We Few by David Weber and John Ringo
Cover art by Kurt Miller
Published by Baen Books
Reviewed by Leigh Kimmel
It was a long march across the tropical jungles of Marduk, facing one tribe after another of locals, from hunter-gatherer bands to the "civilized" people around the spaceport. In that march, most of Prince Roger's bodyguard company perished facing one or another peril.
But in that long march they also found local allies, mercenaries at first, then vassals loyal to the human prince so different from their own kind. For the callow youth had been matured into a man in the terrible forge of this world, and would never be the same.
And then they arrived at the spaceport, and discovered the terrible news. It wasn't enough to recapture the spaceport from the eco-fanatic Saints and get a spaceship that could take them home, because there was no longer a home to return to.
The assassination attempt which had stranded them on Marduk was not an isolated incident. Rather, it was one piece in a vast conspiracy which had put one of the worst enemies of the Empire of Man in control of the Empress. And that enemy was none less than Prince Roger's own biological father, and he had framed Roger for the assassination of his own siblings and their children.
If Roger thought that marching across Marduk was hard, now he has to do the impossible. Namely, free his mother from the mind-control drugs that hold her a prisoner in her own body and restore her to the throne, without igniting a civil war that will tear apart the Empire of Man and leave it easy pickings for the Saints in the process.
Review posted December 15, 2008
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