Customer Reviews

The Forlorn Hope

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

 

 

Of all the Drake books, this one is 2nd only to Redliners, in showing the spirit of a unit that has endured danger, hardship and boredom and responds with courage and ingenuity when faced with a desparate situation. The state employing the unit is losing to the other side, and plans to sell them out. They are trapped, all hands are turning against them, and their captain has been betrayed and murdered. A young officer of the local army, unpopular with his own brass due to his distain of corruption, joins the unit. His leadership and the unit's deadly skills give them a fighting chance to survive.

David Drake turns away from his "Hammer's Slammers" universe and gives us a view of mercenaries fighting in a different milieu.

This is about my favourite of Drake's SF -- i'm not sure why, but it's a bit more satisfying than some of his other work.

A mercenary regiment whose Colonel has been assasinated, the crew of a damaged spaceship and a young officer and two enlisted men from the regular army of the side employing the mercenaries must band together and overcome hardships and dangers from foe and friend alike.

A young man becomes truly an adult when command is thrust upon him.

Great book.

David Drake is justly famous for his Hammer's Slammers stories, but this one-off novel dealing with another mercenary company is actually his best work of military SF. With enough hard-core action to satisfy anyone, it also manages to probe the question of what it means to be REALLY, REALLY good at killing people.

I found this book to be thoroughly entertaining. Drake writes about a very specific topic, Military SF, and he does an outstanding job. Allthough I might not have his same background in the U.S. Army I am quite familier U.S. Navy (going on 7 years acvite duty), I still find that his charactors portray an accurate picture of the comman war fighter in any nations army. Well maybe except that the officers are usually the hero. If you are a military member looking for a story written close to home or if you are just looking for a book with well thought out charactors and a excellent plot Mr. Drake can take on all challengers.

David Drake writes military science fiction like no one else, and this novel is one of the best examples of why. It has large quantities of intense action, character development under fire, and a mass of memorable characters.

In many ways the book is what a Slammers' story would be like if you boiled it down to the essentials and then escalated the action another notch.

I had difficulty with this at first, I had just read another military science fiction book where a chart in the book helped you keep track of all the characters. So I guess I was spoiled. This book bounced around with so many names and so may perspectives that I almost put it down on the second chapter. I am glad I didn't. This stand alone story really turned around, and finished on a very satisfying note. A mercenary group of soldiers is dropped on a planet for a relatively easy assignment of keeping the miners from leaving. The soldiers lose their Colonel when the local military tries to sell them out to an invading force from another planet. By the end I was hoping for a sequel. Great character development, exciting plot, believable atmosphere of an another world and society, dialogue, fast paced realistic action, I recommend.

A maxim of writing is that a good novel can be summed up in one sentence. Forlorn Hope can be expressed as follows: When a contracting faction betrays a company of mercenaries, the mercs and three deserters fight their way through an obstacle course to reach their ride home.

From this standpoint Forlorn Hope achieves the standard of the maxim. The story is very tight and readable. It begins in medias res and proceeds at a rattling strong pace to the end. The company of mercs has been whittled down to about fifty natural born killers, who begin to stack up the corpses, fighting tank squads and ruthless religious fanatics.

The reason I give this novel three stars is because of the prosaic setting (I didn't find the planet and the two warring factions particularly interesting or creative) and the confusing use of multiple points of view made reading the novel somewhat difficult (Throughout the first half of the novel, I found myself going back to the start to clarify, which character was which).

This is not to say that David Drake isn't one of the best military science fiction writers in the business nor that I didn't enjoy the book. I did enjoy it but I kept asking myself where is the wonder and amazement that I look for in science fiction. At one point, I asked myself what would David Gemmell have done with this same material and I realized that Forlorn was close but it wins no cigar.

I am a big fan of the Hammer's Slammers series and have enjoyed some of Mr. Drake's other books, but this was not his best effort. The premise was good but the book never grabbed me. It was a Fair book at best.

I like Davis Drake but this book is a dumper. I could't take more than 1/4 of this book before I donated to Salvation Army. What happened to Hammers Slammers and interesting books