How Firm A Foundation Review

How Firm a Foundation was released in September 2011 and is the fifth novel in David Weber’s Safehold series. The Safehold series is set in a far distant future where mankind has fled Earth and the planets we had colonized after a devastating loss in a war for survival against an alien race, the Gbaba.  Safehold is a refuge planet far away from the areas of space the Gbaba have been seen and was planned by the colonizing leaders to be a world the Gbaba would never find (they destroy civilizations before they become threats by finding them via their electronic emissions).

To help ensure that Safehold would remain secret, the founding leaders brainwashed the colonizing humans during their suspended animation into thinking they awoke on Safehold to a world created by God and the archangels (the leaders of the colonizing mission) and were given a book to guide them, which denounces technological progress beyond a certain point. That is the premise of the first book, Off Armageddon Reef, where we find that not all of the colonizing mission leadership agreed with that approach and some took matters into their own hands to ensure mankind would again rise to take on the Gbaba. This fifth book continues the story of how a group of a few people fight to overthrow the oppressive church on Safehold and bring mankind back from this imposed backward level. For more detail on the background, click the links above.

Those familiar with David Weber know that he is known for military science fiction with his Honor Harrington series. I came to read his work through the Dahak series, which I highly recommend and can be found online. The Safehold series has a nice mix of science fiction and historical “feeling” naval and political intrigue. In How Firm a Foundation, Weber really channels a Master and Commander feel in the beginning of the book as we are given a detailed account of a ship battling a storm. At the time it felt a bit too much of a venue for demonstrating a great knowledge of nautical terms, but later I realized that it was to let the reader know how skilled those sailors were as they are pivotal characters in this fifth book

The series is going to be much longer than five books, the exact number hasn’t been set as far as I know. However, the story continues to move along with some new reveals and twists and turns you don’t see coming. If you like gunpowder, ships and religious and political intrigue, this series is likely for you. The books come out once a year like clockwork (thank you Mr. Weber). I would give this book 3 Mick Happies. It is an enjoyable story, not the best book in the series, but worth a read. Catch it in paperback when you can.