Customer Reviews

Janissaries

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The true motivation for this series of books (so I believe) is not the superficial one you can read about in the other reviews. Jerry Pournelle likes to experiment with "what if" notions of military history - on the planet Tran you find a mixture of Roman legions, Celts, medieval knights, mongol hordes etc... plus the newly added American mercenaries. Thus what you get is essentially a series of battles between armies that could never have faced each other historically - and it makes fascinating reading. If you like this kind of thing, see also Pournelle's "King David's Spaceship".

The book has quality beyond the military element. I particularly liked the "historical" accuracy of the characters suffering from saddle-sores, poor water, and worrying about their teeth without any knid of modern dentistry. I liked too the way they resort to getting the idea of germ theory across to the natives - there are tiny demons in the world that can be purified with the ritual washing using boiled water.

Over and above this world, there is an important sub-plot. This world of colonists is part of a black market drugs business by certain powerful alien interests - and it could become vital as there is a debate going on that the earth should be sterilised before the feral humans get out of hand... so Tran could become the last outpost of humanity. However, the American mercenaries realise that Tran has been periodically bombed back into the Stone Age... so at the same time as fighting their wars, they endeavour to prepare for a nuclear assault as best they can. The only thing that might ultimately save them are human sympathisers who work for the aliens.

The series goes on for 3 books so far - alas with declining quality... but still enough to be engrossing. I join the call for a 4th book - I desperately want to see how this story concludes.

Upon opening the book and discovering the illustrations, I was prepared for a cheesy space opera, especially since the story starts with space aliens abducting a group of mercenaries from the jungles of Africa. However, from this rather pedestrian opening, the author has developed an intriguing story.

Set against a backdrop of an old and large galactic civilization that uses humans as administrators and servants, this is a story of survival. One race of aliens is illegally kidnapping humans and transporting them to a secret planet to cultivate periodic crops of an intoxicating drug. The mercenaries are dropped, with their equipment, into the middle of a human culture trapped in the middle ages. Can they gain the control and cooperation of the exisiting human society and produce the drugs required by the aliens? Should they even try? Can they use their twentieth century knowledge to help the humans prepare for the impending climatic shifts?

This book includes interesting analyses of military tactics from various periods of human history, together with a unique setting and a plausible science-fiction story. It also provides interesting food for thought, especially regarding the proper uses of military power and the use of advanced knowledge to improve the human condition.

Facing almost certain death at the hands of Cuban military forces in the civil war in Angola, Captain Rick Galloway and his small band of mercenaries are suddenly given the opportunity for life -- by the intervention of a alien spaceship. Rick and his band eventually end up on the planet Tran where they discover the reason for their rescue. When I read this book on its first publication in the 1970's, it was great. I recently obtained a new copy and find it's still a great science fiction story, well worth the $5 or $6 monetary outlay and two or three evening investment in time. If you like unweird, believable (within obvious parameters) science fiction you'll probably like Janissaries. P.S. I discovered Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven as writers in their classic end of the world tale, Lucifer's Hammer. Forget about Armegedden and Deep Impact! Lucifer's Hammer was one of the first comet hits world stories and is still one of the best.

The original issue did far better than expected. Apparently, while both Pournelle and his publisher hoped for the best when it came out, the reception was superb.

Thence came the demand for a sequel and later, after that, for the next one. In the mid 1980s, Pournelle was asked about this at a Los Angeles SF Convention, and he replied "Soon". Indeed, the third volume was soon published. But, like any good author who knows how to write well and milk a successful series, dangling threads were left. It is from these that other reviewers here have asked for a fourth volume.

It has now been 15 years since the 3rd volume! Frustrating. Sadly, it appears that Pournelle's productivity has fallen in recent years. Still, we can only hope... And also hope for a reissue, maybe in hardcover, of THIS first volume. As you may recall, the first publication was in an extra large paperback format, with illustrations. It has been sufficiently long that perhaps now a hardcover with the lovely drawings might be justified.

I've re-read this book many times. The theme is an old one but no one executes it as well as he does. The characters are believable and 3 dimensional. JEP's military understanding is good. The action sequences are authentic. I've read all 3 books but the other 2 are progressively worse because Roland Green wrote them. The next two books have incredibly boring and inane dialogue and that's what killed the series. To top it off, my Storms of Victory ended without any explanation of what happened next. If I could find another copy of this book I'm gonna turn it to the back page to see if I had a bad copy.

What the customer reviews and the synopsis on "Janissaries" book flap (not written by the authors) fail to explain, is the effect of the new culture (technology) transported to Tran every 400 years. When new ideas arrive, all the existing civilisations adapt to the new ways. After knights arrived in c.1200, the Celts and the Romans develop feudal knights and Republican knights respectively in the 800 years to present. The Roman knights are the elite of Tran, out-matching even the feudal Spanish civilisation evolved from the first knights (but the Celts have got longbows).

When the leader of the c.1980 mercs drills the Celt peasents in pike, he is able to destroy Roman knights, who have never been beaten. The Romans, who have never known defeat, fail to break and continue to smash themselves against the pikes.

This is the same process which happened in our world's history. When Europeans fought other civilisations with black powder weapons, they quickly adopted the technology like the Moguls and the muslims in the East Indies (Indonesia). Our history shows what happens if the Romans developed knights. The East Roman empire (what the 19th century historians called the Byzantine empire) had the elite cavalry of its time. The cataphracts of the East Romans were a match for the Latin knights until the knights' armour was made heavier to protect against the longbow (and the crossbow?).

Leigh Southern

This is the first book of a trilogy. Jerry Pournelle is working on a fourth, but it has not yet been finished. This is a fun book. The concept does border on the ridiculous, but the payoff comes in the form of useful tidbits of history and science.

Captain Rick Galloway finds himself in a hopeless battle. His mercenary unit is bankrolled by the CIA to fight a proxy war in Africa, but plausible deniability means that the air cavalry will not be coming to the rescue. Before his position is overrun, a mysterious silent craft lands and the occupants offer him and his men santcuary. Unsurprisingly, this strange offer is preferred over death.

Galloway's benefactors do not really have his best interest in mind. Rather, they want some dirty work done on a primitive planet that just happens to grow the best narcotics in the universe. Very little of this is shared with Galloway, need to know and all that. Part of the reason for this is the aliens have been doing the same thing every six hundred years for four millenia.

This implausible setup gives us a most interesting setting: Tran is a planet that combines the most interesting aspects of Greek, Roman, and subsequent European culture and technology. Galloway and his men are useful because technology has stagnated at the tenth century. Heavy cavalry is not much use against an H&K G3. The aliens do explain that they want Galloway to control enough land to be able to grow enough "product" to make this expedition worth their while. All of this is complicated by political intrigues both local and intergalactic that need not detain us here.

This book plays on the post-modern need for adventure. A Victorian adventure novel like King Solomon's Mines (Modern Library Classics) was not entirely implausible for the day. Allan Quatermain is largely based on a real man, Frederick Selous, who was a contemporary of Cecil Rhodes and Teddy Roosevelt. If you really wanted adventure, there was plenty for the taking in the Victorian era. Now, the world is lame. Everything is permits and impacts and carbon credits. There is simply no room for adventure anymore.

Tran is different. A man could be a king, if only he wanted it badly enough. The world is empty enough to allow for greater things. Since this is a science fiction novel. Galloway sets out to see how much twentieth century technology he can impart to the natives. Pournelle does this far better than Twain, who was more interested in scoring points than in thinking about the most effective way to preserve knowledge in difficult times. King David's Spaceship and Lucifer's Hammer are other works by Pournelle that explore this theme. Survivalism is currently enjoying a resurgence in popularity, but a major difference between Pournelle's work and the popular thrust is Pournelle's grasp of the value of community. Many survivalists have an extreme libertarian streak that undercuts their stated goal: loners don't survive long in difficult times.

Captain Galloway is another strong leader by Pournelle. He does not have the same charisma on the page that Colonel Falkenberg does (cf: The Prince). This is partly a stylistic choice. We rarely see Falkenberg's inner monologue; he remains aloof and imperturbable. Galloway is far more human. We see him make mistakes and have regrets and experience moments of weakness. For all that he still does well. Galloway is genuinely likeable, and tries to do what is right. He muddles through as best he can. So do we all.

I first read this book in its original printing in 1982 and then went on to the next two in its series. The concept is fresh and the writing well done.

It is nice that they are re-printing this series, (also I've lost my original 3rd book!), but am desperately awaiting for the authors to finish the series. That's right, after three books, they leave you hanging. So if the authors read these pages, please finish the Jannissaries series.

OK, I read books. I read a lot of books. For some reason, I almost never discard them, even the bad ones. They follow me around like a physical memory. I don't know why (they take up an enormous amount of space and cost a fortune to move.) Especially as I rarely re-read them. Yet here is a book I have re-read at least a half-dozen times. And I will again.

This was a lucky purchase. My first year of college I found this in a local store (sorry Amazon) and bought it because of the original cover art (1981; this would have been the 1979 Ace 1st Edition.) And I could not put it down. I think I may have missed a fatal number of Calculus classes while reading this too late at night. It's that good. And 30 years later, it has lost nothing.

Why is this book so great? Pournelle takes seemingly improbable plots and makes them seamlessly believable. An unsure ROTC grad, hardened mercenaries, an unfortunate one-night stand, a medieval princess, Roman generals, Celtic warlords, interstellar bureaucrats, and alien criminals all somehow mesh together in a totally logical, credible, and compelling way. Also, these are interesting characters, not stereotypes. Gwen, the bright but socially awkward one-night stand; Rick, the average ROTC grad, in way over his head in Africa, suddenly forced to be a commander of armies on Tran; and Tylara, a princess with enough taste for intrigue and revenge to intimidate a Borgia. These are not stock characters. Nor does Pournelle resort to the usual tropes. The "rescuing" aliens are neither enlightened star travelers nor an all-powerful intergalactic empire; they are gangsters and drug-dealers. The spaceships are stained and used. The "primitive" locals are neither stupid nor over-awed. They have plots and agendas of their own, as sophisticated as humans throughout history. And the background story (the "big-picture" plot) is both ambitiously grand and terrifyingly chilling. You will find yourself thinking about it long after the last page.

Remember that library of mine? Most of those titles are hard to find today, even in used bookstores. This has been re-printed and re-issued with a new publisher, Baen, for over thirty years. There is a reason why. Whether your thing is military SciFi, alternate history, or space conspiracy (or even old-fashioned castles and knights period fiction) this is a must-read book. One that stays on your shelf, and not the re-sale rack. Read this.

Oh, and if this edition still retains the chapter art, even better. Very few books in 1979, or now (aside from graphic novels) bothered much with art in the actual text. This book did, and it adds to the incredible feel of quality you get from reading it. While words may spur imagination, it is a pleasure to be able to actually visualize Gwen, Rick, Tylara, the Shulnuksis, Les, Agzaral, Andre, and all the rest. And, there are also two sequels, each an excellent read in their own right, even if they lack the originality of this first book!

Ever wander what aliens do with people they abduct - and
don't bring back?

It's the 1980's, in the middle of a guerilla war. Just when
all hope seems lost for Rick Galloway and his mercenaries, a
savior appears in the sky - a UFO! They are saved, and then
offered a deal they can't refuse.

Sometime later, they are dumped on a cold planet inhabited
by humans, to raise drugs for an interstellar empire. As
they plan the takeover of the world, they slowly learn that
they are on a suicide mission, whose success could mean their
death!

The drug, called madweed by the locals, only grows once every
1600 years, spurred on by the appearance of the Demon,a rogue
star. Once it's been harvested, the aliens will A-bomb the
planet back to the Stone Age!