Off Armageddon Reef

Plot summary

After a desperate and ultimately lost struggle against a genocidal alien foe in the 24th Century, the 8 million survivors of Earth flee to Safehold to carefully rebuild civilization. They plan to temporarily block industrialization to avoid detection, but civil war erupts over the corrupt colony administrator's scheme to trap mankind on their refuge world at a Middle Ages level of technology. Eric Langhorne plots to rule as the deified founder of the Church of God Awaiting, a religion that proscribes innovation as heresy punishable by torture and death.

When Pei Shan-Wei defies him, he wipes out her faction with a terrible secret weapon. A survivor avenges her, killing Langhorne and most of his clique. This nearly eliminates every colonist with memory of Earth. Though Shan-Wei had not predicted how far Langhorne would go, she had prepared a backup plan: She secreted away the android that contained the personality and memories of a heroic human military officer, Nimue Alban, with all the technology and weapons needed to uplift Safehold. Nimue awakens 800 years later and is informed of what has come to pass.

Nimue accepts the mission to destroy Langhorne's legacy and uses mobile spy technology to examine the world. However, it becomes clear that as an apparent woman, her influence would be less than it should be. She therefore changes into an apparent male and takes the name of Merlin Athrawes before travelling to the Kingdom of Charis — a relatively advanced region of Safehold with a somewhat free-thinking approach to religion. Merlin gains the trust of King Haarahld Ahrmahk of Charis by interfering in an assassination attempt on Haarahld's son, Crown Prince Cayleb of Charis.

Merlin's plan goes awry when he is forced to take emergency action against a treasonous yet beloved member of the Ahrmahk dynasty, but he once again proves to be the key factor in protecting the kingdom. As a reward, Merlin is made Cayleb's personal guardian and a de facto adviser to the king. He introduces technology that, while not technically proscribed by the Safeholdian Holy Writ, offers critical tactical and economic advantages. While most of Safehold is at a 16th-century level of technology, Merlin sparks the creation of better sailing vessels, improved gunpowder, and greatly improved seaborne cannons, very equivalent to the 18th-19th century Age of Sail.

At the same time, the Church grows increasingly suspicious of Charisian power and the kingdom's culture of innovation. The Church rallied every seafaring nation of Safehold against Charis, including its rivals, a nominal longtime ally, and a neutral party that participates in the campaign with great reluctance. This demonstrates the Church's power but also sets into motion events that will cause a great deal of strife and, more importantly, the end of the Church's unquestioned authority in Safehold. Merlin's space-age surveillance network allows for the deployment of Charis' new weapons with maximum strategic effect.

Largely due to the technology introduced by Merlin, the combined attacking fleets of galleys are annihilated by the small Charis fleet of heavily armed galleons, although King Haarahld falls in battle. The book ends at his funeral, about one month after the end of the battle; Cayleb becomes the first King of a Safeholdian realm to rule completely without the Church's consent. This marks the beginning of a global movement that is an analogue to the English Reformation.

Theme

Through the novel, Weber uses the conflict between technology and religion to explore the ability of people and cultures to make choices, rather than have the choice made for them. Weber himself has stated in an interview that the novel was not an attack on organized religion, but more "about the use of any ideology or belief structure to manipulate, control and coerce". It is this concept of control to prevent the right, ability and responsibility to make choices forms the thematic backbone of the novel.

In many ways this book is about the human condition at its core, set in a future world of high and low technology. It highlights how the choices individuals make on a day-to-day basis, as well as the relationships we build define the character and quality of our lives. Classic, and often interesting, themes such as 1) the ability of money and power to corrupt otherwise "good" individuals, 2) the influence of duty and morals in relation to the good of the "many", 3) the power of faith and its tension with orthodoxy, 4) the importance of truth balanced with the need for secrecy, 5) the drive for human innovation and progress, 6) the hopeful human will to survive, even in the face of overwhelming odds, 7) the separation of church and state, and 8) the tension of whether the "ends" truly justify the "means".

Concept and creation

Author David Weber says he was setting out to create a series in which high technology fused with "the feel of a 'last defender of elfland', but without the urban fantasy matrix"; the cybernetic protagonist who is unsure of his own humanity "grew naturally for me out of that initial basic premise." Weber explains that like many of his novels, the meat of the novel grew from questions such as "What set of circumstances could create a situation in which my PICA hero (Personality Integrated Cybernetic Avatar) came into existence? And given those circumstances, and the personality of Nimue Alban, how was 'Merlin' going to react?" As Weber puts it, "The lead character, Nimue, is a brilliant tactical officer, only about 27 years old at the time of her biological death, and has never known a time when humanity wasn’t fighting a losing battle for its very existence." She awakens, in the body of an android, 800 years after her death, into a world which has retreated nearly completely into tyranny and ignorance. Even with magnificent technological resources, how in the world is she going to make things better?

The concept of the technologically superior Gbaba aliens, determined to exterminate all life forms that could be a threat to them, resembles the Achuultani aliens from Weber's earlier novel Mutineers' Moon, the first novel in his Empire from the Ashes trilogy. Furthermore, the plot of the third novel in that trilogy, Heirs of Empire, involves a small group of people with high technology using their knowledge of military weapons and tactics to assist a group of humans living on a world of low technology. This resembles how on the planet Safehold the character Merlin assists the Charisians in their struggle with the Church and its allies.

Reception and reviews

Off Armageddon Reef was a cumulative bestseller, entering the New York Times Best Seller list at number 33. It was listed by Booklist as one of the top ten SF audiobooks of 2008 (read by Oliver Wyman) and was nominated in 2009 for the Arthur C. Clarke Award for best science fiction novel published in the United Kingdom.

The Guardian found Off Armageddon Reef to have a predictable ending and called the character development "perfunctory", but applauded Weber's pacing and vision.

Audiobook (Book on CD)