A Band of Brothers (Lost Regiment, 7)

Rating:
Summary: This is a great series
Review: When book one of this series was loaned to me I put off reading it because it just didn't look like my cup of tea. Needless to say, I was wrong. I haven't been this enthused about a series since Phillip Jose Farmer's "Riverworld" . This particular book, while not the best one, was very fast paced and enjoyable.This was the one I waited longest for and I can't wait for the next one.......I would love to see a grand finlale, but don't really want it to end......Please, William, get to work on #8 ASAP.....and I have to agree with everyone else...a map couldn't hurt!

Rating:
Summary: very realistic look at war
Review: _A Band of Brothers_, _The Lost Regiment # 7_, is the capstone of one of the greatest series of novels I have ever read. In spite of some problems with proof-reading, which never really got in the way, this novel, like all its predecessors, manages to combine hard science-fiction, masterful military and general history, and anthropological and sociopsychological insight in a blend that cannot fail to move even the most dedicated critic. William R. Forstchen's greatest skills lie in so accurately and insightfully portraying an entire alien culture that one cannot fail to identify with those characters that are drawn from that culture -- and thus be set up for hideous disllusionment when the darker side of that culture is revealed. He presents the alien Bantag with the skill of a master antrhropologist, revealing them in all their barbaric glory, giving us glimpses of their religious and domestic life side-by-side with their enormous military skill and powerful grasp of the principles of war, so that one can't help but sympathize with them -- and then jerks the rug out from under the reader by showing the monstrous aspects of their culture. Further, he shows the Bantag in contrast with the human beings who have come to this world by accident, bringing their own strnegths, skills, weaknesses, their culture, their hopes, dreams, and fears with them, showing the two species, human and alien, locked in a life-or-death struggle to determine which will ultimately populate and master this world -- and for all their cultural glories and tremendous physical size and strength, the aliens finally come off the losers, lacking as they do any real understanding of what human beings can do, the value of such knowledge for military purposes, and even the "soft underbelly" of humanity, the capacity for compassion even toward defeated enemies, love of others that spurs them on to supreme effort when by all rights they should fall and be defeated, and their capacity for vision and creativity by means of which they are able, even in the face of overwhelmingly superior numbers, to crate a military machine capable of utterly destroying their monstrous enemies. Couldn't put any of the novels in the series down until I had finished them. I am looking forward to new novels in which that battle-torn world is presented to us a century after the events taking place in A BAND OF BROTHERS, to see what has become of the human beings and their alien foes during that time. I would also like to see a comprehensive atlas of that world, perhaps a world globe to set on my desk. William Forstchen is a serious rival to Harry Turtledove and Harry Harrison, the mastera of alternative-history science-fiction, as well as Frank Herbert, author of DUNE, and a true heir of Murray Leinster and H. P. Lovecraft. May he live for many long, productive years more, opening countless clear windows not only on this world, but many others besides.

Rating:
Summary: A stunning achievement - a tour de force of the writer's art
Review: _A Band of Brothers_, _The Lost Regiment # 7_, is the capstone of one of the greatest series of novels I have ever read. In spite of some problems with proof-reading, which never really got in the way, this novel, like all its predecessors, manages to combine hard science-fiction, masterful military and general history, and anthropological and sociopsychological insight in a blend that cannot fail to move even the most dedicated critic. William R. Forstchen's greatest skills lie in so accurately and insightfully portraying an entire alien culture that one cannot fail to identify with those characters that are drawn from that culture -- and thus be set up for hideous disllusionment when the darker side of that culture is revealed. He presents the alien Bantag with the skill of a master antrhropologist, revealing them in all their barbaric glory, giving us glimpses of their religious and domestic life side-by-side with their enormous military skill and powerful grasp of the principles of war, so that one can't help but sympathize with them -- and then jerks the rug out from under the reader by showing the monstrous aspects of their culture. Further, he shows the Bantag in contrast with the human beings who have come to this world by accident, bringing their own strnegths, skills, weaknesses, their culture, their hopes, dreams, and fears with them, showing the two species, human and alien, locked in a life-or-death struggle to determine which will ultimately populate and master this world -- and for all their cultural glories and tremendous physical size and strength, the aliens finally come off the losers, lacking as they do any real understanding of what human beings can do, the value of such knowledge for military purposes, and even the "soft underbelly" of humanity, the capacity for compassion even toward defeated enemies, love of others that spurs them on to supreme effort when by all rights they should fall and be defeated, and their capacity for vision and creativity by means of which they are able, even in the face of overwhelmingly superior numbers, to crate a military machine capable of utterly destroying their monstrous enemies. Couldn't put any of the novels in the series down until I had finished them. I am looking forward to new novels in which that battle-torn world is presented to us a century after the events taking place in A BAND OF BROTHERS, to see what has become of the human beings and their alien foes during that time. I would also like to see a comprehensive atlas of that world, perhaps a world globe to set on my desk. William Forstchen is a serious rival to Harry Turtledove and Harry Harrison, the mastera of alternative-history science-fiction, as well as Frank Herbert, author of DUNE, and a true heir of Murray Leinster and H. P. Lovecraft. May he live for many long, productive years more, opening countless clear windows not only on this world, but many others besides.