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The Forge | Rating | |
| B | |||
| S. M. Stirling and David Drake | |||
| Series | Related Books | ||
| The General | The Forge, The Hammer, The Anvil, The Steel, The Sword, The Chosen, The Steel, The Reformer | ||
It is the far future. Man has spread to the stars in a vast Federation. But then, for reasons that are never disclosed - at least not in this book - that civilization fell. Now, a thousand years later, the planet of Bellevue has a tech level more or less akin to the mid 1800's. There are still remnants of the old federation around, though, and Raj Whitehall manages to find a functional computer! Not just any computer either, it's the sector command computer. It gives Raj the task of reuniting the planet from its farious factions as a first step to rebuilding the Federation.
This is a pretty good military novel. The author's tactics are sound, and the politics, while important, are not delved into deeply. There's no place where the book gets bogged down with them. The main difference between this book, and series, and some other civil-war-era military fiction book is Center. The computer, after the initial meeting, is in constant communication with Raj, and is able of offer insights and advice by way of calculating probabilities and showing him a simulation of the results. This naturally gave him a tremendous advantage, as well as making the book more interesting.
All in all, a good book, for the military sci-fi enthusiast. There's not much sci-fi, really, but there's enough to qualify. But it's not a great book. It never quite reaches high enough for that. But still worth a read.
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