What do you think?
Rate this book
The Gordian Division #1
The Gordian Protocol
NEW STANDALONE NOVEL FROM NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR OF THE HONOR HARRINGTON SERIES, DAVID WEBER A Man of Two Worlds Doctor Benjamin Schröder was far from a man of action. In fact, he was a history teacher—Chairman of the Castle Rock University history department—and if his life wasn't perfect, it was close. Until, that is the discussion of his star student Elzbietá Abramowski's dissertation on Operation Oz, the Pacific Allies' invasion of Vladivostok, staged through occupied Japan to meet their Imperial German allies, was brutally interrupted. The psychotic episode that turned his entire world upside down struck with absolutely no warning, and it was more terrifying than anything he should have been able to imagine, leaving him with a complete, incredibly detailed set of false, nightmare memories. Not just of his own life, but of an entire, ghastly world in which Operation Oz had never happened. In which millions of helpless civilians had been systematically slaughtered in extermination camps that were horrific beyond belief. In which there was still a Soviet Union. In which the Chinese Communists had succeeded, the Korean Peninsula had been permanently divided, thousands of nuclear warheads had spread their deadly threat across the entire Earth, and the Middle East was a festering sore of bloodshed, fanaticism, and terrorism. The knowledge that those false memories had come from somewhere inside his own psyche was terrible, but with the help of Commander Abramowski, a highly decorated Navy fighter pilot who’d been forced to deal with her own PTSD after crippling combat wounds invalided her out of service, he’s put his life back together. With Elzbietá's support, he's learned to deal with the nightmares, to recognize that they are onlynightmares that can't—and won't—be permitted to rule his life. Until, that is, a lunatic named Raibert Kaminski knocks on his door one afternoon with an impossible and horrifying story about alternate realities, time travel, temporal knots, and more than a dozen doomed universes which must inevitably die if the temporal storm front rushing towards the distant future isn't stopped. He has to be lying, of course. Or completely insane. But what if he's not a madman after all? What if he's actually telling the truth? That possibility is the most terrifying thing of all. Because if he is, the false memories aren't false after all, and that other world is just as real as the one Schröder has always known. And if that's true, Benjamin Schröder is about to become the greatest mass murderer in human history, because he has to choose. Whether he acts or refuses to act, Benjamin Schröder is the one man who will decide which universe lives and which dies, along with every star system, every galaxy—and every single human being—in it. Including the woman he's discovered he loves more than life itself. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management). About The Gordian “. . .[A] fun and thrilling standalone from Weber and Holo. . . . time travel enthusiasts will enjoy the moral dilemmas, nonstop action, and crisp writing.”—Publishers Weekly About David “…a balanced mix of interstellar intrigue, counterespionage, and epic fleet action…with all the hard- and software details and tactical proficiency that Weber delivers like no one else; along with a large cast of well-developed, believable characters, giving each clash of fleets emotional weight.”—Booklist “. . . moves. . .
629 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 7, 2019
305 people are currently reading
790 people want to read
About the author
David Weber
328 books4,561 followersDavid Mark Weber is an American science fiction and fantasy author. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1952.
Many of his stories have military, particularly naval, themes, and fit into the military science fiction genre. He frequently places female leading characters in what have been traditionally male roles.
One of his most popular and enduring characters is Honor Harrington whose alliterated name is an homage to C.S. Forester's character Horatio Hornblower and her last name from a fleet doctor in Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander . Her story, together with the "Honorverse" she inhabits, has been developed through 16 novels and six shared-universe anthologies, as of spring 2013 (other works are in production). In 2008, he donated his archive to the department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University.
Many of his books are available online, either in their entirety as part of the Baen Free Library or, in the case of more recent books, in the form of sample chapters (typically the first 25-33% of the work).
http://us.macmillan.com/author/davidw...
Many of his stories have military, particularly naval, themes, and fit into the military science fiction genre. He frequently places female leading characters in what have been traditionally male roles.
One of his most popular and enduring characters is Honor Harrington whose alliterated name is an homage to C.S. Forester's character Horatio Hornblower and her last name from a fleet doctor in Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander . Her story, together with the "Honorverse" she inhabits, has been developed through 16 novels and six shared-universe anthologies, as of spring 2013 (other works are in production). In 2008, he donated his archive to the department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University.
Many of his books are available online, either in their entirety as part of the Baen Free Library or, in the case of more recent books, in the form of sample chapters (typically the first 25-33% of the work).
http://us.macmillan.com/author/davidw...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 131 reviews
May 10, 2019
I grew up loving Weber books. I've reread the early Honor Harrington books numerous times, I loved the Bazel books, I devoured the (sadly incomplete) empire of man novels. I think at this point it's pretty clear that Weber is prone to ranting about modern politics, and lacks an editor who will rein him in.
I was told this was a time travel book. I enjoy standalones. I thought that maybe having a co-writer would rein in Weber's worst impulses. Yet the first chapter - in an alternate universe!! - has the viewpoint character ranting about a queer person and political correctness on college campuses. It's like reading the blog of that uncle everyone has, who watches way too much fox news.
I don't know if it got better after that. I gave up, not wanting to read another hundred page rant interfering with a great story. I really wish I could get early David Weber back, with an editor who takes out the ranting and leaves the rest.
I was told this was a time travel book. I enjoy standalones. I thought that maybe having a co-writer would rein in Weber's worst impulses. Yet the first chapter - in an alternate universe!! - has the viewpoint character ranting about a queer person and political correctness on college campuses. It's like reading the blog of that uncle everyone has, who watches way too much fox news.
I don't know if it got better after that. I gave up, not wanting to read another hundred page rant interfering with a great story. I really wish I could get early David Weber back, with an editor who takes out the ranting and leaves the rest.
August 12, 2019
David Weber had gone from one of the best Science Fiction writers to one of the worst hacks to ever write. His last books have been so bad I am unable to finish most of them, and I no longer purchase first edition hardbacks for my library. I don't understand how someone can go from writing books like "A Beautiful Friendship", "In Fury Born " and "The Apocalypse Troll " to writing books like "Midst Toil and Tribulation". He totally destroyed the entire series after releasing that title, and I dumped the series and have never purchased another of his books since. Any others like "The Gordian Protocol" I get from the library, and have been unable to finish because of his new writing style introduced in the book "Midst Toil and Tribulation". I don't know if he changed editors, his editor died, or he is developing Dementia like A.E. van Vogt did in trying to finish his series on SLAN. Whatever his problem, he has lost me as a fan. There are to many new and upcoming authors to waste reading time on David Weber.
May 28, 2019
Read this due to the alternate history aspect. Turned out it was hopelessly over-written time-patrol military sf, full of logical fallacies, technobabble, etc. Only finished because I was hoping to read a clear description of the historical divergence, and it didn't finally come out until around page 400.
January 25, 2019
Great promise which turned out to be a bust - essentially a time-patrol kind of adventure lacking any depth and with the suspension of disbelief flying off the window fairly soon: just as a simple example it is mentioned how the leader of the time patrol in the "crooked universe" - the one that created a temporal knot that must be unraveled to prevent the destruction of 15 other universes at the cost of course of destroying this one, so obviously said time patrol leader is opposed to the main heroes - goes back in time to spy on his rivals so nobody in the local power structure dares confront him, which shows he can time travel to his immediate past in his universe and come back, but 1: he doesn't think to go back in time and prevent the good guysTM escaping his prison with their secret tech - yes he doesn't know about it when the good guys chrono-vehicle appears in his universe but he knows it when they escape, so for example why not just go a few days back in time and tell himself to shoot them on sight and 2; when he tries to ambush the 21th century hero of the blurb to prevent the good guys using his knowledge and is thwarted why not go a few days in the past and simply kill him and so on and so forth
Some humor saves it from being a complete disaster, but I would strongly recommend staying away from this.
Some humor saves it from being a complete disaster, but I would strongly recommend staying away from this.
dnf
August 22, 2019I was really hoping it would be interesting and not obnoxiously political. Alas, no. I quit when we met Our Academic Hero and he was being accused of misgendering and microaggressions. I am certain he was guilty.
May 9, 2019
This was so horrible I stopped reading after 15 minutes and deleted it.
December 22, 2020
It would be a waste of time to write a scathing review, but consider the book scathed nonetheless.
December 2, 2022
Let's start by explaining the technology of time travel as used in this series, the characters are traveling to the Crack of Doom to destroy the One Ring. Yes it's mostly one giant chase thru time with a few interludes thrown in to help pace the action, science in service of the plot. There are some decent characters along with some loathsome slime and it comes to a satisfying conclusion after several twists and turns. A fun adventure story that's better than many of his other recent works.
February 6, 2020
Review of Gordian Protocol by David Weber
For those who are impatient, my opinion is that Gordian Protocol is the best time travel novel since the Pliocene Exiles novels by Julian May. If that's all you wanted to know, go read it.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Don't read on if you don't want spoilers. I'll try not to disclose the plot and story details, but in order to say why I like the book, certain important details need to be dealt with. You have been warned.
Because of the complexity of the ideas on the book, first of all, lets clear up some important points.
1. The book begins with one protagonist dealing with Social Justice issues at his place of work. If you persevere in reading, you will quickly discover that these matters have absolutely nothing to do with the main story and only act to establish the mundane world of our hero.
2. Although this is a time travel story, it is established very early on that the theory and experience of time travel is that you cannot change history, no matter what time travellers do in the past. Thus the main use of time travel is archaeological and for historical research. It also leads to some fairly unscrupulous and immoral activity, which is the first conflict point of the book. This concept of time travel is important to the story as it eliminates the time paradox problems and what in the novel series "Time Wars" was called "time fugue". In other words, I go back and make a change in time to "fix" something I don't like in today's world. Then someone else goes back to prevent my change, and I go even further back to stop their "fix", and they go further back to fix my fix …. ad infinitum. In the world of Gordian Protocol this doesn't work. BUT this all changes when the critical event of the plot occurs and suddenly everything changes although there is still no time fugue. (I won't go into detail).
However, time travel even under this "no effect" status does also have military and criminal implications. The past becomes a limitless hiding and staging place for rebels and criminals. They can go back in time, build up and prepare, move physically to their target location, and then jump back into the present to strike. Obviously, some kind of militarised time force would be needed if the world was one where rebels and terrorists still existed. But note, this force is not a "Time Patrol" in the sense of protecting the "original" history, because as stated above, you cannot change time.
All right. With that covered, what did I like about the book?
First of all I liked the nuanced and well thought out time travel premise. The main characters are historians, not military men (there is an ex-military woman who is a main character), which is a refreshing change from Space Marines or even Time Marines. The time travel machines/ships are interesting and impressive.
Nanite technology plays an important part, both good and bad, and is applied to everyday life as well as having military uses. It actually changes the way things are done, without being "magic".
Due to the changes in the universe of the novel due to the "Gordian Knot" concept of things going very wrong in the time stream, AI is portrayed intelligently both as being good and bad in a nuanced way, and not the usual "AI revolts" idea that is so heavily over used in SF.
The concept of digitising the human mind and personality is also explored in an intelligent and sort of "Altered Carbon" way, but with an interesting social twist.
Unlike many time travel stories, there is a lot of combat between time machines/ships, manoeuvring through both space and time simultaneously. In the military realm, weapons, drones, and even synthetic bodies are used in interesting and sensible ways. If you like military SF (which I do), you will like this book.
There are well written and interesting personal relationships, ranging from romance and friendships, to soul crushing dilemmas and sacrifices on the part of both the good guys and the (nuanced) baddies.
In general I liked the POV of the story told mainly through the eyes of two historians who are forced to become action heroes and a huge and swirling land/time scape.
What did I not like about the book?
The start was a bit confusing due to characters being introduced in several time periods and with one character actually "seeing" two versions of history (including his own life), leading him to think he had a mental breakdown. However once the main story gets going, everything is explained in a satisfactory manner.
Both Russia and China are basically written out of the book's world in a somewhat wish fulfilment manner with the only concession being the use of Mandarin in one character's hybrid language. The entire concept of the Soviet Union is basically wiped out by the military brilliance of the Western powers. It simplifies the world building, and I'm sure satisfies the views of the authors, but I would have preferred to have seen current day Russia and China somehow worked into the world of the future, rather than having Stalin and Mao both conveniently exterminated. On the other hand I did like how Hitler was handled.
So in summary, great book. Read it, especially if you are a fan of military SF and time travel. A very rich back story and no over powered heroes.
For those who are impatient, my opinion is that Gordian Protocol is the best time travel novel since the Pliocene Exiles novels by Julian May. If that's all you wanted to know, go read it.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Don't read on if you don't want spoilers. I'll try not to disclose the plot and story details, but in order to say why I like the book, certain important details need to be dealt with. You have been warned.
Because of the complexity of the ideas on the book, first of all, lets clear up some important points.
1. The book begins with one protagonist dealing with Social Justice issues at his place of work. If you persevere in reading, you will quickly discover that these matters have absolutely nothing to do with the main story and only act to establish the mundane world of our hero.
2. Although this is a time travel story, it is established very early on that the theory and experience of time travel is that you cannot change history, no matter what time travellers do in the past. Thus the main use of time travel is archaeological and for historical research. It also leads to some fairly unscrupulous and immoral activity, which is the first conflict point of the book. This concept of time travel is important to the story as it eliminates the time paradox problems and what in the novel series "Time Wars" was called "time fugue". In other words, I go back and make a change in time to "fix" something I don't like in today's world. Then someone else goes back to prevent my change, and I go even further back to stop their "fix", and they go further back to fix my fix …. ad infinitum. In the world of Gordian Protocol this doesn't work. BUT this all changes when the critical event of the plot occurs and suddenly everything changes although there is still no time fugue. (I won't go into detail).
However, time travel even under this "no effect" status does also have military and criminal implications. The past becomes a limitless hiding and staging place for rebels and criminals. They can go back in time, build up and prepare, move physically to their target location, and then jump back into the present to strike. Obviously, some kind of militarised time force would be needed if the world was one where rebels and terrorists still existed. But note, this force is not a "Time Patrol" in the sense of protecting the "original" history, because as stated above, you cannot change time.
All right. With that covered, what did I like about the book?
First of all I liked the nuanced and well thought out time travel premise. The main characters are historians, not military men (there is an ex-military woman who is a main character), which is a refreshing change from Space Marines or even Time Marines. The time travel machines/ships are interesting and impressive.
Nanite technology plays an important part, both good and bad, and is applied to everyday life as well as having military uses. It actually changes the way things are done, without being "magic".
Due to the changes in the universe of the novel due to the "Gordian Knot" concept of things going very wrong in the time stream, AI is portrayed intelligently both as being good and bad in a nuanced way, and not the usual "AI revolts" idea that is so heavily over used in SF.
The concept of digitising the human mind and personality is also explored in an intelligent and sort of "Altered Carbon" way, but with an interesting social twist.
Unlike many time travel stories, there is a lot of combat between time machines/ships, manoeuvring through both space and time simultaneously. In the military realm, weapons, drones, and even synthetic bodies are used in interesting and sensible ways. If you like military SF (which I do), you will like this book.
There are well written and interesting personal relationships, ranging from romance and friendships, to soul crushing dilemmas and sacrifices on the part of both the good guys and the (nuanced) baddies.
In general I liked the POV of the story told mainly through the eyes of two historians who are forced to become action heroes and a huge and swirling land/time scape.
What did I not like about the book?
The start was a bit confusing due to characters being introduced in several time periods and with one character actually "seeing" two versions of history (including his own life), leading him to think he had a mental breakdown. However once the main story gets going, everything is explained in a satisfactory manner.
Both Russia and China are basically written out of the book's world in a somewhat wish fulfilment manner with the only concession being the use of Mandarin in one character's hybrid language. The entire concept of the Soviet Union is basically wiped out by the military brilliance of the Western powers. It simplifies the world building, and I'm sure satisfies the views of the authors, but I would have preferred to have seen current day Russia and China somehow worked into the world of the future, rather than having Stalin and Mao both conveniently exterminated. On the other hand I did like how Hitler was handled.
So in summary, great book. Read it, especially if you are a fan of military SF and time travel. A very rich back story and no over powered heroes.
February 10, 2019
Very good, I look forward to the rest of this series
May 25, 2019
I must admit I was hesitant to read this book. Time travel and multi-universe novels are not my favorite types of science fiction. In the past the only author who has written time travel science fiction that I really liked was the great Keith Laumer. That being said I decided to read this because it was co-authored by David Weber who is at present my favorite science fiction fro both past and present. I have never read any of Jacob Holo's works but David Weber always teams up with great authors when he does in fact team up. This book was up to the standards I expect when I read anything by David Weber.
Now about the book.
There was a lot of action, a cast of interesting characters, time loops, paradoxes and alternate timelines. There was also lots of history given which was very well researched and vital to the storyline. The story was very complicated and as I am not a writer too difficult for me to describe in a coherent manner. I will say if you are a fan of David Weber like I am you will want to read this even if you don't normally like time travel science fiction. If you do like time travel science fiction then so much the better. I will also be checking out Jacob Holo's books! Anyone who writes with David Weber is in my opinion worth looking into.
Now about the book.
There was a lot of action, a cast of interesting characters, time loops, paradoxes and alternate timelines. There was also lots of history given which was very well researched and vital to the storyline. The story was very complicated and as I am not a writer too difficult for me to describe in a coherent manner. I will say if you are a fan of David Weber like I am you will want to read this even if you don't normally like time travel science fiction. If you do like time travel science fiction then so much the better. I will also be checking out Jacob Holo's books! Anyone who writes with David Weber is in my opinion worth looking into.
April 7, 2020
After a bunch of questionable books from Weber I mainly read because I liked the books before it, finally one I really enjoyed again. One with a good story, plenty of action, and not filled with 100 of similar names I mix up all the time.
Overall the reviews are not great, for two reasons:
1. Some dislike the epilogue, I didn't have much issues with it.
2. Chapter 2. The political views of this character aren't really that far from the center (imo), it just is that 90% of the chapter is pissing of the traditional left wing of politics, and 10% off the chapter is pissing off the traditional right wing. 100% of the chapter is useless. Serious, you can freely skip the entire chapter, it is just a political rant which isn't relevant for the further storyline. There is one comparison made halfway in the book based on chapter 2, but that comparison makes no sense regardless if you read this second chapter.
So my five star rating is based on the book excluding the second chapter. I really enjoyed it, but I have not a clue how the second chapter got past any editor. At most you should skim that chapter, otherwise just skip it alltogether.
Overall the reviews are not great, for two reasons:
1. Some dislike the epilogue, I didn't have much issues with it.
2. Chapter 2. The political views of this character aren't really that far from the center (imo), it just is that 90% of the chapter is pissing of the traditional left wing of politics, and 10% off the chapter is pissing off the traditional right wing. 100% of the chapter is useless. Serious, you can freely skip the entire chapter, it is just a political rant which isn't relevant for the further storyline. There is one comparison made halfway in the book based on chapter 2, but that comparison makes no sense regardless if you read this second chapter.
So my five star rating is based on the book excluding the second chapter. I really enjoyed it, but I have not a clue how the second chapter got past any editor. At most you should skim that chapter, otherwise just skip it alltogether.
September 2, 2019
A cracking good time travel adventure, but chock full of characters I began to forget as soon as I finished it.
This was odd to me, but usually Weber has characters that you care about and want to see not just kicking tail, but have a happy ending as well. I got all that here, but it just felt forced for some reason. After I put the book down, I realized a few hours later I couldn't recall last names and even got Raibert's name wrong when I first started working on this review.
That made me trash the original and type this. The time travel explanations and why the timestream is 'knotted' were quite good and it's obvious that a lot of thought went into them. That kept me interested throughout the story, and even drew me in enough that I looked up to discover it was 1 am a couple days ago and I had read for nearly three hours straight.
If you're a serious Weber or Holo fan, this is the book for you. It's still a good tale, but I wouldn't put it on a top ten to read list.
Find it. Buy it. Read it.
This was odd to me, but usually Weber has characters that you care about and want to see not just kicking tail, but have a happy ending as well. I got all that here, but it just felt forced for some reason. After I put the book down, I realized a few hours later I couldn't recall last names and even got Raibert's name wrong when I first started working on this review.
That made me trash the original and type this. The time travel explanations and why the timestream is 'knotted' were quite good and it's obvious that a lot of thought went into them. That kept me interested throughout the story, and even drew me in enough that I looked up to discover it was 1 am a couple days ago and I had read for nearly three hours straight.
If you're a serious Weber or Holo fan, this is the book for you. It's still a good tale, but I wouldn't put it on a top ten to read list.
Find it. Buy it. Read it.
June 23, 2019
All in all, the book is a good story after the first 40-50 pages. I would give it four stars if it wasn't for the opening. The first 40-50 pages serve no purpose other than to tell a good 30-40% of this country not to read the book, which is an impressive sales tactic. The only relevance of the first few pages is to troll any liberal readers into putting down the book, and then promptly turns off all politics for the rest of the book. I'm a pretty moderate person, but I felt like it was over the top. If I hadn't gotten the book from the public library, I don't think I would read the book...I don't read these books for politics, I read them for pulpy good space-time action.
If the rest of the books can leave politics behind, I will read them.
If the rest of the books can leave politics behind, I will read them.
June 19, 2019
This was a really fun and fast paced book. Really enjoyable.
November 5, 2024
An interesting book which deal with time travel. The beginning was a bit confusing in that the story tells of the same person in two different time lines and until I figured this out, I was a bit confused. Doing this, does help tell the story.
The characters are creative and interesting. The ending was well done,
I look forward to reading the others in this series.
The characters are creative and interesting. The ending was well done,
I look forward to reading the others in this series.
July 22, 2021
Ahh, yes, time travel repair at it's best. I generally like stories like this one, and although this one this one had time lines that absolutely didn't appeal to me, the overall story was a very good one indeed. Very well done, and now I have another series to watch.
July 8, 2020
This was a fun little frolic through space and time (though mostly time ;-) ). The writing was engaging and fun to read, and the base concept, although used in many other sci-fi stories, was still fresh and well-executed to maintain interest. Definitely recommend as a light, fun summer read!
August 31, 2025
I wanted to like this book so much more than I actually enjoyed it. In many ways, it feels like a throwback to the science fiction I read as a teenager. Interesting ideas and world mechanics. Unfortunately, it also feels quite dated (the chapter about 'wokeness' feels very 2018, and the whole plot seemed to stop for the author to make a point). However, by far the worst thing, I did not like ANY of the characters. Not necessarily a problem in fiction where three dimensional characters are presented, but I kept getting the feeling that the author and plot was demanding that I did like them. As it is, although I am curious about the other books, and think that the universe has a lot of potential, I have decided to leave it here. There just were too many repelling aspects for me to go back, as much as I respect what the authors were attempting to do.
April 23, 2019
The Gordian Protocol by David Weber and Jacob Holo
The note that this is a standalone novel makes me wonder if that is in response to the backlash of the multiverse series that Weber stopped several years ago without bringing it to any conclusion. I know I was highly annoyed that I read three books that just stopped with no wrap up. I read on several forums others who were also frustrated. This book makes it clear that it is a stand alone regardless of the fact the way it ends sets up a logical sequel at least it was wrapped up. Enough ranting, this book deals with a multiverse and time travel. The last couple of books I read by Weber were wordy and not a lot of action so I will attribute the success of this book to Holo. There is plenty of action and excitement with a solid but knotty plot.
I enjoyed the paradoxes and the settling of same with regards to time travel. I also appreciated the sentiment regarding the dangers of unbridled bureaucracy. The characters were often amusing and I liked the way AI was portrayed. In particular the hurt feelings on the part of the time machine.
This was an entertaining book and I recommend it.
The note that this is a standalone novel makes me wonder if that is in response to the backlash of the multiverse series that Weber stopped several years ago without bringing it to any conclusion. I know I was highly annoyed that I read three books that just stopped with no wrap up. I read on several forums others who were also frustrated. This book makes it clear that it is a stand alone regardless of the fact the way it ends sets up a logical sequel at least it was wrapped up. Enough ranting, this book deals with a multiverse and time travel. The last couple of books I read by Weber were wordy and not a lot of action so I will attribute the success of this book to Holo. There is plenty of action and excitement with a solid but knotty plot.
I enjoyed the paradoxes and the settling of same with regards to time travel. I also appreciated the sentiment regarding the dangers of unbridled bureaucracy. The characters were often amusing and I liked the way AI was portrayed. In particular the hurt feelings on the part of the time machine.
This was an entertaining book and I recommend it.
May 13, 2019
Writing and characters were embarrassingly simple and stereotypical at times. The story was interesting and the battles were fun, but I was hoping for more...
March 15, 2022
So, right up front, I agree with everyone else who has ranted about Weber inserting his politics into this book. There are a solid 20 pages right at the beginning where he just rants about the eeeeeeeevil liberal takeover of academia and how intolerant the Left is in its demand of tolerance. For whatever it's worth, I agree with him to some small extent that there are extreme progressives who think that way, even while utterly loathing the other 90% of the blanket statements and right-wing nonsense talking points he vomits onto the page. I bounced off that rant HARD, to the point I very nearly closed the book and returned it to the library, never to finish.
But I didn't. I soldiered through, and thankfully those 20 pages are only echoed very briefly in the meat of the story and once more at the very end, played for laughs. The rest of the story is a decently interesting time-travel romp; the old cliche of cleverly twisted and turned on its head. It's pretty fun, and I mostly enjoyed the ride.
But the real reason I wanted to write this review is because of the surrealness I felt reading this particular book at this particular time. As I write, today is Day 20 of Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Some of the characters in this book are Ukranian nationalists and citizens who fought for their country in WWII, in the fictional war that exists in this book where
But I didn't. I soldiered through, and thankfully those 20 pages are only echoed very briefly in the meat of the story and once more at the very end, played for laughs. The rest of the story is a decently interesting time-travel romp; the old cliche of cleverly twisted and turned on its head. It's pretty fun, and I mostly enjoyed the ride.
But the real reason I wanted to write this review is because of the surrealness I felt reading this particular book at this particular time. As I write, today is Day 20 of Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Some of the characters in this book are Ukranian nationalists and citizens who fought for their country in WWII, in the fictional war that exists in this book where
September 27, 2020
Technically I did not finish this novel. Today is just the day I decided that I will never finish it so it is no longer on my currently-reading shelf. It would be nice if Goodreads has a Never Finished bookshelf alternative. I was very disappointed by this novel. David Weber is my favorite author. I probably read 50+ novels written by David Weber. The vast majority of his novels were 4/5 stars. If I could give some of the novels 6 stars I would have done so. With all that being said this is by far the worst. I sincerely regret having to make that statement. If this is your first David Weber novel and dislike it as much as I did, then don't give up on him. His other work is simply phenomenal.
March 23, 2019
I don't even know where to begin. I will admit that the beginning of this book was a little confusing with the crossing of time traveling and different universes. But by the middle of the book I was fully entrenched and excited to continue on the amazing journey that was spread out before me. The explanations and the amazing detail that they put into this time traveling book was absolutely amazing! By the end of the book absolutely everything made sense and I had a deeper understanding of just how time travel could work. Hats off to this book and the amazing job done by the two authors! I really hope that there are sequels because I want to read more!
July 27, 2021
The Gordian Protocol differs from many of the time travel novels I have read in the past. The novel incorporates a far more unique approach to time travel physics and the consequences actions can have on the timeline. Weber incorporates an intriguing method of creating alternate timelines while also making use of a wide variety of advanced and very fictional(currently) technologies. The characters are mostly forgettable despite efforts to make them quirky and remarkable which mostly falls flat. The story is well written, but lacks a certain energy. Final analysis: an impressive story but not a spectacular one.
October 20, 2019
Your heart is in your throat throughout this densely-written narrative. Great fun!
August 20, 2019
I'd really want to put this on a 3.5 - this is a good book but it has its definite flaws.
The Gordian Protocol starts slow - you're going to see some discussion of modern politics out of the gate and more particularly, modern college atmospheres. This seems to be a point that alienates some readers, but it is worth noting this is only a thing in the first few chapters with it (there are other political points ala Weber but not as pronounced).
This does have a payoff as it helps ground the world in our current time as you can see those discussions happening and help spot the alternate history and work on where things diverged. Essentially, it's a bit long set up there before the adventure begins and the main-billed character fades out some after that for a little while.
Overall, the story while prone to Weber info dumps is enjoyable with a nice cast of characters that are on an interesting adventure to save time. There are a handful of temporal paradoxes even at the end, but largely time travel is consistent within it and pulls off its trick well and the adversaries are good although on some of them one wishes there was a bit more time exploring there. Several themes could have been explored further and there are some interesting ideas that don't get as dived into as they could.
I wouldn't call Gordian Protocol a must-read or a classic but it's enjoyable, especially if you are fine with Weber's style. It doesn't go into infodumps as much as Safehold can but it still has them and it doesn't (... after the opening) riff on modern politics as much as Honor Harrington but again it does some.
Being a standalone does mean it has limited investment in time needed.
Sorry to Jacob Holo for not mentioning him here, but I don't know his work so for me what stood out in many areas for comparison and stylistic notes for a review were Weber's trends. That said you helped create an enjoyable time traveling alternate history read!
The Gordian Protocol starts slow - you're going to see some discussion of modern politics out of the gate and more particularly, modern college atmospheres. This seems to be a point that alienates some readers, but it is worth noting this is only a thing in the first few chapters with it (there are other political points ala Weber but not as pronounced).
This does have a payoff as it helps ground the world in our current time as you can see those discussions happening and help spot the alternate history and work on where things diverged. Essentially, it's a bit long set up there before the adventure begins and the main-billed character fades out some after that for a little while.
Overall, the story while prone to Weber info dumps is enjoyable with a nice cast of characters that are on an interesting adventure to save time. There are a handful of temporal paradoxes even at the end, but largely time travel is consistent within it and pulls off its trick well and the adversaries are good although on some of them one wishes there was a bit more time exploring there. Several themes could have been explored further and there are some interesting ideas that don't get as dived into as they could.
I wouldn't call Gordian Protocol a must-read or a classic but it's enjoyable, especially if you are fine with Weber's style. It doesn't go into infodumps as much as Safehold can but it still has them and it doesn't (... after the opening) riff on modern politics as much as Honor Harrington but again it does some.
Being a standalone does mean it has limited investment in time needed.
Sorry to Jacob Holo for not mentioning him here, but I don't know his work so for me what stood out in many areas for comparison and stylistic notes for a review were Weber's trends. That said you helped create an enjoyable time traveling alternate history read!
February 15, 2022
Fucking awful. Could not pass 100 pages. I don't know what's happened to Weber, dementia as other reviewers have suggested, or what, but the ability to tell a basic story has gone. The most charitable explanation I can think of is that his books over the last few years have all been ghostwritten by hacks, perhaps working from an outline he provided.
As an aspiring SF/Fantasy writer myself, I see horrible mistakes from page 1 that would be the kiss of death for an unknown writer. There are insane, absurd amounts of telling, rather than showing. Introducing the main character via a tenure/discipline meeting just fucking fails. Don't open stories with powerpoint presentations, meetings, or any other vestige of the academic/corporate life UNLESS something notably interesting (from a SF/F perspective) happens.
It's pretty obvious that publishing is in turmoil, just like Hollywood, the various agendas have caused audiences to turn away and most published books to fall flat. So they're turning to the very most established authors and guaranteeing publication of trite garbage.
Another huge problem is the 'alternate war history' of Operation Oz that the main character and his love interest are working on. Military history, even alternate reality stuff, works because the audience is very familiar with the basic historical facts. Authors can just refer to, eg Normandy, Rommel, Patton, the Battle of the Bulge because we have a basic grounding in this stuff.
Here the authors have an entirely made-up theater, invasion, and even introduce relatively obscure historical figures... and ASSUME the reader has a similar grounding. That's right, these two assclowns have traveled so far up their own navels that they assume the reader is just as familiar with their made-up fantasy world as they are! Dewey, Spruance, Halsey are all just thrown in there. They make up a new megaultrasuper bomber (the B-36) and TELL us that its megasuperultra decisive. They completely handwave away the historical arguments that invading eastern russia in winter would be a historical nightmare.
I wouldn't be surprised if the editor quit or was overruled by the publisher, because I have a feeling that no amount of editing could have saved this story.
We have megasuperultra time machines, megasuperultra AI, and a megasuperultra existential threat. An insult to the reader and I feel really bad for anyone who actually paid for this piece of shit.
As an aspiring SF/Fantasy writer myself, I see horrible mistakes from page 1 that would be the kiss of death for an unknown writer. There are insane, absurd amounts of telling, rather than showing. Introducing the main character via a tenure/discipline meeting just fucking fails. Don't open stories with powerpoint presentations, meetings, or any other vestige of the academic/corporate life UNLESS something notably interesting (from a SF/F perspective) happens.
It's pretty obvious that publishing is in turmoil, just like Hollywood, the various agendas have caused audiences to turn away and most published books to fall flat. So they're turning to the very most established authors and guaranteeing publication of trite garbage.
Another huge problem is the 'alternate war history' of Operation Oz that the main character and his love interest are working on. Military history, even alternate reality stuff, works because the audience is very familiar with the basic historical facts. Authors can just refer to, eg Normandy, Rommel, Patton, the Battle of the Bulge because we have a basic grounding in this stuff.
Here the authors have an entirely made-up theater, invasion, and even introduce relatively obscure historical figures... and ASSUME the reader has a similar grounding. That's right, these two assclowns have traveled so far up their own navels that they assume the reader is just as familiar with their made-up fantasy world as they are! Dewey, Spruance, Halsey are all just thrown in there. They make up a new megaultrasuper bomber (the B-36) and TELL us that its megasuperultra decisive. They completely handwave away the historical arguments that invading eastern russia in winter would be a historical nightmare.
I wouldn't be surprised if the editor quit or was overruled by the publisher, because I have a feeling that no amount of editing could have saved this story.
We have megasuperultra time machines, megasuperultra AI, and a megasuperultra existential threat. An insult to the reader and I feel really bad for anyone who actually paid for this piece of shit.
July 23, 2019
I am not a fan of time travel stories, but I am a fan of David Weber's writing, even his various co-authored works, so I thought I'd give this a try. If it hadn't been for the painful epilogue, I might even have given it a fourth star, but that would have been rounding up. The final few pages lost the book that rounding-up, for me at least.
The problem I had was that time travel inherently creates logic problems. In this case, the book was ABOUT a time travel logic problem. The agency looking backwards from the 30th century into humanity's history had apparently gotten the rules wrong, and were doing a lot of damage, both temporally and morally. I did have a problem with the way this agency tended to hire and promote really creepy people, but since that was necessary to the plot, I was willing to accept that.
As things progressed, and timelines got confusing, the story actually got very interesting, especially when the way time travel works in reality started becoming more clear.
The story was, from that point on, a fairly interesting adventure novel, with the good guys having to use both brains and brawn in order to defeat the bad guys, which in turn was in order to do something moderately horrific in order to keep something even more horrific from happening...only, when you're doing a story that convoluted, it is NOT a good thing to change the rules in the climax and/or the epilogue, which this one did. I have rarely encountered a more painfully forced "happy ending" setup than the one in this book, and for me, it just didn't work. I don't know whether it was a last-minute rewrite or something that the editors just didn't notice, or whether their heads had exploded during the big [and actually pretty cool] battle sequence.
The book is good enough that I'm not sorry I read it, but I am disappointed in the ending, in particular.
The problem I had was that time travel inherently creates logic problems. In this case, the book was ABOUT a time travel logic problem. The agency looking backwards from the 30th century into humanity's history had apparently gotten the rules wrong, and were doing a lot of damage, both temporally and morally. I did have a problem with the way this agency tended to hire and promote really creepy people, but since that was necessary to the plot, I was willing to accept that.
As things progressed, and timelines got confusing, the story actually got very interesting, especially when the way time travel works in reality started becoming more clear.
The story was, from that point on, a fairly interesting adventure novel, with the good guys having to use both brains and brawn in order to defeat the bad guys, which in turn was in order to do something moderately horrific in order to keep something even more horrific from happening...only, when you're doing a story that convoluted, it is NOT a good thing to change the rules in the climax and/or the epilogue, which this one did. I have rarely encountered a more painfully forced "happy ending" setup than the one in this book, and for me, it just didn't work. I don't know whether it was a last-minute rewrite or something that the editors just didn't notice, or whether their heads had exploded during the big [and actually pretty cool] battle sequence.
The book is good enough that I'm not sorry I read it, but I am disappointed in the ending, in particular.
October 19, 2020
I get really annoyed when an author and/or publisher specifically tells me in ALL CAPS: "NEW STANDALONE NOVEL" and then a year later what gets released... another entry in what actually turns out to be a series. And I don't care whether or not it's a direct sequel or not. My personal policy (which I'm allowed to have) is that I never start a series until it is complete. And that is absolutely not a problem for me - there are thousands of 100% complete series out there to read. More than I can read in my lifetime. Therefore, even if I love the premise of some new book, I have no problem waiting if it's part of a series. Doesn't matter if it takes a decade or more the complete. I'll wait. Again, my personal choice of how to read. It's similar to people who now get all their TV from Netflix and other streaming services because they prefer being able to binge watch rather than watch... wait... watch... wait... watch... wait... repeat. As such, it is infuriating to be blatantly told a book is a standalone when it's not. That is based on the publisher clearly marketing recently released Valkyrie Protocol as volume 2 in the series, specifically describing The Gordian Protocol as the "prequel" to Valkyrie Protocol, etc. In other words, this all adds up to The Gordian Protocol definitely NOT being the "STANDALONE" that was originally claimed. If you deceive me then you earn a 1 star rating and I write off the author forever. Again, not a problem... thousands of other books on my reading list.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 131 reviews