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Title: The Forge (The Raj Whitehall Series: The General, Book 1) by S.M. Stirling, David Drake ISBN: 0-671-72037-6 Publisher: Baen Books Pub. Date: 01 January, 1991 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.73 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Outstanding military science fiction!
Comment: "The Forge" is the first of a five volume set that details the conquest of an early industrial age planet by a brilliant military commander. The planet Bellevue is a colony world that is sinking into barbarism after an interstellar civil war has cut off all travel between worlds. Each successive cycle of time drags civilzation further and further back. But the one remaining operating computer on the planet has taken on the task of reversing this entropy, and raising man back to his former power - with the help of Raj Whithall, the youngest military commander in the army of the Civil Government.
I thoroughly enjoyed this entire series, and have re-read it at least three times. The characters are engaging, the environment is seamless, and the action will keep you up late into the night. At least you don't have to wait for the next volume to be released like I did!
Rating: 5
Summary: The first of a series of 5 outstanding novels
Comment: The Forge begins a fascinating and tremendously enjoyable collection of five books, continuing with The Hammer, The Anvil, The Steel, and the Sword. The lead character, Raj Ammenda Halgern Da Luis Whitehall is a military officer in a society living on the planet Bellevue which was cut off from the rest of interstellar civilization when civil war destroyed Man's ability to travel between stars. The chaos that followed drove the succeeding generations further and further toward barbarism. During Raj's time, the technology of the ancients is worshipped as holy. Now with the help of a still active ancient computer, Raj is tasked with reuniting his world and reversing the social entropy.
These novels have some of the most entertaining prose and most convincing battle scenes I have ever read. I have read this series at least 5 times. Thankfully, you will not have to wait for the rest of the series as I did.
Rating: 5
Summary: One of the Best Military SF Series Ever
Comment: This book is the first in a series of 5 books that depict a planet (Bellevue) with a human civilisation that has fallen back from a star spanning empire to preindustrial levels, roughly circa US prior to its Civil War. David Drake furnished the outline, which was laid flesh by Steve Stirling.
The books are superbly written, with a plausible, complicated neo-feudal world. You can feel the dust in the air and the sweat on the skin as General Raj's soldiers trudge to battle; and thence the stench of gunpowder and voided bowels as the casualties mounted in battle.
Sometimes, between battles, there are jarring scenes as people who transgress an autocrat's law are enslaved, along with their entire families. While the level of technology is roughly Civil War America, imagine instead an America where you did not have to be Negro to be a slave, and there was no restriction on a ruler's power. Where the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man is unknown. The society is closer to that of Imperial Rome. No coincidence. The hero, Raj, is modelled on Belisarius, the Byzantine general.
There are lighter moments. The state religion is a worship of Computers (explicitly capitalised), based on a fragmented recollection of their power, prior to the nuclear war that brought down the earlier civilisation. Priests can be female. Fierce theological disputes arise over different interpretations of surviving computer manuals. Which were probably untelligible to begin with, anyway. Those of you who have read Byzantine history can see echoes of the nitpicking arguments that split early Christianity; arguments utterly meaningless to those outside a narrow frame of reference.
Oh, speaking of Christians, here they are like Jews; an unloved minority. But there are plenty of Muslims. In fact, they are the other Great Power on Bellevue. The series revolves around the two Powers confronting each other, to decide the fate of the planet.
Before you read this series, I urge that you do a quick scan of Belisarius in a good dictionary. You will get more from the series this way.
The biggest problem about this series is that it is hard to find in its entirety in a bookstore. You may have to scrounge in used bookstores. It doesn't appear to have been reprinted recently.
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Title: The Chosen (The Raj Whitehall Series, Book 6) by S. M. Stirling, David Drake ISBN: 0671877240 Publisher: Baen Books Pub. Date: June, 1996 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: The Hammer (The Raj Whitehall Series: The General, Book 2) by David Drake, S. M. Stirling ISBN: 0671721054 Publisher: Baen Books Pub. Date: January, 1995 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: The Anvil (The Raj Whitehall Series: The General, Book 3) by David Drake, S. M. Stirling ISBN: 0671721712 Publisher: Baen Books Pub. Date: June, 1993 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: The Sword (The Raj Whitehall Series: The General, Book 5) by David Drake, S. M. Stirling ISBN: 0671876473 Publisher: Baen Books Pub. Date: March, 1995 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: The Steel (The Raj Whitehall Series: The General, Book 4) by David Drake, S. M. Stirling ISBN: 0671721895 Publisher: Baen Books Pub. Date: October, 1993 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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