To Challenge Heaven

By: David Weber, Chris Kennedy

Narrated by: Martyn Swain

In a universe teeming with predators, humanity needs friends. And fast.

We've come a long way in the forty years since the Shongairi attacked Earth, killed half its people, and then were driven away by an alliance of humans with the other sentient bipeds who inhabit our planet.

We took the technology they left behind, and rapidly built ourselves into a starfaring civilization. Because we haven't got a moment to lose. Because it's clear that there are even more powerful, more hostile aliens out there, and Earth needs allies.

But it also transpires that the Shongairi expedition that nearly destroyed our home planet ... wasn't an official one. That, indeed, its commander may have been acting as an unwitting cats-paw for the Founders, the ancient alliance of very old, very evil aliens who run the Hegemony that dominates our galaxy, and who hold the Shongairi, as they hold most non-Founder species, in not-so-benign contempt.

Indeed, it may turn out to be possible to turn the Shongairi into our allies against the Hegemony. There's just the small matter of the Shongairi honor code, which makes bushido look like a child's game. We might be able to make them our friends -- if we can crush their planetary defenses in the greatest battle we, or they, have ever seen.

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books.

©2024 David Weber (P)2024 Macmillan Audio

An awesome new David Weber series

This is an awesome series by David Weber, with a structure a little less complex than Honor Verse stories, but still deep enough to keep you involved throughout. More structured and story arc driven, this book is a seamless carry on from the second book. It gives a really positive view of humanity and its performance at its best, and endows the aliens with the burden of arrogance and being the "establishment". The authors use of honor code and devotion to it by the race that devastated Earth, and wrapping in vampires as actually people who are changed by nanotech that no one knew existed, is a really unique twist. Great story line, and I hope they continue to push the story out further. Hoping another novel in the series comes out soon. Great narration, well done, and very listenable and enjoyable.

Engrossing

Very good blow by blow of the Terran confederation jumping to the stars and becoming a galactic presence.
Hopefully we have not heard the end of the story. There is still more to learn about the galactic society we are facing.

Mediocre Compared to the Previous Installments

This third book felt like a rather lazy follow up, with a lot apparently happening "off screen" in the intervening time that was barely explained. Additionally a lot of time was wasted explaining the same exact events from multiple perspectives in too much detail which left me thinking "yes I already know exactly what happened here, get on with it".

The narrator was frankly terrible, making every character's spech pattern stilted and halting like a poor knock off of Captain Kirk. And he didn't even attempt an American accent on half the American characters, and when he did do an American accent it was atrocious and inconsistent.

Where is the rest of the book?

This book truly felt short which wasn't helped by the tacked on lengthy appendices. The story felt barebones and honestly lacking, something I think could have been overcome with some detail as to the build-up and integration of the two different points of interest after their inclusion.
The narration suffered from the Narrator overreaching when it comes to dialects. I found it jarring about half of the time. Would have been better with more than one narrator.

Not the same narrator as used for the previous books,

I know, it’s not an uncommon occurrence to have book’s sequels, narrated by different persons, but it can often be disconcerting for the listener.  And in in this instance, let’s just what has happened in this series, many alien names, and words are used, and when a listener gets used to those names and words pronounced in a certain manner, it causes disruption to the listener when hearing them, pronounced slightly different, and/or with different accents.

still needs a better narrator.

good story but the narrator is not good. nothing like listening to Midwestern Americans with South London accents.

The Story expansion is great buuuuut...

Um ? Why does every American sound Irish, Scottish, or like Moose from the old Archie cartoons? Love the direction the storyvhas moved in. I hope they keepnwriting.

old concept, nothing new in it.

some of the voices were off. female voices for male characters an so on. end

How well planned the alien cultures are.

The Terrans leap past the Hegemony’s tech level is too quick. However, the need for that would have become a survival instinct for Humanity.

It will be interesting to read the next installment.

Popcorn from Weber

This series continues to be enjoyable without standing out among Weber's work.
There are great foundations and red meat that Weber fans will enjoy: technological advancement, political evolution, and unabashed WWII-style "We decide to not get conquered" righteous activity.
But in terms of writing: This third installment continues to avoid a credible antagonist. There simply isn't anyone in the mix presenting a challenge that the heroes have to struggle or grow in order to overcome. It's mentioned on the horizon, but never appears on the stage.
Until Weber gets that crucial element of genre fiction back into his writing, I don't know how this series will proceed beyond mediocre but enjoyable.