March Upcountry (Empire of Man #1) by David Weber & John Ringo
Publication: Baen (May 1, 2001), ebook / ISBN 0743435389 (mmpb)
Genre: Military Sci-Fi
Rating: 
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Read: August 2009
Roger leaned back on the bed in the tiny cabin, eyes shut and tried his best to radiate a dangerous calm. I’m twenty-two years old, he thought. I’m a Prince of the Empire. I will not cry just because Mommy is making me angry. (from Chapter 1)
I think I said somewhere before that military sci-fi wasn’t really my thing, but after reading this book I have been proven a big fat liar. I love military sci-fi! I should have figure it out before, actually, since I loved Interstellar Patrol and There Will Be Dragons. Those were both either military sci-fi or had elements of it in them, and– yeah, I was delusional.
Summary from FantasticFiction.co.uk:
Roger Ramius Sergei Chiang MacClintock didn’t understand.
He was young, handsome, athletic, an excellent dresser, and third in line for the Throne of Man…so why wouldn’t anyone at Court trust him?
Why wouldn’t even his own mother, the Empress, explain why they didn’t trust him? Or why the very mention of his father’s name was forbidden at Court? Or why his mother had decided to pack him off to a backwater planet aboard what was little more than a tramp freighter to represent her at a local political event better suited to a third assistant undersecretary of state?
It probably wasn’t too surprising that someone in his position should react by becoming spoiled, self-centered and petulant. After all, what else did he have to do with his life?
But that was before a saboteur tried to blow up his transport. Then warships of the Empire of Man’s worst rivals shot the crippled vessel out of space. Then Roger found himself shipwrecked on the planet Marduk, whose jungles were full of damnbeasts, killerpillars, carnivorous plants, torrential rain, and barbarian hordes with really bad dispositions. Now all Roger has to do is hike halfway around the entire planet, then capture a spaceport from the Bad Guys, somehow commandeer a starship, and then go home to Mother for explanations.
Fortunately, Roger has an ace in the hole: Bravo Company of Bronze Battalion of The Empress’ Own Regiment. If anyone can get him off Marduk alive, it’s the Bronze Barbarians.
Assuming that Prince Roger manages to grow up before he gets all of them killed.
March Upcountry is really long (608 pages in the mass market paperback version) but I honestly didn’t notice until I was somewhere around the middle and realized I had been reading for two-three days and wasn’t done already. (It actually took me about five days to finish.) It’s such an involved world, with fantastic characters and lovely descriptions and lots of adventure, intrigue, and fighting that it was a pleasure to be so immersed for so long. I didn’t even feel tired at the end of it!
Probably my very favorite thing is Prince Roger and his evolution from awkward, snobbish noble to super competent leader and popular dude. Roger is a slightly tragic character in that he doesn’t want to be snobbish but he can’t seem to stop himself from acting like it. I think it’s almost like a defensive reflex against everyone who doesn’t like him (basically because of an incident concerning his parents which he had no control over and which he didn’t even know about), and he starts his change so early on that I didn’t hold it against him. But best of all is how Roger is technically already awesome with the physical stuff, and once he starts getting a handle on the personal politics stuff he turns into a really likable, really capable leader. Of course, it wouldn’t have worked if Roger didn’t already have the qualities needed, and I liked that, too.
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