The SoapVox

Yesterday I finished re-reading for the Nth time (I read too much to just read books once…if I did that, I’d be even poorer than I am :) the Raj Whitehall Series by David Drake (Baen books list) and S.M. Stirling (Baen books list). I actually re-read it because of the post I wrote about the Belisarious Saga…when I read the info in Wikipedia about Belisarious, I noticed the section called Belisarious in fiction and that’s when I realized why Raj seemed so familiar to me…his life and campaigns are based on the ones of the RL Belisarius :)

So…it seems like my Belisarius fetish works even when I don’t notice it, because the Raj series is one I enjoy a lot, and have re-read several times by now :)

The series is made of 5 books (of which there are only paper prints and no electronic versions):

• The Forge
• The Hammer
• The Anvil
• The Steel
• The Sword

You can also get it in two omnibus volumes on paper or electronic form (which happens to be how I read them):

• Warlord
• Conqueror

We meet Capitan the Honorable Messer Raj Ammenda Halgern da Luis Whitehall, Whitehall of Hillchapel, Hereditary Supervisor of Smythe Parish, Descott County, Guard to the Exalted Vice-Governor when he and his best friend Thom Poplanich are exploring a set of tunnels under East Residence, the capital of the Civil Government in Bellevue. This is where Thom gets kiddnapped and where Raj learns of his new life mission…reuniting Bellevue under the Civil Government and to try to bring humanity back from the brink of fifteen thousand years of barbarism after The Fall.

There’s also Suzette, Raj’s wife (and very much Belisarius’ Antonina in personality and drive, tho not in life path), an extremely smart, practical and strong woman.

And let’s not forget Claret Barholm, the Vice-Governor of the Civil Government…a ruthless, intelligent, paranoid and cowardly individual who makes Justinian seem like a nice old man.

Raj’s life parallells Belisarius (the real one, not the one from the SF series by Drake), which makes the series interesting in itself…but Drake’s writing makes it even more so. In these books we get some more extraordinary military fiction by Drake, feeling the adrenaline shots whenever Raj and his Companions go into battle, feeling the pain and fear that faceing Tewfik, the main Colonial General, brings to the lifes of all…and you can almost *smell* the hordes of the MilGov troops when they close in for their brave and reckless charges.

The life of Whitehall and the Companions makes for very interesting, fun and involved reading, taking you to the fights in the battlefields and the government buildings of Bellevue…well worth the time spent :)

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Tags: Books, Reviews

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