RogerBW's Blog

Destiny's Shield, David Drake and Eric Flint 11 April 2021

1999 alternate-history war story, third of six books. Belisarius takes an army to help the Persians throw the invading Malwa out of Mesopotamia; his wife Antonina suppresses civil unrest in Alexandria.

So it's still fun, but it feels like a middle volume. I think that one of the problems here is that there still isn't really a sense of an overall strategic goal: Team Evil invades somewhere, Team Good goes to push it back, lots of clever strategy and tactics ensue. But we've got to know the principal cast, and there isn't much of a sense of progress here, other than "lots of enemy ships went out, fewer than two dozen came back"; I assume that the point of all this is that, in spite of Team Evil's casually-fielded massive armies, all those troop losses are eventually going to hurt them, but we don't see it hurting them.

The things I liked most from the second book, the smart opposition that makes the story more than just a contest of big and stupid versus small and clever, are largely gone (even the supposedly super-smart time-traveller who's aiding the enemy is on stage mostly to make a big mistake). There's never any sense of danger to the protagonists, or that their efforts might fail even to the extent of a small setback. They don't even lose arguments. This book is basically the climax of a conventional story, where the good guys finally have all the advantages and get to win, stretched out to book length. (I know people who argue that stories, and games, should end just before this point; they will not enjoy this book.)

And in spite of that it's not a bad book. It's enjoyable. The tactics and strategy are interesting, the royal canal between the Tigris and the Euphrates is more or less historical, and this is basically competence porn of smart people prevailing by doing things they're good at. The characterisation is often shallow, but this does at least mean that it's easy to keep track of who's who even as we shift between scenes and deal with a substantial cast. It's good crust, but it's still more crust than pie.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Previous in series: In the Heart of Darkness | Series: Belisarius | Next in series: Fortune's Stroke

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech aviation base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2022 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1