Customer Reviews

Marching Through Georgia (Draka Novels, 1)

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

 

 

Marching Through Georgia is the first novel in the Draka series. In another timeline, the losers from wars in America and Europe, philosophers without followers, and other misfits migrated to the Draka Crown Colony in South Africa. Over decades the colony took over the entirety of sub-Sahara Africa and then the Balkans, becaming the sovereign Domination of Draka in 1919.

During World War II, the Domination entered the war with an airdrop onto Sicily in 1941. Six months later, the Germans had taken Moscow and the Wehrmacht in south Georgia are threatening the Draka conquests in Armenia. The Draka are assembling armored legions in Armenia to attack through the Caucasus Mountains and drop two legions of airborne at night to clear the passes of the Ossetian Military Highway. Opposing them is a panzer regiment of the Waffen-SS, Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler.

In this novel, the von Shrakenberg family are descendents of a Hessian mercenary paid off with land in southern Africa after the British lost their war against the American rebels. Karl is an Arch-Strategos, a general of the Supreme General Staff. His son Eric is Centurion of Century A, 1st Airborne Legion. His daughter Johanna is a Pilot Officer flying Eagle interceptors.

Karl is back in Castle Tarleton overlooking Archona, the capital of Draka. He is worried about Eric leading his century in the Caucasus Mountains and Johanna flying an Eagle out of Kars. He knows the North Caucasus campaign is risky, but necessary for the Domination to grow.

Century A has an American reporter, Bill Dreiser, with them as they drop into the mountains. It is his first airdrop and he is understandably nervous. As he leaps from the plane and falls, he grasps the release toggle and gives a single firm jerk.

This novel shows the personal lives of the van Shrakenberg family after the Sicily campaign in their plantation Oakenwald, intermingled with the assault on Village One along the Ossetian Military Highway. It describes the history of the Domination and the people who become the Draka. It also tells something of their serfs and their enemies.

The assault on Village One is depicted in great detail, from the first sentry taken out by the advancing Draka to the final confrontation and the subsequent relief by the Janissaries. It is a tale of a trained, experienced and well-led combat unit with excellent morale and determination. Unfortunately, they happen to be slave-holding imperialists.

This story is plausible and frightening in concept. What if the British had encouraged loyalists from the former American colonies to settle in South Africa? What if those settlers had been imperialistic and had expanded into Rhodesia a century before Cecil Rhodes? What if they continued their expansion to the rest of sub-Saharan Africa and then to the Ottomon Empire? Would the resulting state have a social structure combining the worst features of the Confederacy and the Afrikaners, but with a government more militarized and efficient than the Spartans or Prussians? Welcome to the Domination.

...The slave trade itself was banned in 1834 and this ban was enforced by British warships. However, the British hold in Africa was very lose prior to the 1880's and the taking of slaves within the African continent was not ended until 1891. Even after the Boer War, a form of non-chattel slavery remained in the practice of apartheid.

Highly recommended for Stirling fans and for anyone else who enjoys alternate history depicting ground combat in the worst of all possible worlds.

I have to admit, I enjoyed this book quite a bit, if enjoy is the right term for a book that focusses on mostly evil people.

Besides the rather interesting premise of the book, I found many of the aspects of the Draka out and out uncomfortable. They are not presented as moustache-twirling fiends, but rather as vigorous, focussed people so evil that they no longer even recognize it in themselves. These are people who honestly believe that their worldview is right, in spite of the fact that it is dehumanizing to their victims and serfs as well as themselves. I find this far more frightening than the popular view of racists who take delight in the fact that they can hurt others and are out and out sadists who wallow in their nastiness; rather they are akin to slaveowners, who were normal people who thought of themselves as good, but meted out horrors to their slaves.

The book itself is rather cleverly set out to where you often begin to like and admire these Draka, whereupon they matter-of-factly discuss some common atrocity that they perform and the reader is hit with a dash of cold water, realizing that these seductive people are almost anti-human. Tie this in with "Under the Yoke" where we see exactly what these people are capable of and I think you will get a rather clever peek into what true evil is.

As for the military aspects, they work rather well. In reality, a force like the Draka would have changed the world far more than we see in the novels before 1940, but it would have been an unrecognizable world to the reader. I think Stirling did as well as could be expected to put a rather implausible scenario into a history that we would recognize.

All in all, this is a good book in a good series.

I actually didn't come across this book until I'd already read the second in the series, Under the Yoke, which is the book that truly defines the heart of the series and fleshes out the background, world, and people that makes Stirling's alternate universe to real and so chilling. Nevertheless, you WILL want to read this book and it will become one of your favorite war novels. Marching Through Georgia is mostly a straight military action adventure (though a very good one at that - I'd have ranked it higher, but the second book is even that much better). Stirling introduces most, if not all of the key facets of his alternate universe, but his objective is to write one of the best, fastest paced war novels I've ever read, so he doesn't play with the ramifications of the world he's created as much as he does in the later books of this series. Go ahead and get this book. Even if you read 'Under the Yoke' first, you'll certainly get hooked and will want to read this one shortly thereafter

"Gripping" is an overused word in reviews, but it is an uncannily perfect word to describe this entire series, set in an alternate-history where the Loyalists established a colony in south Africa after losing the American Revolution.

"Marching Through Georgia", the first in the series, takes place in the early 1940's. The Draka have dominated and enslaved all of Africa, the Middle East, and much of Asia. They have lain in wait as the Nazis exhausted themselves conquering Europe and battling Russia. Now, the Domination of the Draka is poised to take advantage of the situation and extend its iron grip yet again.

The Draka -- men and women both -- are trained from birth to be outstanding fighters, both individually and collectively. They are also trained how to be slaveholders, how to most effectively tame, train, and use human beings, as some people tame, train, and use horses. Draka are dedicated to the survival of the State, and believe that "if you desire the ends, then you desire the means".

Unfortunately for everybody else, the only way the Draka will feel secure is to put the rest of the world "under the yoke".

Stirling could easily have written the Draka as stereotyped evil villians -- powerful and nasty and easy to hate. But the author did something far more impressive ... he(?) made them human. There is much to hate about the Draka and their society, but there is also much to admire. Better yet, Stirling helps you understand *why* the Draka are who they are -- and why their slaves are who *they* are. As "inhuman" as some of their actions are, it is clear the the Draka are, indeed, all too human. *This* is Stirling's accomplishment, this is what makes this series so impressive.

(The other books in the series are "Under the Yoke", "Stone Dogs", and "Drakkon".)

Its not going to live up to microscopic scrutiny, but
no work of fiction, particularly an alternate history,
will. Suspend disbelief and then enjoy.

The story is almost secondary to what and who the Draka
are. A power based in Africa that took control after
Royalists and Mercanaries were paid off by Britian with
land in South Africa. They conquered it and then much
of the middle east after world war one. By world war two
they are poised to strike at a victorious Nazi Reich that
has destroyed the Soviets.

Its not plausible in the microscopic but its plausible /enough/
to make you shudder and be thankful.

Highly reccomended as are the rest of the books in this
series. It gives you pause to think. Is it better for black
Africa to be in the state it is now...or enslaved? Would you
fight the Draka or join them as they bombed Rome and later
took over Europe, enslaving everyone?

Hard choices, and thats the charm of the story and the series.

One of the few alternate histories that pulls no punches.

It's hard to criticize a writer who can put a sentence together like Stirling (he gets even better in his later books), but Marching Through Georgia has several fundamental flaws. I'm more concerned with the unbelievable military equipment of the Draka than with the larger question of whether a highly militarized society based on "oligarchical feudalism" could actually exist and prosper. Given how he treats military technology, Stirling reminds me of a kid who learns the cheat codes for a video game, so that his characters are exponentially smarter and stronger than their opponents. At the beginning of Marching through Georgia, the Draka dispatch a paratrooper force to hold a strategic pass in southwestern Russia. They aim to bottle up a Nazi army and smash it. Unfortunately for anyone interested in suspense or drama, the Germans are no match for the Draka. The Nazis can muster 4,000 tanks, all of which seem to be roughly equivalent to the types they actually fielded in "our" WW2. The Draka have 14,000 Hond IIIs, which are very similar to the M1A1s now deployed by the US Army. The Draka have full automatic assault rifles for every soldier, automatic mortars, an RPG-type antitank rocket, reliable personal radios, Claymore-style mines...you get the idea. Their Air Force is unstoppable. Basically, Stirling creates a scenario in which one side gets all the best toys. One company of Draka paratroopers holds out against a regiment of the Nazi's best mechanized troops. Sure, the Draka have a nice defensive position, but the Germans (who were among the most flexible/adaptable soldiers of the real WW2) simply stumble around like extras in Star Trek, waiting to get hit.

I have several other minor bones to pick with this book. 1. The paratroopers constantly worry about running out of supplies, but logistics never really comes into play. Perhaps the Draka's near-mastery of the air allows them to drop supplies by parachute, but Stirling never mentions it. It's almost as if he's interjecting the question of supplies in order to balance the superhuman military abilities of the Draka, but he doesn't follow through. 2. A flamboyant mechanized cavalry commander makes a brief appearance and then vanishes, leading you to wonder what was the purpose of those ten or so pages. He adds nothing to the story besides distraction. 3. The Nazis have one regiment involved in trying to retake the strategic pass so their comrades can escape the Draka fire sack. Now, if I had a German Army Group (several divisions) trapped like that, I wouldn't wait on a single regiment to do the necessary work. I'd send everything I could up that road and let them pound on the paratroops. Given the Drakan technical and skill advantage, you could get a division chewed up that way, but you'd save a huge portion of your Army. Instead, the main German Army group just sits and takes it. Maybe Hitler gave them the Stalingrad order -- Hold at all costs. Again, there's no explanation for why such a powerful force relies on a relatively small unit to liberate them. All that being said, Stirling is still a compelling writer (as a wordsmith, he leaves Harry Turtledove in the dust) who forces his readers to deal with some heavy-duty ideas. The admiration that many readers have for the Draka seems to stem from their military/technical superiority, though, and Stirling doesn't make this advantage believable. They're just too good -- too smart -- too tough -- and least believable of all, too well equipped -- for it to be truly satisfying.

S.M. Stirling is a master of military SF, and made a major contribution to the genre of alternative history is this opening installment of a terrific series, The Draka Novels.

All good alt-hist premises have at their hearts a great "what if." Here, we see what is now South Africa being colonized largely by exiled American Revotion Era loyalists from the southern US and Caribbean, who bring their slave system to South Africa and, left isolated, more or less rapidly expand to take ovwer the entire continent. Their expansion continues through the WWI period by take-overs of the middle east, leaving them square up against the Germans and Russians as WWII commences.

This book rapidly takes one through the history, and then focuses on the WWII period (the Georgia referred to here is the former Soviet Union Republic), while the Draka take on the Germans who have been decimated by their battles with the Russians.

The military aspects of the novel are brilliant, as one expects from Stirling. On the other hand, he exceeds his normal somehwat stilted his character development one finds in his other works; here it's a terrific element which serves to support the plot and leaves one with a genuine sense of concern for the protagonists.

He takes the unusual approach of writing the saga largely from the perspective of the Draka (the "bad guys") and one slowly developes a sense of compassion for their point of view, which is suddenly (if regularly) punctured by examples of their inhumanity.

Somehow, I missed this series the first time around in the late 80's and early 90's. Copies are kind of difficult to find, but the search is well worth the effort.

In all honesty, it's kind of a stupid book, "Super South Africa Conquers Europe!" But stupid in a good way. Let me explain, S.M. Stirling is an excellent author, he's able to keep your attention and at the same time give some really well written scenes, and this book is something of a dirty pleasure, it's so well written, exciting, the pages flew by exceptionally quickly, and I found I could hardly put it down. But at the same time it's not satirical, or deep on any level, and it's just there to entertain which it accomplishes very well. So if you're looking for a break from dense reading, the characters are easy to understand, well drawn out, the dialogue is very well done, plenty of action to boot, it's a good rest book, one that I do highly recommend.

As the first of the Draka novels, this book is most interesting only in that it leads up to the later books. If you continue through the serious, you'll find "The Stone Dogs" interesting and "Drakon" impossible to put down. Read this book and "Marching Through Georgia" as set up to the latter books or as interesting war novel. (The SF doesn't really apply until the latter books.)

Well, for all intents and purposes, this novel was the most modest and simple, as far as explaning how the Draka are. However, most of it was about soldiers in battle; it could have been describing any other battle in any war in human history, just the names and technology change. When in war, we normally don't care for the other side's way of life.

Within the entire series, although simple, it's worth reading again.