March Upcountry (Empire of Man Book 1)

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.

I needed a break from David Weber after reading the Honor Harrington books in succession. I got tired of the digressions from the main story line (war with the Peeps) to scientific and anthropological subjects (development of FTL speed, how treecats communicate, etc.). I refused to buy this in hardback, preferring to wait and see if I really wanted to spend the money and shelf space on it.
I was pleasantly surprised. Although the timeline moves rather slowly there's plenty of action along the way and he does a much better job at fleshing out his story with background information without running it into the ground (the one exception being a treatise on the metallurgical properties of steel). Character development is fairly good, although it gets to a point where you can tell when someone is going to be bumped off. This is my first exposure to John Ringo and I believe I'll pick up a couple of his books in the future.
All in all a good read. If the trend continues it should be an excellent series.

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!

The next installment in this sequence is March To the Sea.

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

-Arthur W. Jordin

Take a British (sortof) prince and his contingent bodyguards, and drop them in the middle of a hostile land filled with hostile natives. The old British Regiments would have marched to the coast, eliminating any of the opposition in front of them. Prince Roger handles it a bit differently. Even though he is depicted as an effeminate wastral, he has a lot going for him. I recommend this to any fan of military scifi.

While the reader first suspects and typical Royal Intrigue it quickly turns from a simple assasination attempt to a thrilling plot that absorbs the reader. Another Weber trait is being able to draw the reader to feel the emotions of the characters. While I am not as familiar with Ringo's style, there is no doubt that this was a union of styles that works extremely well.

I enjoyed March Upcountry. I initially did not want to read this book because I really like David Weber's books. Most of the time it seems as that when an established writer is paired with a new writer the work isn't as good. This book is different. I enjoyed it a lot and it kept my interest. As a conservative it was nice to see the environmental extremists put into the role of the bad guys. Books that make humans out to be evil despoilers of the world, or worlds, get a little old. This book was a nice change.

A solid novel for those who like military Sci-Fi. Written by two of my favorite authors - Weber and Ringo.
They give the characters a life of their own, making them belivable and part of you. You end up caring about them and what is happening next.
This book reaches up and grabs you and doesn't want to let you go.
The ONLY problem with it is the fact that there really isn't an ending - you will need to get the next book (March to the Sea) to find out what happens next.

I agree with lawzam, this one is a disappointment. After reading all of the Harrington series, I expected the same quality, and it's just not there. The characters are cartoonish, the story flow is erratic. It looks like the authors forgot the basics of writing a 5-paragraph essay.
It was a sure bet that any Harrington book would repeatedly move you between tears and elation. This one leaves you bored most of the time.
The only thing I was impressed with is a description of the exotic carnivors and especially their hunting habits. Those are cool.
It looks like the ending is intended to be a cliff-hanger, in an attempt to create a captive audience, perhaps because the authors realize that otherwise their chances to get the next installment out successfully are slim. Yet it fails miserably, there is neither resolution nor suspense, just an end of chapter.
And why on earth do the authors go into all the irrelevant details of steel-making technologies near the of the book? Yawn.
Remember how HH almost never raised her voice, yet always made her point across quite emphatically? This is the complete opposite. Constant swearing, without much reason. F- and s-words everywhere. Quite pathetic really. Zero romance, too.
I hope a new HH installment is coming up, hopefully a novel, but a collection of short stories would do. I pray David Weber does not waste his time on this lame story...

I really enjoyed reading this book. Well written and interesting. This reads as a military novel with the struggle of the The Empress's Own trying to save their prince. A worthy read. I recommend it highly.

This book is a "Keeper". I enjoyed the character development, they have all types: The "whinner", "doom-sayer", the "it could be worse", the characters allow one to identify with the book. This books show that Prince Roger is more than a spoiled brat, and I look forward to more books in this series.

This book was the biggest train wreck, AWFUL. The only reason I finished it was to perhaps save someone else my fate. Some decent concepts, but the characters and events around their development were cliche and predictable, other events lacked motive.