Warlord: The Forge / SM Stirling & David Drake

Warlord: The Forge

category: military science fiction, authors:

SM Stirling & David Drake

book 1 of The General
published by Baen, original copyright 1991, read in May 2010

Agamedes' opinion: 7 out of 10

A note on that book name: In 1991, Stirling & Drake had The Forge published. In 2003, it was published again, along with The Hammer, in one book called Warlord. (Conqueror contains the other three of The General series of novels.) I have Warlord and have read -- and am now reviewing -- the original first novel. Later, I will read the second.

A note about the authors: In my effort to find the original date of publication of The Forge, I searched the web. In Wikipedia I found that Drake wrote a 10 to 15 thousand word outline, then Stirling did the rest. Interesting!

This book is a lot of fun. Not funny -- though there is humour -- but fun: non-stop action, tough guy heroes, support from a prescient computer. Or, rather, a super-computer which uses extrapolation and statistics to "predict" the future result of current options. The hero is tough but fair. Of course all the soldiers would -- and often do -- willingly follow him into deadly danger.

Yet there are some interesting tweaks to the standard plot...

Right from the start, the hero is married. His wife follows him to the war zone and, once or twice, into battle. Her main role, however, is politics -- using her feminine wiles to tempt and trick opponents. Is she -- as most people believe -- actually sleeping with other men? Her husband (the hero) certainly does not enjoy her dalliances... but they still love each other and only each other.

The state religion is clever: One planet, long cut off from the galactic empire, lost to all "modern" technology, with the ancient and long gone computers as gods. Priests are called "sysups" (not quite sysops), prayers end with "endfile" rather than "amen". Mind you, the enemy armies all wear loose robes and turbans and shout to allah as they charge into battle...

Occasionally, of course, the hero has to resort to violence to get support from the corrupt bureaucracy. As usual in these tough-guy stories, threats and actual violence quickly get the necessary cooperation. A more stubborn bureaucrat is thrown out the window...

... Okay, I thought, bring in the next; he'll look out the window and be more cooperative. But no! another tweak to the cliche: the window and shutters are still closed! The bureaucrat bounces back -- somewhat bruised and battered -- and is now willing to help. Nice one :-)

I did find that some of the action, especially in the first half, was hard to follow.

You know how it is, the author knows what he is writing about but fails to explain. I'm no military expert, I was occasionally lost in the heat of battle... Still, no worries, you could usually tell who had won or lost. Near the start I was forced to google bucellarii. Near the end, I googled fougasse -- though it was, in fact, well described in the book.

Learn something every day! Though I'm not sure when I'll be able to slip those words into a casual conversation...

The violence is graphic but not gratuitous: it's war, not torture. You can skim over the dead bodies and dismembered body parts. This is solid "good versus evil", with acceptance that compromise may be necessary now, to prevent suffering later. A realistic message set in a fairly brutal -- but overall honorable -- world.

Well worth reading.

..o0o..

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