Fwd: "The Armageddon Inheritance" by David Weber

------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: "The Armageddon Inheritance" by David Weber
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2021 16:14:07 -0600
From: Lynn McGuire <[email protected]>
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written

"The Armageddon Inheritance" by David Weber
    https://www.amazon.com/Armageddon-Inheritance-David-Weber/dp/0671721976/

Book number two of a three book space opera military science fiction 
series.  I read the well printed MMPB published by Baen in 1993, my book 
is the sixth printing from 2009.  This is my favorite SF series of all 
time as I have reread it eight or ten times now.  In fact, the binding 
of my book has broken since I have read it so many times.  This book has 
sadly has gone out of print as a standalone book.  But, the omnibus is 
still available as a new book:
     https://www.amazon.com/Empire-Ashes-David-Weber/dp/141650933X/

55,000 years ago, a Fourth Imperium Utu class 2,000 km diameter 
planetoid, Dahak hull number 177291, dropped out of Euchanch drive due 
to a supposed failure.  Dahak and his 250,000 person crew were headed to 
a picket post for forty years at the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy.  It 
had been 7,000 years since the last genocidal invasion of the 
Achuultani, a race who periodically swept the Milky Way of all life, who 
had destroyed three Imperiums and countless civilizations.  But the FTL 
drive failure was not a accident, it was sabotage.  And the mutiny that 
followed exiled the mutineers and crew alike on Earth, the third planet 
of the Sol System.

Today, the unmanned picket posts are warning of the imminent invasion by 
the Achuultani.  And Dahak is not receiving any warnings by hypercom 
from Central Command.  Dahak is transmitting a warning to Central 
Command now as that capability was restored when Colin MacIntyre 
defeated the mutineers.  So, Dahak and his new crew of 100,000 Terrans 
are going in search of help after offloading most of the space 
battleships, the two massive industrial rebuilders, the space cruisers, 
the space pinnaces, and the space fighters to help the Terrans fight off 
the Achuultani scout forces, a force of well over 10,000 twenty 
kilometer to forty kilometer long battleships that want to destroy all 
sapient beings.

I do not know why this is my favorite SF book and series of all time.  I 
think that I like the standup position of the chief protagonist, Colin 
the First.  Or that there are so many different species of intelligent 
space races.  Or that the book is written so tightly, especially when 
compared to Weber's later works.  Or that an self aware artificial 
intelligence shares the main protagonist job in the book, much like 
Heinlein's "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress".

I keep on hoping that David Weber will write more books in the Dahak 
series but, I doubt it.  He did write the Safehold series which is along 
the same lines as this book, overpowering space aliens and self aware 
artificial intelligences.  BTW, there is an ending to the Safehold, 
Honorverse, and Dahak series that David Weber wrote as joke:
    http://www.davidweber.net/posts/443-how-safehold-wont-end.html

Here is my 2006 review of the book:
"Great sequel with awesome space battle scenes. The story line is solid 
and the awesome battle scenes are just the icing on the cake.  Plus, I 
really enjoy dual scene stories."

My rating: 6 out of 5 stars (yes 6 stars,  I have about 20 six star books)
Amazon rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars (52 reviews)

Lynn