Hell Hath No Fury (Multiverse II) [Mass Market Paperback]

This is the second in the "Multiverse" series by Dave Weber and Linda Evans and follows on from "Hell's Gate." Tells the story of contact and increasingly of conflict between two civilisations, both spanning multiple universes.

Judging by the actions of reviewers and other Amazon customers a lot of people didn't like these books but others did and I was one of them.

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 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. At first neither finds any sign of intelligent life.

Then 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 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. Neither do they have any form of aircraft.

Arcana, by contrast, has very little of what we would call engineering - the most advanced weapon they which also exists for real in our world 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. Secondly their magical/psionic talents, while operating on different principles, are 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 find themselves at war, each is able to inflict surprise after surprise on the other.

At the start of this book the two civilisations have made a temporary truce after a series of clashes of arms. Negotiations are under way, which the decent people who are a majority of both sides want to succeed. Unfortunately both sides have their share of wicked individuals. On the Arcanan side, a country called Mythal is ruled by a hereditary caste of magic users called the shakira, who resent the fact that the Union of Arcana constitution gives the other castes some rights and restrains the power of the shakira.

An evil conspiracy of these shakira has some of its people in key positions among the the Union of Arcana army units and diplomats who are dealing with the Sharonians. These individuals decide that provoking a war with the Sharonians is the best way to trigger the conditions which will let the Shakira launch a bid for total power in Arcana ...

Soon both sides will have more victims to mourn. More stories of atrocities, mostly true when told by the Sharonian side, mostly black propaganda spread by the Shakira and their unwitting dupes when told by the Union of Arcana, will lead to a downward spiral of ever-greater anger between these two nations and make a multiverse-spanning war look increasingly inevitable ...

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 you will probably love 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.

There is quite a lot of scene-setting before we get to the fighting. This is because as Weber and Evans need some time to create a plausible story with heroes on both sides. After all, it does not immediately seem obvious how two societies, both of which contain a majority of decent people who initially would have wanted peace, and both of which have 100% reliable lie-detectors, could possibly both come to believe that the other society are evil villains who have attacked them. Weber uses some of the same story devices as in his Honor Harrington novel "War of Honor" and I suspect those of his usual fans who didn't like that book will not like "Hell Hath No Fury" either for similar reasons.

But although there will be some readers who don't like this series there will be others who do, and personally I enjoyed both "Hell's Gate" and "Hell Hath No Fury."

Two races, one using magic one technology of approx 1918 era meet up and due to an accident a war breaks out.

Not Dave Weber's very best work, that the Honourverse stuf IMHO, but it is still excellent and well worth a read. Great for a trip but not something I couldn't put down when I wanted (not like HH stories that keep me awake all hours)

Part II of the multiverse series. The Arcanians and Sharonians are heading towards inevitable war, both blaming the other for starting it. The politics, particularly on the Sharonian side is compelling, with a sub-plot involving Machiavellian deviousness to the throne of Emperor of Sharona in play.

The story has been dragged out by superfluous narrative and descriptive prose, but nevertheless still compelling. I would give this 3.5 stars rather than just 3. Worth the read? Yes. Could be less verbose? Yes. Although the book itself is not particularly long (just over 600 pages), the first one (Hell's Gate) is 1200 pages. As a rule, I like long books, but they have to be compelling (Peter F. Hamilton is a good example). This is not as gripping as past stories by David Weber, but nevertheless it does make you hanker for the next book in the series.

No sign of part III - have e-mailed the publisher, but no response yet.