"in fury born" A good book for travellers.

[The Thing]

Ok, I picked up a brick of a book called "in fury born" by Dave Webber at a loval convention last weekend and have finally gotten around to starting to read it.

It's a 850+ page book and I've gotten up to like 150 or so pages, still I wanted to say it looks like a book travellers may like as it gives a nice, detailed setup to a major revolt on a planet, and details how a small band of imperial marines deal with the situation. The parts I've read so far would make a great scenario or even campaign start for a traveller game focusing on marines or mercenaries, so from what I've seen I can recommend it to anyone who wants a good, solid base to build a marine/merc campaign on.

As to flaws, it has the usual Weber flaw: An absolutely and impossibly perfect female main character surrounded by incompetents and corrupt jerks, but that's just the usual Weber style, once you get over it the action is quite good.

I'll update the review as I read more. As it if you can grab it I'd recommend it as a good blueprint for some traveller campaings.

 

[mbrinkhues]

I have read it to the end. And I agree it's totally Weber (just without any cats this time). But once one gets past the Marine action it goes of in a way that has little Traveller left (sadly). Still a good book but no longer Traveller

 

[Anthony]

Gah. It's a bizarre pastiche, because the second half of the book was actually written in 1992 (it's a reprint of the novel Path of the Fury) while the first half of the book was written 15 years later, in a completely different style.

 

[hunter]

Hah, you got me to drag my copy out and give it a re-read. Just finished The Shiva Option again.

I rather enjoy IFB, it's an interesting plot even if more science-fantasy than science-fiction.

 

[The Thing]

Well, admittedly I'm barley a quarter into it, but it so far seems to be a solid SF military action story, once my stomach quit turning over the usual webber flaws (Impossibly perfect heroine, irritatingly incompetent and evil bad guys. YAWN)

The nicest thing so far is that the socio-political setting is fairly detailed and plausible, with the factions having some real issues that make both sides easier to believe in.

Too often the setting for an action story is ignored in favor of action and hardware, but weber makes the background for this action plausible and believable.

Now, if only he could do the same for his main characters....

 

[The Thing]

Well, I'm about halfway thru this brick and I guess everyone here's read it already, so I don't seem to have to worry much about spoilers.

Nonetheless, out of courtesy I'll say that there are some spoilers ahead, sort of, nothing you wouldn't get from reading the backblurb.











Really, right up to where 'the fury" interfaces with DeVeirs it was pretty much a perfect traveller-style novel, especially the bit about the ambush of the cadre. I mean, you're an elite fighter, you're in power armor, you're sent in on a tough mission with serious political overtones, your force is ambushed, 90% of you wiped out before you hit the ground, now you're cut off, horribly outnumbered facing resistance beyond anything intel had projected and survival, let alone victory, seems impossible at first glance.

WOW! COULD THERE POSSIBLY BE A BETTER START TO A TRAVELLER ADVENTURE?!?!?!?!:devil:

The later discovery of treason and the government's willingness to sweep it all under the carpet of political expediency would likewise fit like a glove into a traveller campaign.

Ok, now we get to the 'mythological" fury bonding with the human main character, after suffering thru another bout of "weberitis" in the form of villains so evil that they're are virtually nothing but caricatures of antagonists. Sadists, rapists, torturers, murderers all without a trace of humanity blah blah blah. (Really, weber may do good action and setups, but dammit he needs to work on making the 'bad guys" believable, let alone fleshed out...)

I was just thinking that you could even work the fury into traveller, if you assume it was some sort of psionic entity that existed on earth long ago and became the stuff of legends. Psionics are part of the OTU, like it or not, and a psionic entity isn't going to void any warranties on your game.

So, thus far it's a good sourcebook/inspiration for traveller games, despite the usual cardboard cutout badguys that act like central casting rejects.

It may get bad later on, but at halfway thru it's 850+ page bulk it's still doing good.

 

[Anthony]

It may get bad later on, but at halfway thru it's 850+ page bulk it's still doing good.

Well, you've just hit the section written in 1992, rather than 2007. Expect a somewhat jarring change in style, at a minimum.

 

[Valarian]

I really like David Weber / Steve White Starfire series of books. Not so keen on the Honor Harrington series. I haven't read this one ... I'll have to keep an eye out.

 

[whartung]

I'm almost done with "The Shiva Option" as well.

The Starfire books aren't bad. It's pretty hard really convey these huge battles that they're involved in. I don't recall the prequel very well, which probably hurt this book a little -- I think the prequel was better.

This one was more on the march without any real set backs compared to the other one as I recall, and the warp point assaults simple weren't interesting with the Tech advantage the Grand Alliance had. The hard part is with the sizes of the fleets involved, it's all really a numbers game.

No matter.

Before this one, though I read the 3 "March ..." books by Weber and Ringo. "March Upcountry", "March to the Sea", and "March to the Stars". Those were pretty good. I liked the marines in this series.

The nice thing about these last four books, though, is that I got to read the electronic versions of them.

They're all available on Baens CDs that they once distributed (You can google to find them on the web, and it's all ok, they're not pirated).

I went and bought a basic Palm Pilot from eBay for $20 to read the books.

I really like the form factor. There's something to be said to having a bunch of books in your pocket. I have 4 books on my 8mb model, and it's used up maybe 1mb of storage so far.

The other nice thing is that I can easily read the books with one hand (necessary when the cat is sleeping on my other arm). The unit is light and isn't too difficult to handle and change pages with one hand. Not ergonomically perfect, but better than holding open a paperback, particularly a thick one.

The software isn't perfect, but it's usable and works fine for reading. I wouldn't read them "online", in front of a computer, but on a PDA it's been great. I was able to easily take the books on a business trip and to Jury Duty. I probably recharge the thing maybe once a month, so it lasts a long time as well.

Baen has other downloadable books too.

You will probably read faster using a normal book, simply because you have more real estate to read from. But overall it works pretty good. I'm going to get the first Honor Harrington book next. I recall reading it and it wasn't too horrible. I doubt I'll get through all 10.

But I like the form factor enough that I'm not really looking for other books until I've consumed this Baen stuff enough to be sick of it (and I read slowly recently anyway, the cat puts me to sleep...).

 

[Valarian]

The first couple of Honor Harrington books are available for download in Baen's Free Library, as is the first in the Starfire books (Crusade) and the first two in the "March ..." series.

 

[The Thing]

Well, I finished IFB, spoilers follow:
















It wasn't as bad as people said, and parts were quite good. It suffered from some of the typical weber flaws I've mentioned before: Impossibly and laughably perfect female lead character that makes you yawn by being so perfect constantly, villains so 1 dimensionally evil that they make the typical james bond villain look like a shakerperian character in comparison.

(At least weber managed not to beat me over the head with his social views this time.)

The worst parts, asides from the typical (inevitable?) weber flaws were the fact that the last surviving fury could, after millennia of sleep, ONLY be awakened by the main character who's strength, valor, will and other divine level attributes (yawn) summoned her across the void.

The fury herself wasn't a bad character, and developed nicely. The creation of ther AI was too rapid and she became too human a character too quickly, no doubt thanks to her link to the goddess main character.

All in all, a good novel about 2/3 the way thru with some serious flaws thruout and especially in act 3.

Still worth a read to traveller fans, just be sure to have the alka seltzer handy in case the sheer perfection of the main character begins to nauseate you like ti does me.

 

[The Thing]

BTW, are the "starfire" novels people have mentioned here based on a space wargame called "starfire"?

 

[Valarian]

BTW, are the "starfire" novels people have mentioned here based on a space wargame called "starfire"?

Yes they are

 

[aramis]

Webber was a developer for 2nd ed starfire, and instrumental in 3rd.

 

[Kharum1]

Now there is a game I haven't played in a very long while.

 

[aramis]

4th ed (Galactic and Ultra) is VERY different.

I'd like to see a "1.5 Ed"... take 1st ed + New Carrier Rules, and swithc to 1d10 tables to hit. (But keep the 1d6 for pt. def.)

 

[The Thing]

Webber was a developer for 2nd ed starfire, and instrumental in 3rd.

Oh god. That means he must have worked closely with the designer of the original starfire.

I pity him now.

 

[aramis]

SVC denies that assertion, Thing.

SVC was at ADB, while Webber was at TFG. TFG Bought Starfire from Cole. It was further developed at TFG, sans SVC...

SF I was SVC
SF II was Barry Jacobs (Tho' SVC is credited)
SF III David Webber

SF 2ndEd was David Crump and Webber
3rd Ed was David Webber.
(http://www.starfiredesign.com/starfire/history.html)

Up to Gorm-Khanate War, it was Webber with Crump credited in various ways.
Post GKW was SDS; Isurrection was based upon the novel of the same name.

 

[The Thing]

Oh, so david weber never met SVC.

Good.

 

[aramis]

Not true, either, Thing.

Quit leaping to illogical conclusions.

It's likely Webber and Cole have met; both worked the same cons with overlapping fans for years. But Cole SOLD TFG the SF game, which then got expanded by Jacobs, Webber, and Crump, then sold again to Lamb. Cole implied (recently) that he'd met Webber.

Cole was busy trying to be an Engineer, and working on SFB. To date, he's still doing both SFB and Civil Engineering. He's never taken much time to deal with Starfire since he sold it. That's often the way of the independent game designer... it sold, so someone else expands, revises, or adapts it for the new owner.