Rating: 
Summary: The Reformer
Review: A very good all-round read; developed male AND female personalities, civilian and military, not more stereotypes than real-life, and the historical links are great fun - if you don't know history, then it might spur you to check it out (hey, education is GOOD, check out military history or classical history under Google search engine). And if you DO know history, you may well groan a bit (they take a few liberties -- cleverly) but, hey, gentlepeople, was it really like that or not? Remember, history is writtem by the survivors (egos all). Anyway, prime reason to buy -- it makes you think.
Rating: 
Summary: Big decline from The Chosen
Review: After reading The Chosen this new book was a big disppointment. I think it should be renamed from the Reformer to the Unchosen. Should never have gotten published in Hardcover by Baen. No doubt there will be another 300 page 22.00 sequel but I'll stick to the paperbacks.
Rating:
Summary: The Reformer
Review: Agree that this book is not in the class or breadth as The Chosen. But it was never intended to be. Rather, The Reformer is more along the lines of the first books of the General's series. -- The Forge. Also the authors followed their trend of translating ancient engagements into this new science fiction military context. The Forge and what followed tracked with a Byzantine general's , Belasarius, actual exploits. In The Reformer, Stirling and Drake examined Alexander the Great's actual siege of Tyre and created a plausible alternate ending. Still a good read. I'm looking forward to the next one.
Rating: 
Summary: What happened?
Review: An amazingly obtuse and sluggish book, especially after the fast pace of The General series and The Chosen. Usually can't put down one of Stirling's books; could barely force myself to finish this one. Don't care about the characters, and don't feel like the central premise of picked soldiers advancing civilization was advanced in any way. A real disappointment from a usually reliable author. And, by the way, if I hear the phrases "shattered like a glass jar dropped on a flagstone floor", "too mobile by half", or "he was much more than that now" in a Stirling book, I will scream. Indicative of lazy writing, with suspension of disbelief suffering the concequences.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: As a long time fan of this series I was very disappointed with this latest effort. Compaired to the earlier "The Chosen" this was a throwaway half measure. Not worth the price of admission.
Rating: 
Summary: Written in Haste, Repented at Leisure
Review: As always with David Drake and Stirling, the book moves right along, and you can't really argue with the society portrayed. My problem was that I had this little nagging voice saying: "Yes, but it's Rome," and wanting to know how it is that a social situation so very similar could possibly exist, except by the writers getting singularly lazy. Note, also, that there was some sloppiness in the plotting, too. Nothing major, just I would have liked to see a little more detail of the thought processes involved in planning Adrian's approaches to problems. In the General, which I enjoyed immensely, or in the Chosen (ditto), the sense of depth was better, and I felt that the control over the material (never mind that it was perfectly recognizeable to anyone who stayed awake through both Western Civ courses) was better. I liked it, damnit. I always do, even when I'm bugged by parts of it. Whenever Drake gets into Rome, I know I'm in for a great ride that won't make me say, "Er.., but didn't such-and-such happen..." God knows, it's great fun to see history played with. But a society this parallel doesn't feel credible to me. Sorry, I liked it, but I can't give it a higher rating than I did.
Rating:
Summary: Not as good as I had hoped
Review: David Drake and Steve Stirling are two of the best military science fiction authors that exist, and have earned their excellent reputations. I'm afraid that this book didn't live up to them. This is based in the same Raj Whitehall/Center universe as the earlier excellent Forge and Chosen serieses. In Chosen we saw that the authors like to use historical events as fictional backgrounds for the plot. They do so in this book a little too much. For example the ConFed city and army were Roman. Not close to Roman but dead on for Roman, including camps, cities, armor, siege tactics, everything but assagi for swords. The Emeralds are the Greeks, including phalanax, philosiphers, Athena, and the legend of the Thousand Ship War (a war that takes a thousand ships, sound like Troy?). The main battle is Tyre, with a bit of gunpowder. The story is not that bad, but the societies were just too much Greek and Roman. And the book should have been longer, probably spread into two. The end leaves us knowing that another book will follow, hopefully it will be up to their usual standards.
Rating:
Summary: does not belong on the same shelf with their other works
Review: Hey, guys, what happened? The two of you are my favorite authors. But this book bears little resemblance to the preceding series, either in style or in entertainment value. It would be fun to watch Raj and Center and two cronies rip through the Roman Empire . . . but I have absolutely no sympathy for either of the main characters, and Raj/Center play only a tiny role in the story. You also didn't give us a book! This thing is hardly four chapters of material, and ends in roughly the first third of what I would otherwise consider a novel. I read it at my local bookstore. It was short enough to read in the store. I'm very disappointed and did not buy it.
Rating:
Summary: These guys are capable of much better work.
Review: I agree with much of Mr. Bobbitt's review above. In addition to the Vanbert Confederation (late Roman Republic) and the Emeralds (Greeks after the Roman conquest), I would like to add Chalice (read Phoenician/Carthaginian). The book refers to an unnamed device used by Vanbert/Roman ships against the Chalice/Carthaginian ships to hustle their infantry across (a corvus - 1st Punic War). Additinally, these Emerald/Greeks reference a deity as the Grey-eyed-lady. That's Athena. There's a war-god, Wodep (Wotan). There's a reference to another war of Vanbert's many years before that sure looks like the exploits of a certain king of Epirus (hint - "One more victory like this will be the end of me."). Finally, the part that really had me groaning was an actual historical paraphrase from the King of Rope. The Greek word for the city called "rope" was Sparta. The book settles down to a small war between Rome and Carthage with the cover art giving the hint "Roma delenda est". This is a simple word substitution for Cato the Elder's recurring theme, "Cartago delenda est" (Carthage must be destroyed). There was a serious editing error that put all the maps at the end of the book rather than at the beginning. The normal reader won't go through the copyright, publisher, and library catalog page to discover that someone had gotten credit for "interior maps". For those with little or no background in classical history, this book can be a good read. For those who have studied the history of the period between Alexander and Caesar, it requires a serious effort to achieve temporary amnesia.
Rating:
Summary: These guys are capable of much better work.
Review: I agree with much of Mr. Bobbitt's review above. In addition to the Vanbert Confederation (late Roman Republic) and the Emeralds (Greeks after the Roman conquest), I would like to add Chalice (read Phoenician/Carthaginian). The book refers to an unnamed device used by Vanbert/Roman ships against the Chalice/Carthaginian ships to hustle their infantry across (a corvus - 1st Punic War). Additinally, these Emerald/Greeks reference a deity as the Grey-eyed-lady. That's Athena. There's a war-god, Wodep (Wotan). There's a reference to another war of Vanbert's many years before that sure looks like the exploits of a certain king of Epirus (hint - "One more victory like this will be the end of me."). Finally, the part that really had me groaning was an actual historical paraphrase from the King of Rope. The Greek word for the city called "rope" was Sparta. The book settles down to a small war between Rome and Carthage with the cover art giving the hint "Roma delenda est". This is a simple word substitution for Cato the Elder's recurring theme, "Cartago delenda est" (Carthage must be destroyed). There was a serious editing error that put all the maps at the end of the book rather than at the beginning. The normal reader won't go through the copyright, publisher, and library catalog page to discover that someone had gotten credit for "interior maps". For those with little or no background in classical history, this book can be a good read. For those who have studied the history of the period between Alexander and Caesar, it requires a serious effort to achieve temporary amnesia.
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