The Empire of Man series, starting with March Upcountry, continued to March to the Sea and March to the Stars, and concluded in We Few, is a collaborative work between David Weber and John Ringo. It combines elements of space opera and military science fiction, while the villains are a spoof on modern-day extreme environmentalists.
The series tells the story of Prince Roger MacClintock, the spoiled son of the Empress of the galaxy-spanning Empire of Man, third and last in line to the throne and generally regarded as a juvenile, spoiled useless fop. When he is sent to a backwater planet to show the flag at a native ceremony, in part a means to keep him occupied and isolated from real politics, he goes sulkily and reluctantly.
Midway through the voyage, the ship that he is traveling on is sabotaged by a mind-controlled crewmember, sending the spaceship adrift to Marduk, a primitive world only nominally a part of the Empire of Man. There things rapidly get worse, for the spaceport has been betrayed to the disturbing Saints, a star nation of religious zealots who make an obsession of ecological purity, and one of their warships in the system. The crew of the ship sacrifice themselves as a decoy so that Prince Roger and his Marine bodyguards, the Bronze Barbarians, can take their shuttles to the surface unobserved.
Now Prince Roger and his bodyguard unit must fight their way across half a hostile planet toward an enemy held spaceport and make their way back to civilization, forging alliances with or declaring war on a succession of Mardukan polities from hunter-gatherers to early gunpowder civilizations. In the process Prince Roger learns a lot about himself and what it means to be a leader, and the Bronze Barbarians learn that there is more than meets the eye to their charge and grow to respect him.
Making it finally back into space, with the survivors of his bodyguard, as well as a sizeable force of Mardukan allies, Prince Roger finds that he will not be welcomed home. He is believed dead, and leader of the coup attempt in which his brother and sister and their children had been killed, obviously so as to clear his path to the throne.
Slipping back onto Earth, where they discover that the Empress of Man, Roger’s estranged mother, is being mind-controlled by a group of high-ranking traitors, including Roger's own father, Roger and his surviving marine guards and allies must somehow assault the heavily-defended palace to rescue the Empress and wrench control of the throne from the usurpers without first being destroyed by the imperial armed forces.
This series and other work by David Weber can be found at Baen Books or here for free.
The series tells the story of Prince Roger MacClintock, the spoiled son of the Empress of the galaxy-spanning Empire of Man, third and last in line to the throne and generally regarded as a juvenile, spoiled useless fop. When he is sent to a backwater planet to show the flag at a native ceremony, in part a means to keep him occupied and isolated from real politics, he goes sulkily and reluctantly.
Midway through the voyage, the ship that he is traveling on is sabotaged by a mind-controlled crewmember, sending the spaceship adrift to Marduk, a primitive world only nominally a part of the Empire of Man. There things rapidly get worse, for the spaceport has been betrayed to the disturbing Saints, a star nation of religious zealots who make an obsession of ecological purity, and one of their warships in the system. The crew of the ship sacrifice themselves as a decoy so that Prince Roger and his Marine bodyguards, the Bronze Barbarians, can take their shuttles to the surface unobserved.
Now Prince Roger and his bodyguard unit must fight their way across half a hostile planet toward an enemy held spaceport and make their way back to civilization, forging alliances with or declaring war on a succession of Mardukan polities from hunter-gatherers to early gunpowder civilizations. In the process Prince Roger learns a lot about himself and what it means to be a leader, and the Bronze Barbarians learn that there is more than meets the eye to their charge and grow to respect him.
Making it finally back into space, with the survivors of his bodyguard, as well as a sizeable force of Mardukan allies, Prince Roger finds that he will not be welcomed home. He is believed dead, and leader of the coup attempt in which his brother and sister and their children had been killed, obviously so as to clear his path to the throne.
Slipping back onto Earth, where they discover that the Empress of Man, Roger’s estranged mother, is being mind-controlled by a group of high-ranking traitors, including Roger's own father, Roger and his surviving marine guards and allies must somehow assault the heavily-defended palace to rescue the Empress and wrench control of the throne from the usurpers without first being destroyed by the imperial armed forces.
This series and other work by David Weber can be found at Baen Books or here for free.
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