March to the Stars

Empire of Man #3

by David Weber, John Ringo, Stefan Rudnicki (Narrator)

Science fiction icon David Weber (the Honor Harrington series) teams up with Airborne-soldier-turned-author John Ringo (A Hymn Before Battle) in their third novel about Prince Roger Ramius Sergei Chiang Alexander MacClintock, Heir Tertiary to the Throne of Man. March to the Stars continues the adventures of Roger and the Bronze Barbarians that started in March Upcountry and continued in March to the Sea as they battle their way across the remote planet of Marduk in their bid to return home to Earth. Through the course of these first three novels, Roger has grown from a spoiled brat into a true leader of men and aliens alike. March to the Stars takes the Bronze Barbarians of the Imperial Guard across the Eastern Ocean of Marduk, facing giant sea monsters and pirates, and eventually to a spaceport held by humans of questionable loyalties. The naval battle with Mardukian pirates contains some swashbuckling heroics worthy of Errol Flynn himself, and Roger learns that not everything is as it seems on either Marduk or Earth. Fortunately, he's got the Bronze Barbarians and the Basik's Own at his back.

Collaboration is a tricky art form, and the resulting work can often feel rough and blocky, with the writers' differing styles at odds. Weber and Ringo deliver a work with a smooth blending of style, serving up a sum that is indeed greater than its parts. Readers should be warned, however, that by the end of the story they will likely be tempted to scoop up other works by these authors to satisfy their reading needs while waiting for the next novel in the series. --Ron Peterson

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Military Fiction, Space Opera, Audiobook, Military Science Fiction, Fantasy

544 pages, Audible Audio

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

David Mark Weber is an American science fiction and fantasy author. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1952.

Many of his stories have military, particularly naval, themes, and fit into the military science fiction genre. He frequently places female leading characters in what have been traditionally male roles.

One of his most popular and enduring characters is Honor Harrington whose alliterated name is an homage to C.S. Forester's character Horatio Hornblower and her last name from a fleet doctor in Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander . Her story, together with the "Honorverse" she inhabits, has been developed through 16 novels and six shared-universe anthologies, as of spring 2013 (other works are in production). In 2008, he donated his archive to the department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University.

Many of his books are available online, either in their entirety as part of the Baen Free Library or, in the case of more recent books, in the form of sample chapters (typically the first 25-33% of the work).

http://us.macmillan.com/author/davidw...

Reviews

[Phil · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are things I really love about both of these authors, but some aspects tend to be annoying as well, and at this point in the series, I felt the annoying started to dominate. On the plus side, both can write excellent action sequences, and yes, there are some here scattered about, but like the last book in the series, a lot of them are repetitive by this point. I also liked the 'stranded and backs to the wall' component as Roger and pals first brave the transoceanic journey to arrive at the island which houses the star part, only to find the local Mardukans not exactly friendly. So once more into the breach!

Alas, one of the annoying things both authors tend to do regards prolonged infodumps, and that is here in spades. Secondly, the political discussions/history lessons are getting rather old at this point. The chief 'bad guys' rivaling the Empire of Man are the 'Saints', radial environmentalists, but also super hypocritical, as the rulers live in vast palaces while the commoners starve; you might call them a command society with 'Muir' as the bible rather than Marx. Finally, there are few shades of grey here, with the villains simply horrible. The Imperial 'factor' at the Marduk space port, for example, not only is a traitor, but a pedophile.

Anyway, the hijinks are getting a little long in the tooth by this point in the series. Yes, I read this before and really liked it; now, not so much. If you really like Weber's lets say . . . 'extended' prose and political intrigues, you will probably really like this. For me, they are just getting a bit old, along with Ringo's world view/politics he manages to insert here. 2.5 fading stars!!

[Mike (the Paladin) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I gave this 3 stars, it barely made that in my opinion. I sort of liked the way this series opened. I was somewhat disappointed in the delivery of the later volumes and the way they were written.

They finally made it across the planet...well mostly.This is a case of , "we're almost there". I read volumes 1, 2, and 3 of this series one after the other during a trying time when I was spending a lot of time in hospitals. They are good enough to occupy your mind and tell a mildly interesting story. There are often action scenes which are handled pretty well (maybe the strongest part of the books) and as I've said about a lot of books, I didn't love them, but neither did I hate them. I was getting a bit more disenchanted with them by the time I got to this one...but it's still readable and mildly enjoyable.

[Carolyn F. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audiobook

Oh my gosh, what a great book! The ending was so emotional because we thought it was going to be easy/peasy and it was awful! I could do without all the nitty gritty about why this metal was used instead of this one. But otherwise a great book. I'm going immediately to the next book in the series because I have just got to find out what happens next.

[Ozymandias · Rating 3 out of 5]

At last we can move on from the repetitive journey of the last two books and genuinely advance the plot. This book starts us off with some naval combat, first against sea monsters and then against pirates. This is a nice change from the naval warfare of previous books and gives Roger (as a sailing hobbyist) a good chance to shine. And once we get to land and back through the more typical sort of warfare we've seen so far (how absurd is it that the entire planet is locked in unrelated high-intensity warfare?) we finally reach the spaceport and the end of the quest.

Finally.

But before we get there we have to go through one last barbarian stereotype: cannibalism! This time the perps are not barbs but the oh-so-civilized Krath. Think a cross between the Ancient Egyptians and the Aztecs. As usual the battle scenes are good (though there aren't as many as I thought). Ringo is pretty good at making distinct characters. He's certainly good at killing them mercilessly. I thought the grand cannibalism reveal was broadcast from a mile away, which makes the leads seem pretty dumb. Mysterious hidden cults, people terrified of becoming "Servants of the Gods", and nobody thinks to ask basic questions about it? For real? There's a lot of unpleasantness that seems random. Random pedophilia was a great example, but the icing on the cake is a highly awkward rape scene that's played off as mostly romantic. The book's obviously not aiming at being politically correct, but there's a big difference between that and just being icky.

I suppose it's not much worse than it was earlier but the "history" lectures here have gotten immensely irritating for anyone with a background in the subject. I don't want to insult military history too much since I'm friends with a number of very clever people studying the topic, but this is depressingly reminiscent of the people who dominate the field - the wargamer types who want to reduce all of history to a few universal rules/charts, cultural complexities and quirks be damned. And that's what we're talking about here: half-remembered knowledge universalized and spoken of with tremendous confidence. Example: infanticide as the cause of Christianity. How does that work? Or the idea that the Rites of Mithras were adapted as the standard Christian mass to win the support of the Mithraist army. Complete ahistorical nonsense and sadly typical of the lack of interest most military historians have in nonmilitary affairs. Or the pièce de résistance - Phoenicians in contact with Tolmecs ("the landbridge fanatics were destroyed in 2805"), the sort of thing I expect to see from the Chariot of the Gods people or one of Charles Pellegrino's conspiracy theory books. Seeing it anywhere else is a bad sign for research accuracy. A fairly nonessential issue, but one that could have been avoided by avoiding such lectures in the first place. Even the accurate ones are often irritating.

I guess it's fair to say I'm rather tired of this series and just want to get to the part where it's all over. Which I thought was the capturing of the spaceport but I guess I'm not overly surprised to find will be on Earth. Stay tuned.

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even worse. Too much repetition; too much "running in place." Too little original story.

[Soo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Notes:

This was a transitional piece and there was a lot of stuff in the middle that could have been done better. Good start & great end to this story segment. Leaving it at 4 stars due to great narration by Stefan Rudnicki. I am excited to see how the series will end.

[James Tullos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Captain Ponner, no!!!

[Dixie Conley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the third book in the series and while some would say that the repeated scenes of battle are getting repetitive, I wouldn't. Not in this book, at any rate. In this book alone, we have battle on water, land and in space. We have cannibals, explosions, and intergalactic plots of treason and betrayal. It's awesome, the variety of action packed into one volume.

This book follows Prince Roger's quest to return home, taking home oversea to the continent that the spaceport is housed on, through the aforementioned cannibals, deep into an interstellar conspiracy where they find that, while they were crossing the planet, the prince has somehow managed to be in two places at once and allegedly killed his siblings and attempted to take the throne, and from there onto a ship that they now need to steal to get home. Talk about flinging everything you can at your characters and seeing what they do.

Plus yet another tragic, character destroying death in the midst of the deaths of the cast of thousands.

This book has the most action of the series by far and yet, without the first two to set it up, I don't know that it would make much sense. You have to build your relationship with the characters before you care about whether they live (or breed, for that matter).

A fine read though. Damn fine read.

[Contrarius · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like these books -- they are basically brainless, fun, shoot-em-up adventuring, though with some heart behind them. Certainly not taxing on the brain cells. And I like them much better than the solo efforts I've tried by either Weber or Ringo, both of which I've DNFed.

I recommend these if you're looking for a break from heavy intellectual lifting and you can tolerate vast numbers of enemies getting killed in various exciting ways (Join the military, see exotic places, meet interesting people, and kill them!). There's good humor, lots of exciting stuff happening, and it's fun seeing Prince Roger go from a complete waste of space to an actual human being, even if he turns into a bit of a Mary Sue along the way. And as I've mentioned before, I love that the unit's chaplain is both female and a Satanist.

[Carolyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Notice the downgrade? yeah me too. I really wanted to like this series but by this point I just don't care. The death at the end was, superfluous in my opinion. I was kinda ok with the whole not sleeping with my bodyguard thing, don't throw sex at a book to have the opportunity to write soft core porn. But I hated Nimashet's character. Why couldn't she have stayed a bad ass marine? She started out one and then turned into this wishy washy crap female that makes me want to shake her. You love your man? Really love your man? Then you damn well fight for him. Whether your opponent is family, society or another woman. You don't decide to just go retire to a farm with a solid partner. What a waste of a character.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/10/17 4th re-read. Very good.

[Don Dunham · Rating 4 out of 5]

More Manstuff

[Mayank Agarwal · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book’s tedious with the same flow and plot as previous books in the series.

In the third book of the Empire of Man series, things are pretty much the same with some minor changes. The space flying humans stranded on the backwater planet are still getting attacked by the local wildlife, just instead of getting attacked by animals on land, it’s the sea this time. The bulk of the book and plot is still the same formula, meeting un-cooperating locals and fighting against them, guns vs swords mayhem. There are some minor changes but not enough to warrant a fresh book.

As I am binge reading the series, so I felt almost 80% of the action sequences & plot to be recycled. If I were coming back to the series after a break I might have enjoyed it but reading them one after another feels like I am reading the same thing over and over again. The ending fight sequences felt too detailed and difficult to follow.

The tome size of the book is not helping either, lots of wasted words & info dumps, I had to skim over some really boring parts. With the characters already established the same story could have been told in 1/3rd the size.

We do get to know what’s going on in the whole wide world while these guys were stranded on this planet and that opens up new opportunities for the book to pursue in different settings.

[Elvy Yao · Rating 4 out of 5]

There was a pirate battle at the start of the book that seemed unnecessary and didn't need to take up half the length, but the last battle makes up for it.

[Ray Knighton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow

Lot of action! Well written and the problems the Prince is facing keeps getting worse but he will persevere! Yes

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well-done battle scenes. Pure entertainment. One of my annual summer reads - this is the fourth or fifth year. Still thoroughly enjoy it. Always pick up little nuggets I’ve missed previously. Great series, could wish for a fifth book to tie up some loose ends.

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aside from the multitude of typos in this edition of the book, it was an enjoyable installment in the "Empire of Man" series. Unfortunately, I thought it was a trilogy right up until the book ended - so I was a bit disappointed that there is still another whole book to go.

With what took place in the last 50-100 pages, I'm kinda torn about how much I'm looking forward to the last book. (In a military book, even a sci-fi one, it's not much of a spoiler to say a lot of good people died.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aurgh! But in a good way. I am really loving this series, but now I have to wait for the las book to become available from my library.

As for the review, if you haven't read the first two books, don't start here. If you have, you have presumably enjoyed them or you wouldn't be reading the third, and so you will enjoy this book also.

[Neeuqdrazil · Rating 4 out of 5]

First read August 2011
Cheesy fun MilSF. Comfort read.

[Bill Chaisson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Against my better judgement, I continued to read this series. It was mostly morbid fascination that drew me one. In the first book, they march through a jungle and kill a lot of semi-barberian people and Prince Roger stops being a whiny brat. In the second book, they march over some mountains, ally themselves with some non-barberians and kill a whole lot of barberians and Prince Roger becomes a leader among men. In this, the third book, there is more complicated fighting against more complicated people and Prince Roger starts to become a bloodthirsty, hot-headed jerk, although still a leader among men.

An outrageous number of people die in these books. And not just the bad guys. The Bronze Battalion lands on Marduck with 190 soldiers and by the end of this book there are only 36 of them left. It is all of this fighting that toughens up Prince Roger. What makes him a leader though is that he is "a MacClintock," descended from a line of emperors and empresses, some of whom were reportedly fairly savage people. David Weber and John Ringo concoct a romance between the prince and one of his bodyguards, one Nimashet Despreaux, and it is his love for her that keeps him from just being a vengeful killing machine. Like any normal soldier/person, she likes killing less and less and she does more and more of it. In the course of this book, she admits that she is quite done with killing people.

The right-wing politics that have been percolating below the surface and occasionally erupting at opportune junctures, really come to the fore in volume 3, when what is left of the Bronze Battalion plus their Mardukan allies have to fight "the Saints" for the first time. The Saints are portrayed as left-wing nut jobs (the group they fight is the, ahem, Greenpeace Battalion) who are hypocritical, self-righteous, and either pointlessly zealous or aggressively just going along with the program (i.e., completely cynical). In contrast, all the good guys are upstanding, pragmatic, dogged in the pursuit of duty and devoted to the team.

We know that some in the Empire of Men are venal assholes, because there has been a coup in Roger's absence and his older siblings have been killed and he has been blamed for it all. This information begins to filter into the story as the marooned soldiers and the prince begin to encounter other men as they near the star port that is meant to be their ticket off the planet.

The writing becomes more tiresome as one progresses through this series. Weber/Ringo reuse a lot of the same words to express the same emotions. It got to where I could anticipate when someone was going to say something "dryly" and a Mardukan was going to attempt to imitate a human smile. Furthermore, the number of expositional passages really matastisizes in this volume. A character will pause in medias res and just have a think about something more or less germane to the proceedings. Time more or less stops during these two-page rants/monologues/ruminations, and then picks up again. The number of walk-ons multiplies too. Weber/Ringo just like making up names, giving them to a minor character, who sees the main characters from their own perspective and then disappears forever.

Although the story is well plotted, one has the feeling that one is reading about more and more but it is really about less and less.

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's taken me awhile to get back to this series because I listened to the first two on audio book during a long commute, but then I changed jobs and my commute is now 15 minutes. Not ideal for books that are 20 hours long in audio version. But I did want to find out what happened to Prince Roger & Co, so now I've purchased the ebook omnibus of the last two (this and We Few) so I can finish the story.
Stranded now for six months on an alien planet that makes Australia look positively tame in terms of the "everything is trying to kill you" factor, Roger, tertiary heir to the spacefaring Empire of Man, has grown from a spoiled, sheltered prince whose best skill was big-game hunting into a battle-tested young man ready to step into command. In this book the commander of his dwindling Marine bodygaurds, Captain Pahner, begins including him in the decision-making process. Roger proves he has a good eye for strategy in addition to being a cool head under fire, even if he does still tend to impulsively put himself at risk if he feels he's the best person for a job, no matter how dangerous. The group has to make it across the ocean and battle their way through a new continent to reach the planet's only spaceport. Then, finally, they have to take over a ship belonging to an enemy empire in order to finally make their escape and return home. In terms of sheer distance covered, this book puts the previous two to shame.
It's so interesting how this series keeps you from feeling too much regret about the thousands of enemies being slaughtered in the slog across the planet. The opposing forces are always either a. deadly non-sentient wildlife in a kill-or-be-killed situation, b. offered a chance to surrender, which of course they never take, or c. have some sort of despicable quality like being practicing cannibals or war profiteers or insane religious zealots so even if they don't surrender they were bad people anyway. It's an ingenious way to offer largely guilt-free action entertainment.

[Jon]

March to the Stars is the third in a series, beginning with March Upcountry and Marching to the Sea. The situation set up at the beginning of the series is that a spoiled young prince, heir tertiary to the throne of the Empire of Man (read galactic empire here), is marooned by sabotage on a primitive planet, and must fight his way across first a continent, then an ocean, to reach the spaceport, where he can presumably hijack a ship and return to the Empire.


Between Weber and Ringo, you have two of the most accomplished masters of combat SF alive today, and it shows in the military aspects of the story (as far as I can tell from my non-military background). The human aspects of the story are not as fully fleshed out. Prince Roger eventually makes the transition from spoiled rich kid to effective and respected field commander of the Imperial Marines stranded with him, and the dialog is pretty snappy, but there's not a lot of time spent by the characters in any meaningful thought or deeply conflicted reflection. It's pretty much guts, guns and glory all the way.

By the time March to the Stars begins, Roger's group of Imperial Marines has acquired a following of the native Mardukians, (four-armed slimy lizards), who may very well be the finest fighting force on the planet. They've made across the continent, and now are sailing in wind-powered ships across the ocean, to the continent where the spaceport is located. They get to fight sea monsters, pirates, and evil priests along the way.

It won't go down in the annals of classic literature, but it's a fast paced fun romp, if you like the militant brand of SF.

[Allen McDonnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

book Three of series

I would have given this a 3.5 stars if I could. I like the characters but by this time the story has become repetitive and is losing its thrill. We started with a company of special duty marines and have spent eight months in heavy combat where every time a bad guy could pull a successful attack or something could go wrong with the mission it did.
Along the way naturally and with some realism there have been fatalities people who survive get combat stress to the point they are becoming casualties from accumulated psychological impact of seeing more and more of their comrades killed. The final battle of the story just tumbled story off a cliff for me, as if all the agony of all the previous battles had not been enough! Truthfully I am kind of angry at the authors for where the story went in this book and I am not sure when or even if I will read the final book in this series. I still give it good marks for readability, realistic combat and the other things that made the first two volumes so good.

[A.N.G. Reynolds · Rating 4 out of 5]

First of all, the narration of this series is absolutely spectacular. I highly recommend the audiobook version. Second of all, this is a really great series. It does tend to get a little into the weeds with the descriptions and political chess games -- for my taste -- but the characters are exceedingly human and the humor is razor sharp.

I have been dragging my feet to finish this series and volume because I could clearly see that they were going to kill off my favorite character in about Book 2/"March to the Sea". And they did, but it was -- like most of the deaths in the series -- noble and courageous. Heartbreaking, but excellent.

Despite the favorite character death, this might be my favorite book of the series. Weber and Ringo really hit their stride in this one and the ever-present wit and sass are excellent.

[Monty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sadly too contrived with questionable plot, logic holes and some poor character development.
Then there is the ending which is the pièce de résistance of contrived nonsense to crown the whole.

Having listened to this series several times over the intervening years I have found this to be the worst book of the four. So to wrap this short review up I will end with stating its my opinion that this could have been done far better.

- Old Audiobook Recordings -

The old recordings from the early 2000s of these books suffer from some audio recording quality issues that become pronounced if one uses headphones. There are both background audio artefacts and the narrators in-between sentence breathing technique.
So if you are reading this review and find such audio issues a No Go I suggest checking if the current audio versions have been updated before giving it a listen.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's not the first time I found a book, it looked interesting, and then learned that it was part of a series, and not the first part, either. Thus when I found myself wishing there were more background to the panoply of planets, races, species, means by which the main characters got connected, court intrigue and quasi-terrorist space armies, it turns out such exists. Would Larry Niven comment that there are too many such background aspects and that gets in the way of the story itself? Perhaps. A compression of Piers Anthony's style? Perhaps. I liked the cogent commentary on the nature of politics, history and psychology, so they channeled Pournelle and Niven, too.

Prince Roger seems superhuman, and then again, remind yourself that his genetic engineering means exactly that.

I found a couple places where it did feel from tone and phrasing that the two authors transitioned between each other not seamlessly.

Overall I enjoyed it and found it a fun read.

[Jaye · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the first book out of the three I've read so far where I encountered content that I remembered reading before. There's a scene where Sergeant Major Kosutic explains to Prince Roger why the citizens of the planet Armagh became Satanists.
This volume brings the Prince and his companions to the end of their journey across the planet Marduk. Of course, that doesn't mean they can slack off. Returning to civilization they learn that a plot has been launched against the Empress and her family, and Roger himself has been implicated in the plot, by none other than his own overly ambitious father.

[G. Vance]

This is my second or third time reading this series and I have to say, it's so painful this time, starting with this book. I get that the authors are "rah rah male, military rules, women drool" boys, but it was harder to put that aside and enjoy the world building and story this time around. Particularly in light of them having a personal point of view I don't necessarily ascribe to. And the attempt to gaslight you by having women as important characters in key roles. It's worse in the next book.

I have no idea where I stand on this series anymore. I guess I hold it fondly in my memories? But likely won't go back to it again.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This brings the saga to a satisfying conclusion, although I personally would be VERY pleased to see Weber continue the series! We've seen amazing growth from Roger, beyond courage. He's learned to delegate effectively, to strategize efficiently and that he doesn't have to "do it all". I could go on for pages but I'll conclude by saying that while short by Weber's typical 280,000 word books plus only having 3 books this series stands out as being among the best of his work!

[Greg Gann · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's a strange, odd passage where the arthor links ritual infanticide, ceremonial cannibalism, and the Cult of Baal to the medical practice of abortion. It was weird and came out of left field, or maybe right field. The topic is dropped as soon as it is raised, making me wonder why it was there at all.
Then later it is suggested that the cannibal cult came about to begin with from societal corruption by the evil environment loving Saints.