Author | David Weber |
---|---|
Cover artist | Stephen Youll |
Language | English |
Genre | Science fiction |
Publisher | Tor Books |
Publication date | July 7, 2009 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (hardback) |
Pages | 608 |
ISBN | 0-7653-1503-3 |
OCLC | 290437083 |
813/.54 22 | |
LC Class | PS3573.E217 B89 2009 |
Preceded by | By Schism Rent Asunder |
Followed by | A Mighty Fortress |
By Heresies Distressed is a science fiction novel by American writer David Weber, published by Tor Books. It is the third book in the Safehold series. It debuted at number 11 on the July 17, 2009, New York Times best-selling hardcover fiction list, [1] number 25 on the July 24, 2009, list, [2] and number 30 on the July 30, 2009, list. [3]
By Heresies Distressed picks up exactly at the end of Book 2. Together, Books 2 and 3 cover only 15 months, a much shorter period than book 1.
The Imperial Charisian Navy, having overpowered the defenders of Ferayd, Kingdom of Delferahk, has captured the ringleaders of a massacre of Charisian merchantmen and their families. The captives include priests of the Inquisition of the Church of God Awaiting. Ferayd's waterfront district is burned to the ground, with residents allowed to salvage only what they can carry, before clergy of Mother Church are hanged by secular powers for the first time in known history. Irrefutable proof the Inquisition orchestrated and celebrated the murder of innocents is published worldwide.
Mercantile and political leaders gather in seclusion in the Republic of Siddarmark to contemplate recent events: The Charisians have unilaterally thrown off the Church's oppressive yoke and destroyed every force sent against them. The Kingdom of Chisholm has aligned itself with the rebels via political marriage to form a new superpower, the Empire of Charis. The leaders quietly agree to continue trading with the new empire, against Church orders. In Charis and Chisholm, a plot against imperial leadership slowly builds. In the holy city of Zion, the Group of Four engage in their own machinations after the setback in Ferayd.
Emperor Cayleb Ahrmahk, with Seijin Merlin Athrawes at his side, gathers support in Chisholm before embarking for Zebediah. There, he warily accepts the surrender and fealty of its chief noble, who is known for treachery. The Imperial Marines, the first Safeholdian ground force to deploy rifled muskets, artillery and commandos on a strategic level, establish a beachhead on the namesake island of the League of Corisande. The defenders underestimate the threat and offer battle on an open field. Amid a catastrophic rout, quick thinking and heroic leadership saves part of the Corisandian Army.
The Charisians retain the advantage, but the Corisandians regroup at a strategic redoubt. Merlin eventually guides the Charisians around it, forcing the encircled enemy to surrender. While he is distracted with the offensive, a Temple Loyalist coup at home is detected in progress. He is left with no choice but to fly home and unleash his full abilities to wipe out the assassins. He also is compelled to reveal his "impossible" presence to Empress Sharleyan, but she accepts the truth and is admitted to the Inner Circle, the cadre of Charisian leaders who know humanity's journey did not begin, and will not end, on Safehold.
Meanwhile, Prince Hektor of Corisande realizes defeat and sends most of his children to exile in hopes they can be kept from Charis and the temple. He contemplates surrender, but the Inquisition has him assassinated, leaving Cayleb to be blamed. Anticipating a difficult occupation, Cayleb resolves to allow peaceful dissent, and sets up a council of Corisandian nobles to govern domestic affairs in the name of Hektor’s eldest surviving son, Prince Daivyn. Under the guidance of the Earl of Coris, Hektor's spymaster, Hektor's children escape to Delferahk, managing to evade the Charisian blockade.
The Group of Four struggle to adapt to another Charisian victory, though Grand Inquisitor Zhaspahr Clyntahn privately celebrates the success of his contingency plan for Hektor, which has inspired a resistance movement in Corisande the church will support. Later on, he takes a meeting with a cowardly bishop, who betrays to him the existence of The Circle, a secret organization dedicated to reforming the church. Clyntahn opts to bide his time, knowing this will present an opportunity to seize absolute power in Zion.
It seems [4] that the titles of both By Schism Rent Asunder and By Heresies Distressed come from lines in the hymn The Church's One Foundation.
In Poland, in 2011 the book was reviewed for Poltergeist in 2011 by Bartosz Szczyżański [5] and in 2012 for Fahrenheit by Daniel Ostrowski. [6]
The book was translated to several languages, including French, German and Polish. [7] [8]
Catharism was a Christian quasi-dualist or pseudo-Gnostic movement which thrived in Southern Europe, particularly in northern Spain, northern Italy and southern France, between the 12th and 14th centuries. Denounced as a heretical sect by the Catholic Church, its followers were attacked first by the Albigensian Crusade and later by the Medieval Inquisition, which eradicated the sect by 1350. Many thousands were slaughtered, hanged, or burnt at the stake, sometimes without regard for "age or sex."
Pope Lucius III, born Ubaldo Allucingoli, reigned from 1 September 1181 to his death in 1185. Born of an aristocratic family of Lucca, prior to being elected pope, he had a long career as a papal diplomat. His papacy was marked by conflicts with Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I, his exile from Rome and the initial preparations for the Third Crusade.
Bogomilism was a Christian neo-Gnostic, dualist sect founded in the First Bulgarian Empire by the priest Bogomil during the reign of Tsar Peter I in the 10th century. It most probably arose in the region of Kutmichevitsa, today part of the region of Macedonia.
Orthodoxy is adherence to correct or accepted creeds, especially in religion.
The East–West Schism, also known as the Great Schism or the Schism of 1054, is the break of communion between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches since 1054. A series of ecclesiastical differences and theological disputes between the Greek East and Latin West preceded the formal split that occurred in 1054. Prominent among these were the procession of the Holy Spirit (Filioque), whether leavened or unleavened bread should be used in the Eucharist, iconoclasm, the coronation of Charlemagne as Emperor of the Romans in 800, the Pope's claim to universal jurisdiction, and the place of the See of Constantinople in relation to the pentarchy.
Juan de Torquemada O.P., Spanish ecclesiastic, defender of Jewish conversos, has been described as the most articulate papal apologist of the fifteenth century. He was an uncle of Tomás de Torquemada, afterwards notorious as the persecuting Grand Inquisitor.
The Goa Inquisition was an extension of the Portuguese Inquisition in Portuguese India. Its objective was to enforce Catholic orthodoxy and allegiance to the Apostolic See of the Pontifex. Conversions took place through the Goan Inquisition with the persecution of Hindus and the destruction of Hindu temples.
Non-Chalcedonian Christianity comprises the branches of Christianity that do not accept theological resolutions of the Council of Chalcedon, the Fourth Ecumenical Council, held in 451. Non-Chalcedonian denominations reject the Christological Definition of Chalcedon, for varying reasons. Non-Chalcedonian Christianity thus stands in contrast to Chalcedonian Christianity.
The historical revision of the Inquisition is a historiographical process that started to emerge in the 1970s, with the opening of formerly closed archives, the development of new historical methodologies, and, in Spain, the death of the ruling dictator Francisco Franco in 1975. New works of historical revisionism changed our knowledge of the history of the Roman and Spanish Inquisitions.
Funky Koval is a Polish science fiction/detective story/political fiction genre comic book series published in Poland from the 1980s, collected in four volumes. The story was written by Jacek Rodek and Maciej Parowski, with art drawn by Bogusław Polch. The resulting science fiction comic gained a cult following in Poland and is recognized as one of the best Polish comics. It debuted in 1982 in Fantastyka, a Polish sci-fi magazine, and was later released in color albums. The final instalment was published in 2010.
The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition, was established in 1478 by the Catholic Monarchs, King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile. It began toward the end of the Reconquista and was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms and to replace the Medieval Inquisition, which was under papal control. It became the most substantive of the three different manifestations of the wider Catholic Inquisition, along with the Roman Inquisition and the Portuguese Inquisition. The "Spanish Inquisition" may be defined broadly as operating in Spain and in all Spanish colonies and territories, which included the Canary Islands, the Kingdom of Naples, and all Spanish possessions in North America and South America. According to some modern estimates, around 150,000 people were prosecuted for various offences during the three-century duration of the Spanish Inquisition, of whom between 3,000 and 5,000 were executed, approximately 2.7 percent of all cases. The Inquisition, however, since the creation of the American courts, has never had jurisdiction over the indigenous. The King of Spain ordered "that the inquisitors should never proceed against the Indians, but against the old Christians and their descendants and other persons against whom in these kingdoms of Spain it is customary to proceed".
Off Armageddon Reef is a science fiction novel by American author David Weber, published by Tor Books. It is the first book in the open-ended Safehold series. It follows a group of survivors who have settled a planet they name Safehold, a place where they had sought to escape from a terrible war, but that becomes the scene of a new struggle to uphold the principles of human civilization.
By Schism Rent Asunder is a science fiction book by American writer David Weber. It is the second book in the open-ended Safehold series, after Off Armageddon Reef. The publication date was July 22, 2008. The third book in the series is named By Heresies Distressed
Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, particularly the accepted beliefs or religious law of a religious organization. A heretic is a proponent of heresy.
Safehold is a science fiction book series by David Weber, currently consisting of ten titles, the latest released in January 2019. The series is mostly set around the 31st century, on a distant world dubbed "Safehold" where a group of humans are in hiding from the Gbaba, an alien enemy responsible for the end of all other human civilization.
A Mighty Fortress is a science fiction novel by American writer David Weber. The fourth book in the Safehold series, it was published by Tor Books on April 13, 2010. It debuted at #9 on the New York Times Bestseller List for hardcover fiction, following in the steps of previous titles in the series which also debuted on the list. The book dropped to #24 in the second week, then to #29 in week three before dropping off the list, for a total of three weeks on the list.
In the year before the Council of Constantinople in 381, the Trinitarian version of Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire when Emperor Theodosius I issued the Edict of Thessalonica in 380, which recognized the catholic orthodoxy of Nicene Christians as the Roman Empire's state religion. Historians refer to the Nicene church associated with emperors in a variety of ways: as the catholic church, the orthodox church, the imperial church, the Roman church, or the Byzantine church, although some of those terms are also used for wider communions extending outside the Roman Empire. The Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, and the Catholic Church all claim to stand in continuity from the Nicene church to which Theodosius granted recognition.
How Firm a Foundation is a science fiction novel by American writer David Weber. The fifth book in the Safehold series, it was published by Tor Books on September 13, 2011. The novel debuted at #8 on the New York Times hardcover fiction best seller list. The title of the novel comes from the hymn of the same name.
Midst Toil and Tribulation is a science fiction novel by American writer David Weber. The sixth book in the Safehold series, it was published by Tor Books on September 18, 2012. The title comes from the fourth stanza of the hymn "The Church's One Foundation", which has already been the source for several titles in the series.
Hell's Foundations Quiver is a science fiction novel by American writer David Weber, the eighth book in the Safehold Series. It was released on October 13, 2015. Like the preceding novel, the title comes from the hymn "Onward, Christian Soldiers".