From Publishers Weekly
In the thoroughly satisfactory fourth and final installment in the interplanetary bildungsroman that Weber (The Shadow of Saganami) and Ringo (When the Devil Dances) began with March Upcountry (2001), Prince Roger and his Marine bodyguards, who've been struggling on the primitive planet Marduk, manage to obtain a starship. Later, they discover not only that Roger's Royal Mother's person and power have been co-opted in a palace coup but that the sabotage that marooned them on Marduk was designed to implicate the prince. Roger and friends devise a clever Trojan Horse strategy that allows them to contact potential recruits to their cause surreptitiously. Alas, most of their new allies remember Roger as the young snot he was and not as the formidable leader he has become. Meanwhile, Roger's human advisers wrestle with the implications these changes suggest about his possible leadership of a constitutional monarchy. Whereas the first three volumes dealt with how the humans adapted to conditions on Marduk, this book shows how the alien Mardukians cope with human society, often with humorous results. (Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Prince Roger MacClintock is coming home with, besides the handful of survivors of the Bronze Battalion company he led across Marduk, a substantial number of four-armed Mardukans. First, however, he has to get help, in the form of a ship, from a planet inhabited by two different alien races. Then he has to convince the Sixth Fleet of the Empire of Man that, even though he is disguised down to the genetic level, he is really who he says he is, and that he wasn't responsible for the putsch against his mother, the empress. Winning Sergeant Nimashet Despreaux to become his empress-mate is almost a bagatelle in comparison. Furthermore, a whole new set of problems arrives when he and his hardy band hit Earth and begin operations under the cover of a Mardukan restaurant. Real villains the earl of New Madrid and the prince of Kellerman are only part of his worries, and offsetting organized crime are loyalists like Sergeant Major Catrone. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
Prince Roger MacClintock was an heir to the galaxy's Throne of Man-and a self-obsessed spoiled young brat . . . until he and the Royal Marines sent to protect him were stranded on Marduk with only their feet to get them half way around the entire planet. So far, they've crossed a continent, crossed a sea full of ship-eating monsters, taken over an enemy spaceport, and hijacked a starship. But they're not home-free yet, because home is no longer free. In Roger's absence, a palace coup by enemies of the MacClintock family has seized control of the Empire. His mother the Empress is a captive in the palace and even in her own body, drugged so that her will is not her own. Roger's bother, the heir to the throne, is dead. And Roger himself has been branded an outlaw and traitor. Roger and his faithful band of human marines and native alien warriors have beaten the barbarian planet Marduk, and now they must re-conquer an interstellar empire. But they aren't about to give up, and with the help of those on the throne planet who are still loyal to the Empress they will infiltrate (under cover of a restaurant specializing in exotic Mardukan dishes, no less), they will make anyone who gets in their way (such as local mobsters who make the mistake of kidnapping Roger's fiancé) very sorry that they did, and they will not rest until the rightful ruler has been restored. Once again, a lot of power-hungry people are going to learn a hard lesson: You do not, ever, mess with a MacClintock!
About the Author
David Weber is author of the New York Times best-selling Honor Harrington series as well as Path of the Fury, Mutineers' Moon and The Armageddon Inheritance and other popular novels. With Steve White, he is the author of Insurrection, Crusade, In Death Ground, and the New York Times best seller The Shiva Option, all novels based on his Starfire SF strategy game. His latest novel is Wind Rider's Oath (Baen). John Ringo is author of the New York Times best-selling series so far comprising A Hymn Before Battle, Gust Front, When the Devil Dances, and Hell's Faire, and co-author with David Weber of March Upcountry, March to the Sea and March to the Stars, the first two books in this series. His latest novel is Into the Looking Glass (Baen).
We Few FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Roger Ramius Sergei Alexander Chiang McClintock hasn't done anything the easy way. The spoiled playboy prince grew up the hard way on the planet Marduk. Watching ninety percent of your bodyguards - bodyguards who have become friends, closer to you than your own brothers and sisters - die to keep you alive will do that. And it tends to make you dangerous...perhaps in too many ways." "Now Prince Roger is coming home, but home isn't what it was when he left. Traitors have murdered his brother and sister, his nieces and nephews. His mother, the Empress, is still alive, but in the hands of Roger's own biological father, who controls her through drugs and physical and psychological torture. A new heir to the Throne has been conceived, and once the child is born his mother will no longer be necessary to the traitors' plans. Home Fleet, the largest and most powerful of the Empire's fleets is under the traitors' control, and no one in a position of power on Old Earth has the means - or the will - to do anything about it. And, just to make things perfect, the Empire has been told that the real traitor is Prince Roger Ramius Sergei Alexander Chiang McClintock." "With the twelve survivors of Bravo Company of the Empress' Own, a few hundred three-meter tall Mardukans, his one-time tutor and present chief of staff, an elephant-sized flarta pack beast, his faithful pet Dogzard, and the ghost of his greatest ancestor, Prince Roger must somehow retake the Empire from the men who control it...before his new brother is born and his mother dies." It's an impossible task, but Prince Roger knows all about impossible tasks, and the surviving Bronze Barbarians and the Mardukans of the Basik's Own believe he can do it. They're prepared to storm the gates of Hell itself at his heels in order to retake the Empire. But after they do, can they save it from Prince Roger, as well?
Art & Photography
Book Info
