Rating: 
Summary: Grand SF Strategy on an Earthly Plane
Review: This series is, to my mind the best stuff Flint and Drake have done so far. It is fun to watch generals, armies and empires rise in fantasy lands, but I get a little more joy in seeing it happen on earth, in "real" terrain. The authors here have moved a little bit away from just the tactical, blood and guts of war (although there is PLENTY of that) and have tried to look at the grand strategy and the operational level of war, in a geographic and historical environment that we all know. This is a bold move, and I think I see where the series is headed (the term "oblique approach" is a real clue) and am very intrigued and excited. There are those who say, "It is just another general backed by a computer," and this is true, perhaps, but THIS general is opposed by an equal if not greater force, complete with its own "computer" and to win he will have to use grand strategy and operational art.Those readers out for blood and guts will get it in this book, but the authors are really trying to do something a little bit more cognitive here and to my mind, it works. I have been a paratrooper sergeant, an Army Ranger, a infantry company commander, a battalion commander, a West Point Psychology Professor and a Professor of Military Science. I was one of the co-founders of the US Army's "Maneuver Warfare Symposium," with chapters in "Maneuver Warfare: An Anthology," and I am the author of "On Killing," a standard textbook used at West Point and in "peace studies" programs in many universities. From my own, strictly personal perspective, I think this series is the best stuff out there for the thinking fan of military SF.
Rating:
Summary: adventure and intrige in anchent rome
Review: With the use of one of histories greatest miltary leaders and a time altering twist Drake gives us insight on a rome that might have been. The greatest part of this is the chaciters themselves, who are full fledged, not one sided, even the mysteries link has motives that can be understood in a twisted way to do what it sees as right, like all great villians of history This book is a must read for all who like miltary conflict and poltical intrige, for they are used to add flavor to this epic of altertive histroy, wich is one of drakes best so far
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