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A review by mburnamfink
Path of the Fury, Volume 1 by David Weber
5.0
"Before you embark on a journey of revenge, steal the most advanced spaceship in the galaxy!"
Space pirates massacring entire planets made a fatal mistake when they hit a planet home to ex-Drop Commando and ultimate badass Alicia DeVries. They kill her family, she kills an entire squad, and is left bleeding out when a voice in her head offers her vengeance, for a price. That voice belongs to Tisiphone, last of the furies of ancient Greece. She survives, whisked away in a pocket dimension, but her rescuers aren't going to believe in demons from some mythological past, or let a mad Drop Commando run around, and so she has to break out of the hospital, steal an Alpha Synth, a hyper-advanced AI driven warship, and then embark on a bloody trail of investigation and revenge to get the pirates who killed her family. Of course, these pirates are in it for a lot more than money, and Alicia reveals High Treason that could shake the Empire, if only she can stop her kamikaze rampage long enough to bring in the law.
I really love this book, and it's hard to exactly why, but basically every part is good, and works together to be more than the simple sum of its parts. Alicia, Tisiphone, and Megarea (their ship) have neatly similar but distinct voices, and the same is true of the supporting cast. The pacing is damn near perfect; lots of action with just enough room to breath and appreciate it. The writing has just enough flourish and sparkle to it. The military technology is well-thought out and coherent, and not a direct adaptation of any historical era. The setting is roughly based on the Roman Empire, which gives the "pirates" plan to get a big chunk of the military in hand and then declare themselves independent a nice bit of resonance. Finally, this book has a strong ethical core, and while 'justice good, vengeance bad' isn't particularly sophisticated, it believes in something and explores the consequences of its characters actions, without the soldier-worshiping stereotype common to the genre.
The story ends with a great set up for a sequel. Somewhere, there's an alternate universe where Weber followed up with Fury instead of the Honor Harrington novels. Of course, I'm not sure what could actually challenge our heroes at the end of the book: a one woman army, a demon who can read minds and hack computers, and a warship capable of taking on a small fleet, make for quite the overpowered protagonist. But it's okay that this is all there is, because what we have is some damn near perfect space opera and milSF.
((And, yes I know they released a new edition with a book's worth prequel material about Alicia's early life. I don't care--we don't really need to know more about her origins. Story should begin at the beginning.))
Space pirates massacring entire planets made a fatal mistake when they hit a planet home to ex-Drop Commando and ultimate badass Alicia DeVries. They kill her family, she kills an entire squad, and is left bleeding out when a voice in her head offers her vengeance, for a price. That voice belongs to Tisiphone, last of the furies of ancient Greece. She survives, whisked away in a pocket dimension, but her rescuers aren't going to believe in demons from some mythological past, or let a mad Drop Commando run around, and so she has to break out of the hospital, steal an Alpha Synth, a hyper-advanced AI driven warship, and then embark on a bloody trail of investigation and revenge to get the pirates who killed her family. Of course, these pirates are in it for a lot more than money, and Alicia reveals High Treason that could shake the Empire, if only she can stop her kamikaze rampage long enough to bring in the law.
I really love this book, and it's hard to exactly why, but basically every part is good, and works together to be more than the simple sum of its parts. Alicia, Tisiphone, and Megarea (their ship) have neatly similar but distinct voices, and the same is true of the supporting cast. The pacing is damn near perfect; lots of action with just enough room to breath and appreciate it. The writing has just enough flourish and sparkle to it. The military technology is well-thought out and coherent, and not a direct adaptation of any historical era. The setting is roughly based on the Roman Empire, which gives the "pirates" plan to get a big chunk of the military in hand and then declare themselves independent a nice bit of resonance. Finally, this book has a strong ethical core, and while 'justice good, vengeance bad' isn't particularly sophisticated, it believes in something and explores the consequences of its characters actions, without the soldier-worshiping stereotype common to the genre.
The story ends with a great set up for a sequel. Somewhere, there's an alternate universe where Weber followed up with Fury instead of the Honor Harrington novels. Of course, I'm not sure what could actually challenge our heroes at the end of the book: a one woman army, a demon who can read minds and hack computers, and a warship capable of taking on a small fleet, make for quite the overpowered protagonist. But it's okay that this is all there is, because what we have is some damn near perfect space opera and milSF.
((And, yes I know they released a new edition with a book's worth prequel material about Alicia's early life. I don't care--we don't really need to know more about her origins. Story should begin at the beginning.))