The Prince

I have owned and red all the stories in the book many years ago. But it way like seeing an old friend you haven't seen in a long time. Putting the whole thing together was wonderful. I only wish that Mr Pournelle and his editors would have included all of the 42th and Leigon stories. I especially like the short piece on John Christiam taking over as Commander of the 42th. Now if there were only stories about the formation of the First Empire. . .

Wow. I read The Mercenary when it first hit the stands (I was a high school freshman); I've stayed with Falkenberg, et at, ever since. Yes, Dr Pournelle can get a tad preachy at times (as do most of my favorites--Asimov, Bujold, Heinlein, and Weber to name a few)--and so what? He manages to work through his ongoing ruminations on the place of the soldier in society in an engaging and literate fashion. So many of his characters remind me of so many folks I knew when I served in the Army. I've always hoped that one day someone'd publish the stories in chronological order; I never dreamed that I'd finally get the whole lot in one massive volume. Now if we could get the same with the War World stories... 29 Jul 09 NOTE: I have no idea why White's Prince of Sunset is being shown here...

The Prince (2002) is an omnibus edition containing the four novels of the Falkenberg's Legion series. These novels are based on the CoDominium universe in which the US and USSR joined forces against the rest of the world and started colonizing planets, mostly with convicts and welfare clients. However, the CoDominium itself was not very stable and could have self-destructed at any time. Only the Fleet was holding together civilization. In Falkenberg's Legions (1990), the first novel in the series, John Christian Falkenberg the Third joins the CoDominium Armed Services and serves on his first and his last assignments as a CoDominium officer. The novel itself incorporates two previous novels. West of Honor describes the admission of Falkenberg into the CoDominium service and his first field command on Arrarat with the 42nd Line Marine Regiment, where they fought against a former gang, the Mission Hills Protective Association. The Mercenary describes Falkenberg's last field command in the service with a cadre of men from the disbanded 42nd on a mission to stabilize the government of Hadley and the subsequent formation of the Legion. Additional material has been incorporated in this fixup to enrich the backstory. In Prince of Mercenaries (1989), the second novel in the series, the Legion accepts a contract on Tanith to wipe out some pirate gangs and to quell a tax boycott by opposition planters who have employed another mercenary unit. Then the bulk of the Legion leaves Tanith on a mission to New Washington, where Colonel Falkenberg marries a local women and retires. This novel is a fixup of several shorter pieces with a framing story about a visit from Prince Lysanter of Sparta to discuss a contract for an advise and instruct mission. In Go Tell the Spartans (1991), the third novel in the series, the Legion sends the 5th Battalion on a mission to Sparta to help train local troops, but they arrive only to discover that they are facing an insurrection. In Prince of Sparta (1993), the fourth novel in the series, the 5th Battalion resumes its training mission after helping the Spartan troops to defeat the insurrection. However, enemy units are still conducting low level guerilla strikes and the Royal forces are trying to uncover the enemy supply lines. This series portrays a wide variety of military operations and tactics with units of regimental strength or less; CoDominium unit sizes are limited because of mission parameters and funding whereas mercenary unit sizes are restricted by the CoDominium laws of war. Larger units are allowed or required only in the nationalist forces on Earth. This series also reveals various aspects of military operations other than combat, including economics, logistics and intelligence. Also, it exposes the limits of military power: the power to kill is not the same as the power to compel. For the most part, these stories were inspired by historical situations; for example, the suppression of the Ni

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Finally, all of the Falkenberg / Sparta stories in one volume. This is classic Sci-Fi and also excellent fiction. Read it and you might learn something! Hopefully this will encourage Pournelle and Stirling to write more together.

It was Coleridge who coined the term, "...the willful suspension of disbelief", and it is this concept, I think, that marks successful fiction of every genre. It is the element that gets the reader "into" the story, and it is hardest to achieve in epic fantasy and military science fiction. This is because the writer has to do more than create believeable characters and plot; he/she has to create the very worlds in which the characters exist, including geography, politics, economics, etc. All of this comes across in superb manner in "The Prince". Originally published several years ago as four separate books, this is the story of the death of one civilization, and the gritty birth of another, from the standpoint of Falkenburg's Legion, a mercenary unit whose origins include such seemingly disparate military models as the Roman Legion and the French Foreign Legion. I would have given this book a 5 star rating but for a stylistic aspect that I have always found to be off-putting, because I find that it interrupts the story: in the first book, the writers switch between first person and third person narrative. It may be simply a personal quirk of mine, but there it is. On the other hand, the writing is of a consistantly high quality, and the plot move with a good pace and some very intense action. If you like the genre, read this book. Jim Baen of Baen Books has the inside track on military sci-fi, with a cadre of writers which includes David Weber (my alltime favorite), Eric Flint, David Drake and many others. "The Prince" is a worthwile addition to the Baen Catalog and is sure to please most readers.