Customer Reviews

March Upcountry

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

His Royal Highness, Prince Roger Ramius Sergei Alexander Chiang MacClintock was a royal pain in the ... well, he was a pain. His older brother, Prince John, was Heir Apparent and already a galaxy renowned diplomat. His sister, Princess Alexandra, would be one of the best Fleet admirals even if she did not have her family connections. But Prince Roger showed no interest in anything except hunting big game and dressing well.

Alexandra VII, Empress of Man, was determined to keep her youngest son out of direct danger. Therefore, she sent Roger to a remote planet named Leviathan as a show of imperial support. The Bronze Battalion was to transport and guard the prince during it all.

While en route, the military ship was sabotaged and then was under enemy attack. Very few survived and were stranded on the planet Marduk. The Marines would have to trek half way around the globe in hope of commandeering an imperial ship for a return to Earth. However, the natives were NOT friendly! Even the local fauna would try to eat anything that moved! The heat and almost constant rain made things worse. Prince Roger would just have to get over himself and grow up FAST!

***** First off, ignore the awful cover art, I don't believe it is the fault of the authors. No, the female Marine is NOT ballet dancing. No, Prince Roger does NOT look that way. In fact, the prince has very long, blond hair that any woman would envy. One Marine referred to it as "the hair of Lady Godiva."

Other than the cover art, the book is beyond excellent! The story is VERY well written, realistic, has a touch of humor, and the Marines can really kick BUTT! The prince matures steadily and even becomes an asset to the team! He also has the most awesome assassin program in his "toot". All-in-all, this is highly recommended reading! *****

I checked out this book solely based upon name recognition, Weber's name specifically. In retrospect, I would consider my choice a good one. The basic concepts that I looked forward from Weber, e.g. character development, integrity, honor, courage, ethics, determination, and emotion, were present in the protagonists. The military maxims used in this book are the same as the ones used in Weber and Ringo's books. This book, and consequently the future series, combines the strengths of both authors to create a work that none alone could have achieved.

This book can be categorized as an "adventure with sci-fi themes". Which means that the heroes will be enmeshed in local politics with no way to get home and have to use the "Peace through superior firepower maxim" through powered armor and energy weapons vs black powder firearms. The main character, Prince Roger, is a rather complex singularity in himself. This dude, is Heir Tertiary to the Empire of Man, which I can only guess at is one of a few galactic empires. The politics resemble The People's Republic of Haven, e.g. backstabbing, power plays, uprisings, chaotic controls, etc. Roger however is not cut out of the same cloth as the Empress. He is more accurately compared to those liberal aristocrats that get in the way of the military, the same military that is protecting everyone in the Empire. He acts like a spoiled child who wants attention. Out of this rough diamond stone, is a potential for greatness. Whether he survives the process remains to be seen.

The first part of the story highlights Weber's distinct touch. It classifies the rules of space combat in that particular universe. Something happens on Roger's assault transport and they have to fight off some enemies. The engagement is very reminiscent of skirmishes in Honor Harrington. This is opposite that of John Ringo's works. He only obliquely describes military naval engagements in his "6 billion Humans vs 6 trillion X 10 to the power 5 aliens" universe. Ringo's strength is that he has lived the life of an infrantry grunt. Therefore his writing reflects his ground pounder history. He has a flare for writing about power armor and plasma weapons. His theme is high quality, low quantity, superior mind vs low quality, high quantity, inferior mind. Which is similar to Weber's numerically superior Peeps vs the technologically superior Manticorans. The ideologies of the two writers fit together to create a series which features the Marine side and the Navy side. Once they get off the planet in Book 3, the politics of Weber starts.

This is another of those collaborative efforts by writers of military SF in which there is no attempt to do anything new or different, but with a lot of crowd-pleasing battles. The essential story, of what will be a multi-book publishing effort, is a coming of age tale. The unhappy, and spoiled, boy becomes a capable and tough man. It would only take one, not very thick, novel to tell this story, but it is spread over several large tomes in order to make room for a lot of rousing battle scenes.

Ugly barbarians are blown away with gleeful abandon by the authors, with most of the attention on exactly how our heroic castaways kill all their foes (since the story is designed to remove any question about whether to kill them.) Its a lot of fun, but lets face it, we've read this book before (or ones just like it) by both authors. There isn't enough characterization to make anyone in the book appear as an individual anyone could care about (I had to check the cover once or twice to remember which series I was reading.) Even the political machinations that set everything in motion are presented with clear good guys (the imperial family) and bad guys (everyone else.)

The book does provide exactly what it promises: a lot of great fight scenes (without any question of who to cheer) and the certainty of a whole lot more in the future. It isn't a timeless classic, but if you enjoy the genre you'll enjoy this one (its practically an outline of the genre.) I recommend it to readers who object to simply re-reading the authors previous works, but don't expect this novel to push ANY of the boundaries of military SF.

March Upcountry (2001) is the first book in a trilogy or possibly longer series. In several ways this series resembles C. S. Forester's Flying Colours, a tale of fighting men stranded on foreign soil who are trying to evade the enemy and capture transportation home.

Prince Roger, the Empress of Man's third son, is making a goodwill tour to Leviathan aboard the assault transport Charles DeGlopper. Unfortunately, the transport is sabotaged and has to land on Murduk, the closest suitable planet with a spaceport. The Imperials discover, however, that it has been occupied by the enemy and two enemy cruisers are in orbit. Roger and his marine bodyguards cram into four assualt shuttles with as much materiel as they can carry and set course for the planet while the navy takes on the cruisers. The DeGlopper manages to kill one cruiser and lures the other to close range, then self-destructs, taking that cruiser with it. The shuttles land without being detected. Now they only have to travel thousands of kilometers across the continent to a seaport, take ship to an island, and then assault the spaceport, hopefully capturing a ship without being detected. Moreover, the planet is inhabited by rather bellicose sentients, so they will likely have to fight their way to the coast.

As they march out from the landing site, Roger kills a large, scaly herbivore after Captain Pahner calls hold fire and gets reamed out by the Captain. Shortly thereafter, Cord, a native, shows up to meet the person who killed the flar beast that was chasing him. When told that Roger had done it, Cord declares that he owes a life debt to Roger and is now his slave. After bivouacing among vampires and marching through a jungle filled with their flesh dissolving larva, the surviving marines reach Cord's village and are made welcome.

Cord's tribe, The People, have a problem with the local city-state, Q'Nkok; the city folk are stealing their wood and giving them inferior trade goods. They could attack the city, but would then be vulnerable to other tribes. The marines accompany them to the city, where Roger meets the King of Q'Nkok and explains the problems. Since the King seems to be friendly, the marines bug the various noble Houses and discover that three of them have conspired to stir up the villagers, creating confusion so they can overthrow the king. The marines help the King to thwart the plot and in return receive supplies and support for their journey.

The book continues in the same vein as the marines travel toward Far Voitan and beyond, living off the land and saving their munitions as best they can. One of the larger problems is a flaw in some plasma rifles, similar to problems in Viet Nam with the M-16 rifle and in World War II with the Sterling rifle; somehow low cost bidders frequently get away with shoddy methods. In the case of the Luger pistol, the German army never was able to get the design fixed or replaced; instead, many Army officers bought P-38 pistols for a personal weapon while the Gestapo preferred PPKs.

This series is a high adventure tale somewhat like the story of The Ten Thousand, but with a company-size unit using high-tech weapons. It is also a coming of age story, for Roger begins this journey as a somewhat spoiled and naive nobleman whom his mother doesn't fully trust. Each new situation provides Roger with more insight into his strengths and weakness and allows him to grow as a man, a leader, and a lover. The romance between Roger and Sergeant Despreaux is barely noticeable in this volume, but is surely destinied to grow.

The cover is nice, but not much like the book. What would anyone want with a mirrored camosuit; maybe laser reflective? Have you noticed how often the cover doesn't quite match the story!

Recommended for Weber and Ringo fans and anyone else who likes military adventures with a touch of political intrigue.

-Arthur W. Jordin

If you're looking for deep thoughts on the future of warfare or somesuch, go elsewhere. If you want a space opera that keeps going, this is the place. The prince is shown to be a royal pain in the butt, but then, that's what royalty tends towards, until someone takes a shot at them. The Marines are shown as true to life. Someone made a comment about the constant swearing by the Marines. Well I'm here to tell you, in a combat situation, proper language and etiquette are the first things out the window. And these Marines seem real to me.

The problems shown with procurement of weapons is realistic. One only has to look back at the problems of the M-16 rifles during the Viet Nam war to see that every problem is not ironed out before a weapon system goes to the troops.

As far as the romance, or lack thereof, hey, it's a combat novel. If you want romance, go to the bodice ripper aisle.

I like the characters. I am starting to like Prince Roger more and more, as I suspect the authors planned. The rest of the cast is shown to be human, even the aliens. They are us, and we are all in the fight.

Buy this one, I don't think you'll regret it.

What should turn out to be a fine space opera as it unfolds, gets my three stars. I hold two back because, although they are essential for the overall plot Weber and Ringo are developing, two of their devices make me cringe.

Starting off with the unlikely rescue of a shaman who gives up everything for his asi helps the story but makes my asi ache.

Second, the inability to manufacture anything that provides a tactical advantage beyond the ammo/power limited weapons or eliminates the drop dead escape date bothers me. These are MARINES.

Having vented, I just ordered the second installment which I hope to enjoy as much as the first.

I recommend this book to all space opera addicts.

I only listen to audiobooks and this is a review of the Prince Roger Series - Authors: David Weber & Jon Ringo. From Amazon Reviews: "Science fiction icon David Weber (the Honor Harrington series) teams up with Airborne-soldier-turned-author John Ringo (A Hymn Before Battle) in their novels about Prince Roger Ramius Sergei Chiang Alexander MacClintock, Heir Tertiary to the Throne of Man".

The 4 books (as of now) are: March Upcountry, March to the Sea, March to the Stars, We Few.

READER OF ALL BOOKS: STEFAN RUDNICKI (AAA+ reader - my first experience with him was in Ender's Game".)

After finishing this series I must say that I think it is a story RIPE for a continuation!!!! AND I REALLY hope they do - this is a "too good to miss story". Well, assuming you like military futuristic fantasy (Ender's Game anyone? ... this is just as captivating). This series was my first contact with either of these authors - both of which seem to have their own following here on Amazon. BTW, the overall reviews on Amazon on the individual books in this series are ALL, overall, 4.0 to 4.5. GIVEN, the reader, I'd give it a 4.75 to 5.0 (i.e. this is just about as good as storytelling gets, with a AAA+ reader to make it come alive).

You'll laugh (there is a lot of humor in these stories mixed in with the battles and personal stories ("de pocking ting don't work" LOL) and you'll cry (at the heroic deaths of Roger's hard-won but faithful followers, - almost ALL of Bronze Battalion of the Empress's Own Marine bodyguards(particularly of Captain Armand Panar), and just as much the Mardukan heros who end up dieing for Roger in the final battle of the story, ... and in so many battles before... Rastar in particular...

...and then there is Costas (Roger's Valet, and absolute friend who'd followed him almost all of his life) - finally eaten by a "damncroc" on Marduk while fetching Roger water. Then there are the unforgettable Mardukan animals, which both: hone Roger's inate skills as predators against him on Marduk; but also become his closest friends (Dogzard and Paddy who saved Roger's neck SO MANY times in the numerous battles and personal confrontations both on Marduk and on Earth).

Then, there is the underlying story of Roger's Mother, the Empress, ... SO miserably used and abused, FINALLY saved by Roger and his colorful mixed army of humans and extraterrestials.

OH, and don't forget the romantic drivel so well mixed in ... Nimochete Despreau in particular - who started out refusing to marry Roger if he became Emperor - (which everyone knew he would eventually) and ofcourse ends up with Roger anyway -.

There are just too many fascinating and well told character stories in this story to mention or describe them all ... and like I said, this series is RIPE for continuation of "Roger the Emperor" ... going after the surviving bad guys at the end of the series.

What happens with Roger's poor abused but still regal Mother, who turned over the crown of the "house of man" to Roger at the end of the story?

What happens with Roger and Nimochete (who must produce an heir to the throne - well, I can imagine where that would go)?

What happens with the newly elevated Mardukans who followed Roger to Earth on his wild quest?

What happens to Marduk itself? Now infested with Roger loving royal followers ... and where... Roger had claimed he would rule one day in peace with Nimochete.

Hmmm.... sounds ripe for more story to me. And I'm looking forward to it if it comes, IF it is as good as these that's as good as they'll need to be for me.

The characters in this story are superbly developed even though the story moves along quickly, and while the story line may be somewhat predictable (Roger's going to win in the end) getting there is a MARVELOUS journey through a truly captivating but brutal world. Just like our own eh?