"Reading Rally Cry - Lost Regiment - Bk 1" Topic

Based on a number of recommendations I thought I'd dig into this series and I'm not too thrilled with it.

The plot is fine enough but the writing is so poor. Everyone is either "roaring" or after speaking described with: "he said, evenly" or "he said, grimly" a close second. Several times a page all of the above can occur – it's just strikingly repetitive.

Everything is also "snapping", from flags and banners to shots to arrows. Tell me this gets better.

I'm doing it on Audible and it doesn't help that the narrator is middling, but I also think the material is lacking. I cringe every time Colonel Keane is called "darling" by his subordinates.

I'll finish, but it's easily the worst book I've read in awhile.

Well, to be fair, you aren't reading it. Someone's reading it to you. :)

Dan

Read the whole series & I liked them. Not "heavy hitter" type sci-fi but entertaining.

I got tired of them. Same stuff over and over. Bill Forstchen is a good writer but this isn't one of his best series. I love his Wing Commander books and I think his One Second After series is pretty good too.

Audible is pretty cool and a good narrator really makes even a "meh" text good. But a mediocre narrator can kill a book. I purchased "Darkwalker on Moonshae" earlier this summer because it was one of my favorites when I was a kid. However the narrator is just annoying and can't do a decent man's voice to save her life (which is REALLY annoying because most of the characters are men). But on the other hand the narrator for Simon Scarrow's "Under the Legion" is fantastic! Talk about a great book matched with an excellent voice actor.

The guy who does Ian Douglas' Heritage Trilogy is really good too and that is a great series of sci-fi. Try that out.

Just finished the Heritage Trilogy (print, not audio) and can also recommend it.
As for the Lost Regiment series, I enjoyed the first few books but found their technological advancement a bit much, so I stopped somewhere around book 4.
I do think the concept could make for some great gaming scenarios, though. Pournelle's Janissaries too.

I read the whole she-bang; the last one (Down to the Sea) leaves you hanging – any sign that Forstchen is going to write another one (although, given that I think he is 67 he may want to slow down a bit)?

I;m with Hamilton. I read the first few books. They were entertaining. But began going off the rails as they progressed.. I just stopped.

Considering Fortschen's doctorate in history specialized in Military History, the Civil War, and the history of technology and looking at the actual technological development that occurred during the later 1800s, I found the technological development in the stories to be quite appropriate.

At any rate a good series and would have liked to see it continue.

Frederick – I recall seeing somewhere (Fortschen's website) that it was a publisher issue – sales tapering off or somesuch.