Customer Reviews

The Flying Warlord (Adventures of Conrad Stargard, Book 4)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This series is a real favorite of mine. Great story line, great characters, and unique ideas. Now (as of Summer 2005) the latest Conrad book, "Conrad's Crusade" is now available from Leo Frankowski, on line! It is solid action on par with the best in the series. An e-copy is available at (...), and I recommend it highly.

Science fiction the way it should be written. I Read it all in one sitting. It was thought provoking, and altogether fun. A must buy!!!

This was one of my first Sci-Fi books and have been hooked ever since. Leo Frankowski is a Genius and a true male.

If you can find it, GET IT! Well-written, thoughtful, and entertaining. Love and joy, sadness and pain, the adventure of time travel gets lost behind the story of the daily life of an ordinary person in extraordinary circumstances.

This is the best time travel series in a realistic timeline ever written. Before these books, L. Sprague De Camp had held that title for decades with his "Lest Darkness Fall", but it was too short. Mark Twain may be the most famous with his "Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", but that is more light hearted than serious, and disappointing at the end. The Conrad series delivers on all the promise, and even after 5 books, it still leaves you wanting more. (There is a sixth book now, but Conrad is a minor character, and I've reviewed it separately.)

I say realistic timeline, because Conrad isn't really from our timeline. I was a little suspicious right from the start, but it wasn't until Conrad reminisced about the Mongols invading France that I thought "Hey, wait a minute". It turns out that it didn't happen to us (even without Conrad). But the historians I read agree that it would have, except the great Khan died and the Mongols had a war of succession which they never recovered from. This is often used as an example of the actions of one person changing history. I never even heard the story, until Conrad got me to look it up. Go figure.

This is an action story, with fighting and sex, where Conrad overcomes insurmountable obstacles, and usually has a good time along the way. The author doesn't just ignore the time travel though. He writes a science fiction sub-plot about that too. In fact, the author is obviously an engineer, not just because it takes an engineer for Conrad to build the things he does, but also from the way the books were planned out and crafted. Obviously the author planned the Mongol invasion and built the series around it, but he also foreshadows romantic sub-plots 3 books in advance.

I love these books, and share other reviewers disbelief that they haven't been reprinted since 1993. If you've already read them, and love them too, you might want to try "The Misplaced Legion (Videssos Cycle, Book 1)" by Harry Turtledove, about elements of one of Caesar's legions travelling into Rome's future of the Byzantine Empire. Only it's not the real Byzantine Empire, it's a parallel universe where magic works. Aside from that, it's Byzantium during the 1100's written by a Byzantine historian. And of course you'll want to read the "Island in the Sea of Time" series by S. M. Stirling, about modern day Nantucket going back in time to the Trojan War. These works are different, but also 5 stars.

I've got the entire series and they're excellent. Every book is dogeared cause I've reread them so often. I wish there were more.

Leo Frankowski is a master of the first person story. The first 3/4 of this book was full of wit and fun technical details. However, this is still by far the weakest of the series. Books 1, 2 and 3 were some of the best SF work I have ever read. The last part of the book was a description of Conrad's world instead of the wonderful first person story that made this series so much fun..

Worth reading, but dramaticly weaker than the previous 3 in the series (which were delightful!).

The last 1/4 of the book isn't even story, more like a set of authors notes created to help him map out the future world.

There are several outright flubs, such as the hints about how they shouldn't have bragged about East Gate being impervious (which goes nowhere). Such as the last 20 pilots all "crash" landing at once, and they all die except Lambert who is unharmed? Like what happened with the Duke? Why the sudden ending with all the mongols in one place? The entire "time is shifting" angle seems to be thrown in to justify a few random changes in events (almost like the author wanted it both ways in one particular case), but goes nowhere. Weak.