By Heresies Distressed by David Weber

Over a thousand years after the last humans fled Earth to escape an alien menace that tracked them by their technology, what was intended as a place where humanity could regenerate their numbers and eventually reclaim their place in the stars has become a prison under a religious theocracy that says that change and progress is wrong and bad.

At least one of the scientists on board the ship objected to what was being done to the colonists and tried to fight the rest, but her side lost, and was written into the "Holy Book" of the culture as a figure equivalent of Satan- a tempter who leads men astray.

But one young woman survived the war, albeit as an android. Nimue Alban had her consciousness transferred into the android body, which was then set to sleep until the time was right. Now, as Merlin, a warrior-monk, she is the closest advisor to King Cayleb of Charis, an island Kingdom open to innovation, if only to advance their merchant interests.

By continuing to innovate and produce deadlier weapons and more efficient ships, the Kingdom of Charis has fought back against the corrupt church and defeated the coalition of other island nations that fought against them, including Chisholm. But while Cayleb has made friends with some nations, like Emerald, he married the Queen of Chisholm, Sharleyan, and made her his Empress. More than just a political marriage, theirs is a true meeting of the minds, and as a gesture of peace to her defeated Kingdom, Cayleb leaves her in charge while making a visit to Chisholm to assuage the fears of the new subjects of his combined Empire- all the while making plans to attack and defeat the League of Corisande.

But as he plans and carries out the attack on Corisande, Sharleyan is ignorant of Cayleb's true reasons for fighting against the authority of the church, and his closest advisors are reluctant to admit her to the small group that knows the truth. But when a deadly conspiracy reaches out to engulf Sharleyan, Merlin must push his special powers to the utmost to save her- and when Sharleyan sees Merlin during the attack, the point is moot- now Cayleb and his advisors must bring Sharleyan into the inner circle with the knowledge of why they are really fighting the church. But how will Sharleyan react to learning the truth about the church?

Meanwhile, Cayleb is finding little resistance fighting Corisande with the help of Merlin's "eyes in the sky", but Prince Hektor, the leader of Corisande, has sent his son and daughter to safety. When Cayleb conquers Corisande, the church, to make more problems for Cayleb, has Hektor and his elder son killed by shooting them with the new guns, making it seem as though Cayleb had him killed, and making his surviving children into Cayleb's enemies. Can he win them over in time, or will they always believe he killed their father?

And meanwhile, the church is having its own problems. After so many years of holding back any sort of progress, they are having to adopt the innovations Cayleb adopted for their ships or cede the entire seas to Cayleb. Plus, their own slaughter of Cayleb's people is brought to light when Cayleb's men take the city in Delfahralk that the slaughter took place in. They capture all the members of the Inquisition and put them to death, and send copies of their records to all the nations to show that it was the members of the Inquisition that ordered the slaughter. The church has no choice but to do damage control and admit their complicity in the attack- but blame it on the members of the Inquisition in that city only.

But each setback is making the church leadership that much more determined to bring the Charisians to heel and to utterly destroy both Cayleb and Sharleyan- not to mention all their peoples. And Cayleb may be nearly invicible on the sea, but on the land, not so much. Once his campaign takes him from sea to land, can he overcome the armies of the church and the lords allied to the church?

David Weber is obviously having lots of fun with this series, hiding gems of names like Nahrman Baytes (Norman Bates) and Petair Sellehrs (Peter Sellers) in among mentions of other characters mentioned, both of whom are fairly important characters in the story (Nahrman Baytes being the Prince of Emerahld and Cayleb's master of Espionage). He also references titles that he uses in his Honor Harrington books as well- Gray Haven seemed pretty close to White Harbor.

But what keeps me coming back to this book, and this series, is both the military writing and the politics of Safehold, and the overarching story. Will the primarily maritime nation/empire of Chisholm be able to defeat the near-overwhelming power of the Church, both on land and at sea? Will humanity ever find out the truth about Safehold, and will they be able to accept the truth, even if they do? And if they do find out and accept it, what will remain of the Church that has ruled them for so long? And what will happen amongst those clerics who truly believed in the church and its doctored history- what will happen to them?

All these questions and more I look forward to the answers that will hopefully be answered in books to come. Already we can see the church is weakening from her positions- she is slowly adopting the Chisholmian innovations- becauss she must do so or be completely ineffective and whipped at sea And since they claim innovation is bad at best and a tool of Shan-wei (the Devil) at worst, they have already conceded that they must adopt some innovation as well. Slowly but surely, they are slipping, both from the moral high ground they claim to own, and from the positions the church says they must take. How long can it be before they fall completely? Or before the Church's dogma is destroyed by pragmatism? Honestly, I can't wait to find out. Highly recommended.