Rally Cry

Rally Cry (1990) is the first Alternate History novel in The Lost Regiment series. The 35th Maine infantry regiment has had a glorious history, the first to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor as a unit for their stubborn resistance to Confederate forces at Gettysburg. Now, they and the 44th New York Light Artillery board the transport Ogunquit to participate in an amphibious assault, but sail a day behind the other ships of the flotilla. The Ogunquit is caught in a storm, flounders in high waves, is sucked into a funnel of blinding light, and is then dropped elsewhere. In our timeline, neither the ship nor any of those onboard are ever seen again. In this novel, Colonel Andrew Keane, commander of the regiment, awakes to find the ship aground, all masts down, and bodies and gear littering the deck. Sergeant Major Hans Schuder reports that two men have been killed and the other 600 are puking their guts out. Miss Kathleen O'Reilly, a nurse from the Christian Sanitation Commission, avows that she will never set foot on a ship again, then goes below to assist Doctor Emil Weiss, the regimental physician, in treating the injured. One of the privates reports a horseman on the shore and Keane uses his field glasses to discover that the rider has a long beard, a conical iron helmet and a long spear; he is wearing a dirty white tunic that buttons up one side and has rags on his feet. When the horseman leaves, Keane gets his men and artillery ashore and dug in against a possible attack. However, the Captain of the Ogunquit, Tobias Cromwell, calls him back aboard and up the rigging to the shattered maintop, giving Keane a view of the land beyond the nearest hills. Thousands of men are swarming towards them, lead by a mounted contingent carrying square banners portraying various symbols. Some of the horsemen are wearing rough plate armor and are clustered around a portly, bearded man wearing gold-embossed armor. The infantry looks like true medieval levies, with an insane assortment of spears, swords, clubs and pitchforks. After the stranger arrive, they form up in a line, two priests walk down the line with censors smoking, and the strangers each cross themselves...backwards. An emissary comes forward to ask for their surrender, but Keane cannot understand the language, except for the term "boyar". When the strangers charge, some of the 35th fire a volley of blank charges and the two artillery pieces fire over the their heads. At that point, the strangers leave the field rapidly, but soon some return with their catapults and attack the ship. Keane has Major Pat O'Donald, commander of the 44th New York, target the catapults and the strangers leave the field in a wild stampede. Then the regiment sees two moons in the sky. Amidst all the excitement that this causes, another emissary approaches the camp carrying a torch and is taken to the colonel. Kalencka is a peasant, the bard of the boyar, and has been sent to gather information

This is one of the best books I've read in years. Forstchen somehow manages to put some of everything a sci-fi fan would want in a mere 412 pages. Throughout the entire book the action almost never let up. I also liked the great character development. For example, the reader watches Vincent change from an innocent Quaker to a cursing, killing, soldier. The plot goes something like this. The 35th Maine regiment goes through a time and space warp and ends up on a planet completely alien from our own. On this alien planet, all humans are merely cattle to be eaten by the horrendous monsters that rule them. Since the book would be sort of pointless if the 35th just stood by and let everybody get eaten, they naturally stand up and fight against the superior strength and numbers of the monsters. If you are looking for a good book to read, and you enjoy science fiction, read this book. Consider that an order.

This book almost defies description: a magnificent adventure novel, a science fiction novel that manages to be intelligent and to include true science and wonderful fiction, a military fiction novel with some of the best battle scenes I have ever read, "Rally Cry" is the opening shot in the "Lost Regiment" series and one of the best reads in any genre you'll find in the last decade. One of the most troubling aspects of science fiction -a genre I really like- is the simplistic treatment that most authors give their books, and their cavalier attitude toward the reader. Even authors with scientific background, like Asimov, wrote wrong science, as in "Nightfall", or dealt with insipid plots and flat characters that were mere copies of other characters. Forstchen has used stereotypes here, too, but his way of dealing with them is far superior to that of other writers. His Union Regiment lost in a world where humans are food to the native inhabitants, and where the Yankees spark a revolution that eventually reaches planetary proportions, is not only entertaining. It's intelligent, as well, with solid documentation of industry and warfare, and a very credible alien society of nomads. The best is, perhaps, the idealism of some of those Yankees (and Forstchen), who see their country as what it should be and fight for it, and also die for it. Stranded in a hostile world, these bluecoats will turn out to be the titans all countries want but few get. And their cause, to free people from serfdom and slaughter, is a magnified vision of the most noble aspect of the American Civil War, whose origins were somewhat removed from freedom itself, but that ended up becoming a war where a country almost tore itself apart in order to get rid of slavery. Forstchen knows that and is proud of the New England tradition of patriotism and freedom. His extraordinary science fiction, adventure, military history book is a homage to those who fought for the ideal of making this country a better place.

After reading and loving Harry Turtledove's World War: In the Balance and Colonization series, a reader recommended the Lost Regiment series to me. I was completely spellbound by the vivid battle scenes and outstanding characterization portrayed in Rally Cry. Needless to say, I've ordered the other 7 titles in the series and can't wait to delve into them. I can't recommend this book strongly enough--definitely 10 stars, not 5! Again, I hope for recommendations from other readers who loved this book...

William Forstchen has created a great tale that includes the best of a civil war drama and a science fiction novel. An infantry regiment is transported through a hole in space to a world where humans are not the top of the food chain. They refuse to submit to the carnivorous tyrany of the dominant species. With their modern weaponry, they inadvertantly cause a rebellion against the eight foot tall warrior race that rules the planet. The natives join the Yankees in their resolve to be free of the tribute of human flesh required of them every twenty years. The book is filled with outstanding battle sequences, but goes beyond that into an area that is not covered in most war novels. That area is logistics. It adds a further dimension to the story when to survive, the new government must create an industrial society out of midevil Russian serfs. I lost a night's sleep because I could not put it down after I had read the first chapter. If you like science fiction or military fiction, I think you will like "Ra