By Schism Rent Asunder | David Weber | superb title, but an interstitial text

book: By Schism Rent Asunder | David Weber

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By Schism Rent Asu...

	By Schism Rent Asunder David Weber Tor Books, 2008 - 512 pages average customer review:based on 1 review view larger image
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The world has changed. The mercantile kingdom of Charis has prevailed over the alliance designed to exterminate it. Armed with better sailing vessels, better guns and better devices of all sorts, Charis faced the combined navies of the rest of the world at Darcos Sound and Armageddon Reef, and broke them. Despite the implacable hostility of the Church of God Awaiting, Charis still stands, still free, still tolerant, still an island of innovation in a world in which the Church has worked for centuries to keep humanity locked at a medieval level of existence.

But the powerful men who run the Church aren?t going to take their defeat lying down. Charis may control the world?s seas, but it barely has an army worthy of the name. And as King Cayleb knows, far too much of the kingdom?s recent good fortune is due to the secret manipulations of the being that calls himself Merlin?a being that, the world must not find out too soon, is more than human. A being on whose shoulders rests the last chance for humanity?s freedom.

Now, as Charis and its archbishop make the rift with Mother Church explicit, the storm gathers. Schism has come to the world of Safehold. Nothing will ever be the same.

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superb title, but an interstitial text

Do you like poetry? If so, the title should appeal. Of all the fiction novels I've read in recent years, it stands as the best title, to me. The deliberately stilted cadence is a provocative evocation of an earlier era. It fits beautifully as a perfect summary of the book's plot. Naturally, there is more to the book than its title. But I felt it worthwhile to praise Weber on an inspired choice.

How about the plot? I will try to refrain from any spoilers. Other reviewers will have no such compunction.

One difference with the earlier book is that the current story seems to have fewer combat scenes. Instead Weber spends exhaustive time fleshing out the dimensions of the ideological struggle. A reworking of the Protestant Reformation and of England in the Napoleonic Wars. Some readers (and reviewers) might complain about the seemingly interminable religious and political back and forth. We have seen this before in Weber's Harrington series. Some of the later books in that delved into the social and political structures of the warring states. So too here.

Weber is adept at this. Plus, given the Harrington series, this book reads like an interstitial effort. He is laying the groundwork for more climatic episodes later. Also, like Turtledove or Stirling, he is stringing out the plot into as many books as possible. Daresay the next book will not be the last of this series.

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