Off Armageddon Reef: A Safehold Novel 1

A science-fiction epic from the New York Times bestselling author Here is the saga of humanity reduced, by an implacable alien enemy, to inhabiting a single colony on the distant world of Safehold. To avoid drawing the attention of the enemy through the busy signals of an industrial civilization, the human rulers of Safehold have taken an extraordinary measure. With mind control and hidden high technology, they have built a religion in which every Safeholdian believes, one designed to keep Safehold society medieval and unnoticed forever. After disagreement about the wisdom and justice of this course, the dissenters were ruthlessly eliminated. Centuries have passed and now, in a hidden chamber on Safehold, an android initiates a rebirth set in motion centuries before. A rebirth that will provide the only remaining humans with their last chance to learn the truth and to rejoin the universe. It is destined to be a tremendous undertaking, unfolding a story of deception and ignorance, freedom and tyranny, and the liberating power of the truth.

About the Author :
David Mark Weber is an American science fiction and fantasy author whose most popular and enduring character, Honor Harrington, has been developed through 13 novels and four shared-universe anthologies.

Review :
"Off Armageddon Reef shows David Weber at the top of his game." --David Drake "Vast, complex, intricate, subtle, and unlaydownable. This looks like the start of the biggest thing in science fiction since Isaac Asimov's Foundation series." --Dave Duncan "Strongly recommended." --SFRevu.com "Marvelously entertaining...Very good news for our reading future!" --Vernor Vinge "Weber has done it once again." --Starlog "Weber launches an epic series with this gripping far-future saga, which springboards off the near-destruction of humanity in a massive war with the Gbaba. The survivors of the human race retreat to the planet Safehold, where they sacrifice basic human rights--and an accurate memory of the Gbaba--for the preservation of the species. The colony's founders psychologically program the colonists to prevent the re-emergence of scientific inquiry, higher mathematics or advanced technology, which the Gbaba would detect and destroy." --Publishers Weekly, starred review "In his first book for Tor, the author of the popular Honor Harrington novels embarks on a new SF epic of cultural evolution and humanity's need to conquer the unknown. Rich backgrounds and vivid characters combine to make this series opener a priority purchase for SF collections." --Library Journal, starred review "Earth has been destroyed by an alien invasion, and survivors are clinging to a precarious and primitive existence on a planet they have named Safehold. But they are divided into two major factions: a theocratic church opposed to all technological progress, and a secular class of aristocrats and merchants who support not only technology but expanding the habitable area of Safehold. There are factions and internal conflicts on both sides, and each has infiltrated the other." --Booklist, starred review "Fantastic in every sense of the word--the kind of book that makes you sit back and think about this reality that we call life. Who can ask for more than that? While devouring this book, I kept finding myself drawn back to Walter Miller's amazing A Canticle for Leibowitz. Off Armageddon Reef has that same kind of introspective power, wrapped in a compelling story and with characters I grew to love." --R. A. Salvatore "David Weber is the master of scope, and Off Armageddon Reef is breathtaking in scope of characters, scope of its universe, and scope of time.... Weber masterfully weaves a ferocious amount of vision into a story that is surprisingly easy to read and (not surprisingly) hard to put down." --Elizabeth Haydon