| Hell's Gate (Multiverse) (Multiverse) | 
 enlarge | Authors: David Weber, Linda Evans
Publisher: Baen Books,U.S.
Category: Book
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Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 359322
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 816
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.3
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.5 x 1.6
ISBN: 1416509399
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781416509394
ASIN: 1416509399
Publication Date: October 2, 2006
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 Not for everyone but don't be too quick to write this off ... September 20, 2008
This is the first in the "Multiverse" series by Dave Weber and Linda Evans is followed by the excellent "Hell's Gate." It tells the story of contact and increasingly of conflict between two civilisations, both spanning multiple universes.
Judging by the other reviews a lot of people apparently hated this: I didn't. Perhaps the problem is that it takes a long time to get going. Dave Weber and Linda Evans use a lot of pages to explain, first the setup of a highly complex set of universes, and second, how two universe-spanning civilisations, each of which comprises a majority of reasonably decent but fallible human beings, both come to believe that the other has attacked them.
I found this story set-up interesting, others may not. However, without wanting to give too much away, if you are looking for the kind of action in many of David Weber's other novels, this series looks likely to deliver it big time in subsequent volumes, and "Hell's Gate" explains how that happens.
To summarise the "Multiverse" opening position: between one and two centuries before the events of these novels, portals start to open between different versions of the planet earth - apparently between parallel timelines. Most of the different universes which are connected by these portals are not inhabited by intelligent life, but two have human civilisations. Both start to explore the new worlds to which their homeworlds are suddenly connected, and then each expands into these new worlds, experiencing over a century of peaceful colonisation and growth.
There is an explanation suggested for the fact that for over a century neither civilisation finds other humans. It is suggested that different timelines are splitting off from one another like lines radiating outward from a central point in all directions, and similar timelines tend not to collide because they are heading in the same direction: hence when timelines do intersect they tend to be very different, e.g. so different that humans never evolved.
But eventially they do meet. On a world new to both civilsations, a lone scout from a military survey party of the "Union of Arcana" encounters a single member of an armed civilian survey party from the civilisation which began on the world called Sharona. Nobody, including the reader, would ever know for certain who shot first, because one was killed and the other mortally wounded. At first each side believes it has been attacked.
Both civilisations now spread over hundreds of worlds, and their cultures have more in common than either realises, but their technology is utterly different. Sharona's is broadly similar to our science, and their engineering and construction abilities are in most respects about where our Earth was in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including railways, machine guns and heavy artillery. They don't have radio but do not need it because their scientists have discovered how to train people to use certain psionic talents such as telepathy.
Arcana, by contrast, has very little of what we would call engineering - the most advanced weapon they have which does not use psi-abilities/magic is the crossbow - but they have formidable weapons of a completely different type. Firstly they have trained creatures from their world, such as flying, fire-breathing dragons, which are just legends in ours: and their magical/psionic talents, while operating on different principles, are far more powerful than those of the Sharonians, and include the ability to store energy and information in crystals so as to be able to use them like a handgun or a laptop computer.
So when these two utterly different civilisations think that they have been attacked, each is able to inflict surprise after surprise on the other.
Will they be able to work out that decent people who are a majority of both sides ? Of are they doomed to a universe-spanning war?
Before I read these books I thought they might be just another rehash of John Barnes' "Timeline wars" stories of the battles against the Closers (e.g. Patton's Spaceship etc). Having now read the first two "Multiverse" books I think that does Weber and Evans an injustice. If you do like Barnes' "Timeline wars" books there is an excellent chance that you will like this series but it's not just a rehash of the same idea, there are a lot of very original aspects to the clash of civilisations in these books.
However, if you are the sort of reader who insists on lots of action - for example, if you loved most of Weber's Honorverse books but hated "War of Honor" or if you liked most of Harry Turtledove's "Worldwar" books but hated the "Second Contact" and "Homeward Bound" successors - then you may like the successor books but not "Hell's Gate."
Personally I greatly enjoyed both "Hell's Gate" and "Hell Hath No Fury."
Weber at his worst. August 3, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
1200 pages of tedium. Interesting idea, which is why I give it 2 stars, ruined by Weber's tendancy to explain every tiny aspect of his societies - particularly the politics - in the most mind-numbing detail. I don't know how much Linda Evans contributed but if it was significant she has certainly learned to copy his style with endless emotional and psychological analysis which contributes nothing to the plot. Even Weber's strong point, the combat scenes - which are few and far between in this book - are dull. Worst of all is to get to the end and discover that the entire book is nothing but a scene-setter, and I'm going to have to read the next book.
 Lousy August 1, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Weber's work started so well with well thought out action and a real plot. Then it deteriorated. Ending with this.
This novel is possibly as bad as science fiction can get - which is not good. A "sort of" plot is buried under endless agonizing by the characters. The text repeats verbatim sentences used in his earlier novels, if not that used in the previous chapter. Open the book at random to find at least 2 sentences in italics for emphasis on any page. Page upon page is used to explain why the character woke up with a headache (ok an exaggeration but a small one).
I would have failed O level English had I submitted this quality of work. I can only conclude Weber signed some kind of deal where he is paid by the page regardless of quality.
 Long to get going, but then turns out fine June 19, 2007
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
All right, this is not Honor Harrington and remember that the book is co-written by Linda Evans and she does bring in her writing style as well.
I found the first few chapters hard to read, I kept putting down and picking up the book, but finally got through. They set the scene and the characters and can get boring, but persevere as once you have got passed them the action picks up.
Neither side is presented as the good guys or the bad guys, just people, some who make mistakes, some who are in it for personal gain, while others are honourable.
The multiverse is confusing as the two sides refer to their own points of reference, but the reader has none to overlay on our world. The point being that all multiverse worlds have the same geography, and they all resemble the earth.
Not a ripping, page turner, but a book to read in your own time.
Not good January 21, 2007
10 out of 12 found this review helpful
I came to this via the Honor Harrington novels, as well as the Weber/White collaborations (In Death Ground, et seq.). I regard the Honorverse as one of the most interesting and coherent science fiction constructs I have encountered (well, until the last few). So, I bought this without any hesitation. And I have been regretting it ever since. I'm trying to finish it, honest. But it is so DULL!! A sweep across multiple universes, yes- but it spends all the time looking at people's tangled emotions in tiny, tiny segments of them. Dull, very dull. Think Thomas Covenant without the leprosy. And avoid.
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