Entry #3 in the popular Hell's Gate series by 28 times New York Times best-selling author David Weber and Joelle Presby.
The war between magically-gifted Arcana and psionically talented Sharona continues to rage. The dragon-borne Arcanan assault across five universes has been halted at Fort Salby by a desperate defense, but at atrocious cost. One of those costs was the life of Crown Prince Janaki, heir to the newly created Sharonian Empire, who went knowingly to his death in the tradition expected of the House of Calirath. And another price will be the sacrifice of his younger sister, Grand Imperial Princess Andrin, now heir of Sharona, for the accords creating the Sharonian Empire require the marriage of the heir to the Crown to wed a Uromathian prince.
Andrin bears her family's Talent, the Glimpses, which show flashes of events yet to come. She knows the accords must be secured . . . and like her brother, she will pay any price, make any sacrifice for her duty to her people.
Sharona's soldiers dig in, facing the Arcanans in a tense standoff which cannot last long. Both sides continue rushing reinforcements towards the front, but how do armies fight wars when they can reach one another only through the portals which join the universes? And far, far behind the front, carried by dragons, a young Voice name Shaylar and her husband Jathmar hurtle deeper and deeper into Arcanan captivity, their only protection the fierce personal honor of the Andaran officer whose men massacred all of their companions in the horrendous misunderstanding which began the entire conflict.
Men and women of honor on both sides must grapple with the terrible costs and deadly secrets of the spreading cataclysm, and in the shadows, those who will balk at neither treason nor murder drive the conspiracies which pour fuel into the furnace. The stakes are high and the pieces are in motion, but there are factors known not even to the conspirators and not even a Calirath can Glimpse the final outcome.
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liked itWhen Baen put the second book back on the publishing schedule without any indication that a third book was finally on the way the I wrote a somewhat savage review. BUt when this one came out I did buy it and found it a mostly enjoyable read.
Several still unresolved issues bug me. I can swallow the idea that the relative strengths Gifts and Talents decrease as folks get further from their home universe, but if certain chemical reactions do not behave in a consistent manner across all universes, then that would require that the biology of everything in the two universes would also be very different. Seems like that may be a leap too far.
A different matter which I think would be better explored is why the dragons had such a strong reaction to the Voice talent in the first book - and why only with Shaylara (sorry if I mangled her name)Posted on
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goodGreat continuation of the story. Lots of character and place names to keep track of. The map at the beginning helped, but I started making notes. I'll be very interested in the next installment - in particular, in finding out exactly what Gadrial's insight was.
I read a reader's copy. I suppose these typos will have been fixed, but just in case:
p. 226 "puke" -> "pew"
p. 232 "guess" -> "guest"
p. 282. "They names" -> "The names"
p. 380 "shoved he job" -> "shoved the job"
386 "intense ad" -> intense and"
386 "or y court" ?\
522 "that , too," (delete a space)
545 "The 23rd...followed...behind the 23rd" (maybe should be "...behind the 9th")
613 "hold" is followed by a box with an x in it - an undefined character, I suppose - should be "!".
620 "this" followed by another bad character, should be "!"Posted on
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Being a fan of the Honorverse and Safehold, the Multiverse feels like home. All three books in this series are fantastic and leaves one desperately needing more. Weber does collaborations well (see stuff with Flint, Zahn, Ringo, Evans, and now Presby) and I hope to read more of Presby's work in the future (I understand that she has a short story underway for the next Worlds of Honor anthology).
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ConflictedWhen I started reading this, I really wanted it to be a five star experience. But I finished it and found that I just couldn't give it 5 stars.
The Hell's Gate series is awesome, with a multiverse of possibility, at least as much as the Honorverse and possibly more than the Safehold series, at least to date.
Unfortunately, I felt that The Road to Hell didn't do it full justice, a complaint I seem to be making about a number of recent Weber works. While the book is a very good read, the story feels incomplete - deliberately so, to set up for a sequel - though not with quite the cliffhanger of the last one.
Most of this book is logistics, explanation, and political maneuvering, with not a lot of action to spice things up, and what there is will have to wait for the next volume to wrap up. Road to Hell feels, to me, like it would be better read as part of a complete, already finished series, not as something to tide me over until the next release, whenever that may be.
So, not five stars in my opinion.Posted on
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BrilliantThe tale of the Caliraths, of all the works of Weber the most fair. It is (heresy?) ever better than Honor.
The potential of the Hells Gate series is epic, but they needed to find time to do it justice. Now that Joelle Presby is onboard, they are trying to do just that.
Time will tell whether they'll make this work. it definitely won't be over after just one more book. As for me, I like everyone in Ternathia, will follow the Caliraths into the fire...
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Product ReviewI read the first two books in the series years ago and had just about given up on ever knowing what happened next. I am happy to say this book continued to add to the complex universe that the first two began. I actually went back and reread the first two and ended up reading this one all in one day. I am looking forward to more in this series including a prequel that explains why legends of magic, dragons, griffons etc existed in the non-magical ones. Mysterious portals to alternate versions of earth could cease to exist just as easily as they appeared.
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