed of the intriguing.
The beginning of the book is on her career as a Marine. It covers her first posting out of training and that too into a hot situation. While I liked the parts centered on her, there were times she was not the central focus, the time spent away from her on others irreverent characters were not fun.
Then we have her joining the cadre, a special ops unit, the best of the best military unit in the universe. The situation they get pulled into and how they survive it is amazing. The climax is emotionally fuelled ride.
Later part of the book is what was covered in Path of the Fury, I had reviewed it separately here
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
What I wrote -
I wanted a dose of character-driven military space opera and I had to come back to a David Weber book for it. Really loved the lead character, she is among the best kick-ass heroines I have come across, the plot is a straight revenge drama. When Alicia DeVries family is killed by pirates she goes about chasing them down with all she has and she does have a lot going for her. She was considered the best Special Ops commando there is, add to it the mystical help she gets from a mythological being, and having stolen the best and the newest ship in space, she is one woman fleet.
There is some intrigue on who the pirates are and what their end agenda is but it’s not that interesting, there is some space fleet action, which again is so-so, what drives this book is Alicia, especially seeing her in action. Also, another highlight is the relationship she shares with the other occupants of her head.
David Weber is known for info dumps, there were few of them which were easily skimmed over, the pacing did go off a few times but otherwise a solid book.
A rare book I am considering as favorite and will probably read over again in future but still am only giving 4 stars
Frankly, I liked both the parts but I do feel they are two separate books. If I had come from reading Paths of Fury first, the suspense and end game would be known to me in Fury Born. On the other hand, if I read In Fury Born first, the mystical and AI elements added so late in the book would make me feel disjointed. This is a tough nut to crack.
The beginning of the book is on her career as a Marine. It covers her first posting out of training and that too into a hot situation. While I liked the parts centered on her, there were times she was not the central focus, the time spent away from her on others irreverent characters were not fun.
Then we have her joining the cadre, a special ops unit, the best of the best military unit in the universe. The situation they get pulled into and how they survive it is amazing. The climax is emotionally fuelled ride.
Later part of the book is what was covered in Path of the Fury, I had reviewed it separately here
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
What I wrote -
I wanted a dose of character-driven military space opera and I had to come back to a David Weber book for it. Really loved the lead character, she is among the best kick-ass heroines I have come across, the plot is a straight revenge drama. When Alicia DeVries family is killed by pirates she goes about chasing them down with all she has and she does have a lot going for her. She was considered the best Special Ops commando there is, add to it the mystical help she gets from a mythological being, and having stolen the best and the newest ship in space, she is one woman fleet.
There is some intrigue on who the pirates are and what their end agenda is but it’s not that interesting, there is some space fleet action, which again is so-so, what drives this book is Alicia, especially seeing her in action. Also, another highlight is the relationship she shares with the other occupants of her head.
David Weber is known for info dumps, there were few of them which were easily skimmed over, the pacing did go off a few times but otherwise a solid book.
A rare book I am considering as favorite and will probably read over again in future but still am only giving 4 stars
Frankly, I liked both the parts but I do feel they are two separate books. If I had come from reading Paths of Fury first, the suspense and end game would be known to me in Fury Born. On the other hand, if I read In Fury Born first, the mystical and AI elements added so late in the book would make me feel disjointed. This is a tough nut to crack.
April 25, 2021
I pretty much binge read/listened-to "In Fury Born" this week, with the audiobook clocking in at almost 32hrs it ate up my evenings, and yesterday with 16hrs left I mostly listened all day! At 2am I finally cried uncle and went to sleep! And only now finished the last hour and a half!🤣 The funny thing is, I had read the book before, It was probably more'n ten years ago, and I couldn't really remember much of anything about it but the title... but according to my list of books read, I'd loved it back then, and I gave it 5⭐'s ( I ❤ Goodreads! It keeps track of the books I've read, and my comments regarding each one, even from many years ago... it remembers when my brain forgets! 😊👍). But, I was in for a bit of a surprise... David Weber had re-worked the whole book, and doubled the word count! It was like reading a book for the first time... all over again, and that hardly ever happens! 🙂 Weber is noted for his Military Scifi drama, with political intrigue and sweeping Spaceship battles, and boy did this book deliver!
Alicia DeVries is a helluva space marine, and when she's screwed over by the government/military she had dedicated herself to protect, she gets more than a little bit Bent Out Of Shape, and sets out for justice and revenge... but Weber added a twist by adding a Fury, an Ancient Greek Paladin that metes out justice for the gods (although for the purposes of this book, she should be considered a goddess in her own right), as well as an AI (Artificial Intelligence) that has become more sentient and powerful than anyone ever imagined it could... both the Fury and the AI aren't quite getting along, but along with Alicia, they have a common enemy, and they are Very formidable!
Vivienne Leheny has pretty much become my favorite female voice performer! I'll certainly be on the lookout for more books narrated by her!
Grab this book, and fly high with Alisha DeVries and her two companions/sisters!
Alicia DeVries is a helluva space marine, and when she's screwed over by the government/military she had dedicated herself to protect, she gets more than a little bit Bent Out Of Shape, and sets out for justice and revenge... but Weber added a twist by adding a Fury, an Ancient Greek Paladin that metes out justice for the gods (although for the purposes of this book, she should be considered a goddess in her own right), as well as an AI (Artificial Intelligence) that has become more sentient and powerful than anyone ever imagined it could... both the Fury and the AI aren't quite getting along, but along with Alicia, they have a common enemy, and they are Very formidable!
Vivienne Leheny has pretty much become my favorite female voice performer! I'll certainly be on the lookout for more books narrated by her!
Grab this book, and fly high with Alisha DeVries and her two companions/sisters!
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