The War with Earth

The previous reviewers tend to either love or hate this book. I fall into the love it category. I have read most of the better known military SF by authors such as David Weber, Elizabeth Moon, John Ringo, S.M. Stirling, etc., and I think that if you like those authors, you will probably like this book. It is definitely is a little juvenile at times, but take it for what it is.

I just closed the last page of Frankowski and Grossman's "The War With Earth." It's a great piece of work, which I finished in a little under 24 hours. To say it's a page-turner or totally immerses the reader is an understatement. Both space and ground-based future combat proposes problems which the authors solve in truly unique ways. New developments and equipment are adapted and used in novel and unforseeable directions. The book also presents just enough politics, intrigue, anger, bawdy moments, love, sadness and the art of living to leaven the material and clean the palate for the next slice of action. It was just plain fun to read! I'm decidedly looking for more from these authors. Rocky Warren-Sgt. (ret)

The War With Earth (2003) is the second novel in the New Kashubia series, following A Boy and His Tank. In the previous volume, Mickolai Derdowski has been sentenced to death on his home world of New Kashubia for impregnating his girlfriend, but was offered the alternative of joining the army instead. He was assigned to a Mark XIX Main Battle Tank, the Aggressor, with an sentient AI module that he named Agnieshka. After his training is completed, Mickolai is transferred to New Yugoslavia as a tanker first class, fighting with the Kashubian Expeditionary Force on behalf of New Croatia and against New Serbia. Soon he finds that Kasia has joined voluntarily and has found a way to merge their Dream Worlds. Four and a half years later, Mickolai is a general in the KEF and Kasia is a colonel and his chief of staff. Mickolai has three divisions under him, liberated from the Serbian army. Kasia finds a Catholic priest among the new tankers and she and Mickolai are married. For their honeymoon, they take the three divisions and assault the Serbians from the rear. Afterwards, the New Kashubians make a movie of Mickolai's life. In this novel, Agnieshka informs Mickolai that all his previous war experience has only been virtual and that he is not really a general. After his initial shock and anger have worn off, Mickolai discusses the situation with Kasia. The first thing Mickolai wants is to get married in the real world by a real priest, but Kasia disagrees, insisting that the first thing they are going to do is to clean up and go clothes shopping. After they are properly clad, they head for the nearest priest, but he wants them to take confession on everything done in the six years since the were first sealed into their tanks. After consulting with Agnieshka, they approach another priest who has had prior experience with the KEF and arrange for the wedding. However, the first wedding date soon has to be postponed due to the crowd of people who want to attend. While Kasia is planning the wedding, Mickolai starts looking for farming property, but New Croatia is well developed and prime property is expensive. However, Kasia discovers that a very large tract has been deeded to New Kashubia as the alleged warzone and property is available to KEF veterans at very reasonable rates. Moreover, Kasia has negotiated a deal with the KEF authorities to pay Mickolai and herself at their virtual rank. After the wedding, Mickolai start a six month honeymoon, during which time they start parlaying their backpay into the beginnings of a large fortune. They arrange for idle Mark XIXs to be used as farming and construction equipment to develop their property. They also buy a large number of humanoid drones to do the precision work. Their tanks and other AI personas in the KEF voluntarily supervise the work. Mickolai and Kasia had been informed that a possibility of war existed and that they should be prepared for deployment with little warning. When

Reading this reminded me how many of the hundreds of SF titles I've read really didn't think much through like the real implications of technology or the character's lives outside the action/technical problem. This book is bursting with new ideas, insights, and concepts that probably will influence real military designers more than Star Trek or Star Wars' thin concepts of Francis Drake's longboat in space or aircraft carriers in space ever did. The implications of the technology and how it's used together reflects both Frankowski's often subtle wisdom and his collaborator's military field experience. It definitely has the impact of how war goes when one side is constantly trained, tests simulations to find the right approach and rehearse, has superior communications and information, and maximizes a technological advantage. The first reviewer probably wouldn't believe the U.S. performance in the Gulf War, Afghanistan, Grenada, Panama, Iraq II, or anything the Israelis, British SAS, etc. have accomplished either because this stuff does create such an enormous advantage over any foe. I enjoy Frankowski's social commentary, economic insights, human relationships, and entrepreneurial mindset as much or more than the combat sequences and I think they make his books considerably different and richer than most. I've met and worked with a lot of folks like his characters so I guess they don't seem unbelievable to me. This and it's prequel A Boy and His Tank are among the best real military SF yet written, they're just not space operas based on World War I battleship slugfests, WWII carriers, or 17th century Spanish Main models.

Another Baen book that covers new ground in the Military Sci-fi sub-genre, The War With Earth has some old ideas mixed with some startling concepts and great action. The result... a thumping good book!Our hero has just finished fighting a long and terrible war in the coffin of his super-cybertank. Then he finds out he has really only fought a virtual 'fake' war as his training and he is not only not a general and war hero, he is only a tank commander. But a real war is on the horizon.The real juice of the story is the Mk 19 Battle Tank and its machine intelligence. The tanks have more personality than the characters in many a novel and the interaction between tank and human is the soul of the story. The action is really secondary to me. I read this in one sitting and then went online and found the author's other book from Baen, A Boy and His Tank. Highly recommended to any fan of military sci-fi this novel has the feel of reality with all the flash and bang of a space opera. The workings of military hierarchies are dead on and the future politics ring true. Good stuff.