March Upcountry [Mass Market Paperback]

David Weber (Author), John Ringo (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 30, 2002 | Series: March Upcountry

David Weber's Honor Harrington has famously conquered our universe, most recently with the New York Times bestseller Ashes Of Victory. Now David Weber, with the able assistance of his fast-rising military SF cohort John Ringo, has done it again with the creation of a new kind of hero, Prince Roger MacClintock! Roger is a spoiled young princeling hardly worth the space he takes up. Now he must become a man, or the entire galaxy will suffer from arrested adolescence!

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

An established master of military SF, Weber, and a fast-rising comer in the genre, Ringo, combine forces in the first of a new series sure to please their fans. Prince Roger Ramius Sergei Alexander Chiang MacClintock has a problem. Thanks to terrorist sabotage, he and a company of space marines are marooned in the wilderness of the planet Marduk, noted for high mountains, high temperatures, low technology and the short tempers of its nine-foot, four-armed, slime-covered natives. They have to get out of this place. In their effort to do so, they win allies among the Mardukans (mostly in legitimate ways) and overcome others by judiciously combining sneakiness and firepower. Along the way, the prince turns from a spoiled brat into a useful, even valuable member of the company. This coming-of-age theme often crops up in military SF, and indeed both authors are working within territory they know well. The pace never gets too slow, despite generous world-building and extended action scenes. Another strength is the deceptively deep characterization particularly of Prince Roger, whose transformation draws on skills and character traits carefully planted early in the novel. The book could actually use more background (the villainous terrorist Saints are shadow figures) and ends on a cliff-hanger (or cliff-climber), but overall the superb storytelling will add considerably to the reputation of both authors. (May)most recent novel is Gust Front, reviewed in Forecasts, Mar. 12.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Prince Roger, third child of the Empress of Man, finds himself a reluctant warrior when sabotage forces his diplomatic mission to make an emergency landing on a barbaric planet filled with savage predators and unexpected dangers. As the soldiers of the Bronze Battalion of the Empress's Own Regiment face a brutal march across the planet to get their royal charge to safety, Roger finds his own courage tested to the limit. Best known for his "Honor Harrington" series, Weber teams with Ringo (A Hymn Before Battle) to inaugurate a new series that combines military sf with political intrigue. Sure to appeal to both authors' avid readers.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 608 pages
• Publisher: Baen (April 30, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743435389
• ISBN-13: 978-0743435383
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 1 x 4.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (62 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #184,899 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 39 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Weber and Ringo ring changes on Xenophon May 1, 2001

By Walt Boyes VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

The Greek Xenophon wrote about a mercenary company forced to march back through a hostile Persia. His book, Anabasis, is often translated March Upcountry. This re-telling of the story takes the spoiled brat youngest son of the Empress of Man, a small company of his bodyguards, and drops them unexpectedly on a very hostile planet with limited supplies and a very long way to walk. David Weber, author of the Honor Harrington series, and John Ringo, new SF luminary whose books _A Hymn Before Battle_ and _Gust Front_ have given new meaning to inviting your enemies for dinner, have written a great space opera about visiting exotic places, meeting strange people, and mostly killing them. Along the way, Prince Roger does some growing up, and begins to learn the responsibilities that go along with his privileges. Once again, Weber and Ringo have written a "one sitting" book...allow enough time to finish the book once you start, because you won't want to put it down.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A solid, unobjectionable story. May 16, 2001

By N. Dodson

Format:Hardcover

I don't know what it is about military SF that appeals to me so, but just give me a squad of marines, an alien jungle, and a plasma cannon, and I am a happy girl. This version of that basic recipe has all the common elements: the soldiers are shipwrecked on an inhospitable planet with unfriendly natives whom they must kill in job lots to win their way back home. This time around the green, untested lieutenant who gradually learns about life and war is actually a prince of the blood.

Granted, the character development does leave something to be desired, especially regarding the "alien" Cord. This sort of story, however, does not really require a lot of personal insight to be successful. Stock characters are sufficient to give an idea of motivation, and the battle scenes are excellent.

In all, this looks like a promising beginning to a series (a trilogy, or so I've heard). Possibly future installments will focus more on the characters and their personalities, but even if they don't this series should be good for a light, fast read. I recommend this book particularly for fans of Tanya Huff's VALOR'S CHOICE as they seem to have a lot in commmon.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Spoiled brat meets reality December 3, 2003

By tranq45

Format:Mass Market Paperback

Prince Roger McClintock is a embarrassment. Everyone in his regal family is either too busy to deal with him, or has a bigoted reaction to his close resemblance to his disloyal father. Not even his mother, the Empress Regnant, can break through her instinctive emotional response to engage her son as a human being, treating him as a potential traitor and security risk before she treats him as her child. Instead, she shuffles her responsibilities in regard to Roger off onto flunkies and servants. Predictably enough, Roger grows up spoiled, self-indulgent, and reckless. Factions at Court try to manipulate the young prince, with varied success, further fueling suspicions as to his loyalty and stability. Fortunately for the Empire, while the Empress has a dangerous blind spot bordering on gross dereliction of her Imperial Duty when it comes to her youngest child, she has the sense to employ top-flight servants and flunkies, and to keep her military bodyguards free of court politics. This fact will become critically important not only to herself and her son, but her empire as a whole.

Roger is sent packing, over his immature objections, on a state visit to participate in a boring and unpleasant, but politically necessary ceremony on an unpleasant and distant world. Along with him are bundled his immediate staff, and a contingent of his long-suffering and generally contemptuous bodyguard. Along the way, the military transport in which the prince is traveling is sabotaged and critically damaged by a pre-programmed 'zombie' traitor, and the ship is left limping towards the only star system within reach. Things go from bad to worse as they stumble upon a force of hostile warships sneaking about in Imperial territory and clearly up to no good. Convinced that the only habitable planet, Marduk, has been compromised, and determined to prevent the capture of a member of the Family Royal by the fanatical and generally unprincipled foe, Prince Roger is bundled off in a shuttle force with as many of his bodyguard as will fit, again over his immature objections. Meanwhile, as the shuttle force makes its way to a covert planet-fall, the crippled transport makes a stand against the opposing force, managing to destroy the last of them by a suicidal ruse.

Landing on the far side of a large planet from the only human base, facing a hostile terrain and climate, Prince Roger's force must figure a way to march clear around the globe and assault the enemy troops holding that base, with only a long company of 'lightly' equipped Marine-bodyguards. Further worsening matters is the facts that they must make their way on foot, and they have roughly six months in which to make this epic journey, because the flora and fauna of Marduk are markedly lacking in certain critical human dietary requirements, and there are only enough nutritional supplements to last the assembled force half a year. It's "Get to the base, or starve trying."

Soon after the March Upcountry begins, the prince begins to show some signs of unsuspected depth. His self-indulgent field trips and risk-taking pleasures have been dismissed as the pursuits of a spoiled playboy, but they have left the prince a talented athlete, and a skilled hunter along the lines of the adventurous European aristocracy of the eighteenth century. Prince Roger is as crack a shot as any "great white hunter" of that era, and as physically competent as any extreme athlete. In addition, he's benefitted from the genetic and cybernetic tinkering that all Imperial family members receive, making him surprisingly competent in the primitive conditions he finds himself. His bodyguard are bemused to find their contemptible object of duty displaying advanced skills they never knew he possessed. The bodyguard company is a surprise to it's own members, too, as they begin to discover that while each member was selected for military competence, they were also selected for diversity of other skills, too. The jungle is full of seriously dangerous life, the hostile climate causes breaks-down in their gear, native politics and cultures complicate their planning, and raiding natives displaced by larger, more aggressive tribes threaten their lives. Never-the-less, the assembled company move off through the lethal jungles of Marduk, on their mission to Get The Prince Home, even as they learn startling things about each other and their prince. Death and blood will follow their trail, but they've got a mission, and they're not about to fail.

The technology of March Upcountry is interesting, fully developed, and well thought-through. Technical aspects are glossed over, where the workings of the equipment is too close to 'magical', and this is a good thing. While the technology is required to make the story work, Weber avoids trying to explain things he can't explain, and doesn't tempt us to inquire by adding too much detail. Instead, he supplies a few essential tid-bits for verisimilitude, and then asks us to believe the rest. OK, fair enough: I'll believe it works. This is an area where other S-F writers would do very well to copy him.

The politics of the court are also left vague, with just enough detail to show the court as a real snake pit, without creating plot holes with excess detail. Again, this is effective and I like it. In other books, I've observed authors sinking themselves into inescapable traps by trying to document parts of the story that do their skills no credit. Weber avoids this, and moves on with his story. Bravo!

The characters are multi-facetted, and show personal development. This is too rare in military/adventure S-F, and for that alone, I would recommend this book.

I detect some elements of Xenophon and his Ten-Thousand in this story, which is a bit of history I would strongly recommend to any person interested in military S-F, as I would also recommend the exploits of the historical Belisarius. Overall, this is as good as it gets within the genre today, and I unreservedly recommend this book as a top-flight read.