Reader Comment on our review of OFF ARMAGEDDON REEF by David Weber

Comment by Wes Reib

I have to disagree with your review [see our review here]. This is not a strong start to an intriguing new series. David Weber has done this sort of thing before: dash off a substandard work for quick bucks and this is most definitely substandard DW. When I purchased this book, after foolishly reading only the first chapter, I expected another rolicking space opera at which DW excels, instead there is this pull up by the medieval bootstraps story that has been done so much better by so many others---S. M. Stirling's The General series is the best of this type I've ever found and OAR is a pale shade by comparison. Then there is DW's obsession with power and politics which has full reign in this story and accomplishes what exactly? I skimmed most of it or I wouldn't have bothered to read further at all. His compulsion to explain everything to the reader in case they may not ever have heard of such things before is another large mistake on his part. Puh--LEEZ! Do we really need a blow by blow description of how to load and fire a musket? a cannon? His descriptions of ships, ocean travel, and sea battles are sketchy at best and insulting at the worst. There is absolutely no comparison of this work to the masters of the genre, for instance C.S. Forester and Patrick O'Brien. I cringed through much of Weber's sea scapes, or laughed, or cried, and his descriptions of individual deaths was like reading a travelogue: 'the last thing so and so ever saw . . . !?! Come on, now! Maybe an eleven year old would be impressed. What a waste of paper and ink! His decision to have Nimue Alban become Merlin What'shisface has to be his worst mistake. Considering Nimue's courage and dedication to her goal why should she be so reluctant to present herself as female? Another waste. This time of an opportunity. The novel would have been so much more with Nimue as herself than it is, and the dynamic as well as the tension between its character and that of the prince would have been far more pronounced which is what this story needed. And before I should close, another large beef. What is it with the atrocious and silly spelling of names? I mean, really! Struggling through near-to-it spellings for pronunciation just slows the narrative, just like the mediocre writing, overblown subplots, unnecessary technical discussions, and sketchy action. You blew it, Davie, this book sucks a## [edited for PG purposes].

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