13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great Revival of a great Series!, January 1, 2001
This review is from: Down to the Sea, Book 1: A Novel of the Lost Regiment (Paperback)
What a really nice surprise. I picked this book out of habit. Often once I get hooked on a series I continue to buy the novels produced in the series regardless of the quality. This was the case in the Regiment series. The series before this novel had been showing the strain of 7 novels set in the same world with the same characters. The plot was repeating and the characters were losing their luster.
This book is a breath of fresh air. Set twenty years after the events in the last Regiment novel "Down to Sea" casts the children of the heroes of the previous books into the lead rolls. This is a ploy that often backfires in series extensions but it works very well this time around.
The new enemy in the Kazan are related to the hordes of the past but are far more advanced then the horde of the past. In this conflict the horde will have the technological advantage, not the humans. The son of a traitor is the hero or zero of this war.
Quite a good book, which is the promising beginning to a new series, set in the same world as the Regiment novels.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Still the best, December 15, 2000
This review is from: Down to the Sea, Book 1: A Novel of the Lost Regiment (Paperback)
Forstchen's "Lost Regiment" books are truly unique. A straight-to-paperback series little known outside the genre, its dedicated readers have come to recognize it as one of the most reliable sources of enjoyment to be found anywhere. It seems woven from the very fabric of the American spirit: a shipload of Civil War-era Yankees is accidentally teleported to a far-off world, a world where human beings are nothing more than cattle. The Yankees, unwilling to be led quietly to the slaughter, use their knowledge of gunpowder and steam propulsion to launch a local resistance movement against the flesh-eating alien overlords. Once the local humans have tasted freedom, there is no turning back. What started out as a local revolt quickly turns into a full-scale war of liberation, as the republican ideal sweeps the world. The tale apparently ended in "Men of War" (Book 8) with the final defeat of the brutal but cunning Bantag horde.
But now they're back! Forstchen, apparently unwilling to part with his masterwork, has come back for another round. And it's worth it. Far from a contrived sequel, this one is just as satisfying as the original series. It has now been twenty years since the Great War ended. The remainders of the Bantag horde are confined to a reservation, the few survivors of the Merki and Tugar scattered. The Republic, its ranks bolstered by the additions of Nippon, Chin, and other new states, has prospered like never before. Under the able presidency of unsurpassed war hero Andrew Keane, its merchants and soldiers roam the lands and seas in their increasingly sophisticated airpcraft and steamships. It seems only a matter of time before all the humans of the world are united in the common dream of liberty and equality.
But trouble is brewing. Across the vast Southern Sea, a new menace is stirring: the Kazan. Untouched by the Yankee-led revolution in the distant north, this mighty horde continues to lord it over the local humans, selectively bred and trained to make the perfect slaves. Hazin, a clever and ruthless high priest, skillfully intervenes in a bloody civil war, bringing about the complete unification of the Kazan Empire. He recognizes the threat posed by the Republic, and, armed with warships and airplanes larger and more powerful than anything in the Yankee arsenal, plans to squelch it once and for all.
With little time to prepare, President Keane, Senator O'Donald, and the other survivors of the Lost Regiment are faced with their greatest challenge yet. But it is their children, now of fighting age, who will bear the brunt of the terror. Even as events are coming to a head in the Kazan Empire, Andrew Keane's son, Abraham, accompanies legendary general Vincent Hawthorne to the reservation, where the Bantag grow increasingly restless. Their food nearly gone, their ancient way of life totally annihilated, these bitter survivors dream of taking back their former glory. And now, with events moving towards an inevitable global war, their chance seems to have arrived.
As the Republic braces itself for trouble, its scientists and engineers struggle to develop the technologies necessary to meet the Kazan on their own terms. It looks grim, but the Republic is not a nation of quitters. Far from surrender, their ready to prove that the free spirit truly is invincible.
Every bit as powerful, moving, and compelling as the earlier books. There is no higher compliment.
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12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Just when you thought a great series ended, its just started, January 5, 2001
This review is from: Down to the Sea, Book 1: A Novel of the Lost Regiment (Paperback)
Just when I thought "Men of War" was the last book of the Lost Regiment series, I accidently came upon "Down to The Sea". This book takes place twenty years after the "Men of War" with new characters as well as a few old. The Kazan are a different type of Horde in their politics and religion as well as technology. Like the previous 8 books, you won't want to put it down until you have finished it. Looks like a start to another great series.
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