Many faithful readers of The Lost Regiment series were saddened when book eight, the last of the series, appeared last year. In a series that could literally go on forever, William Forstchen, the author, apparently got tired, or perhaps his reader base had shrunk to where his publisher would no longer release these immensely readable novels directly into paperback. Whatever the reason, I was gravely disappointed.
For those of you who don't recognize The Lost Regiment series, let me explain that it is some of the very finest of the new genre of alternate history. You know, books dealing with the "what ifs" of history. What if the Germans threw back the invasion of Normandy? What if a 1990 era aircraft carrier inexplicably showed up west of the Hawaiian Islands on 6 December 1941? However, I prefer to call The Lost Regiment series historical science fiction.
This series starts in 1864 with a regiment of Maine volunteer infantry and a battery of New York artillery aboard a transport heading toward the offshore islands of North Carolina. Caught in a fierce storm, the ship is transported to another world populated by communities of humans who, like the Yankees, had been carried there over tens of centuries. The Yankees land on the shores of a loose federation of medieval Russian city-states. The Russian boyars, it seems, would be happy to eliminate these newcomers except that they can not overcome the Springfield rifled muskets and bronze twelve-pound muzzle-loading guns. But the big threat is not the lance-wielding knights. No, sir. For the original inhabitants of this world are eight foot tall, hairy, humanoid creatures who savor human flesh. The horde of Tugars circle the world on their horses of Clydesdale proportions, visiting the human communities along their route and assessing them twenty per cent of their population. The human rulers have little choice but to give up one in five of their people to the slaughter pits. The alternative is complete destruction.
Needless to say, the Yankees won't give up without a fight. First, overthrowing the boyars, the Yankees train and arm the Russian serfs. Then, they throw down the gauntlet to the approaching Tugars. In some of the very finest battle narrative, Forstchen describes defeat and victory so vividly as to captivate the reader. His descriptions of Tugar dealings with the "cattle", their name for human kind, are utterly horrifying. Self-sacrifice, tactical genius, abundant heroism, and industrial age weaponry all combine to give the humans a narrow margin of victory.
As the series continues, the human revolt against the horde spreads to a nation descended from ancient Rome. The Yankees create an industrial base and add newer, more lethal weapons to their arsenal - dirigibles, breech-loading firearms and cannon, steam-powered tanks. Likewise, they extend their command and control with their allies using rail and telegraph. When the Tugars are finally defeated, a much larger horde, the Merki, convince themselves to confront this human revolution before it spreads. Both sides realize the genocidal implications of the war. Can two species of intelligent life share a planet?
As the humans speed up technological development into the nineteenth century, the horde does likewise. A common thread in the earlier books of the series is that the humans always stay one technological step ahead of the horde. However, after the Merki are dispersed, a third horde, the Bantag, have surprises for the human Republic. It seems that a squad of Horde soldiers is transported through the galaxy to the Bantag realm. These soldiers come from a horde planet locked in perpetual war - a war characterized by futuristic weapons such as particle beam firearms and nuclear warheads. One of the newcomers rises to leadership of the Bantag and forces their rapid industrialization. While the new leader knows what technology can yield, he does not know precisely how to make it. However, he can add weapons such as mortars, anti-tank rockets, submarines, and improved airplanes to the horde arsenals. Now the Bantag have the numbers and surpass the humans in technology. The last books of the series are truly gripping as the humans come to within hours of complete defeat yet eventually outsmart their foes. Book eight ends with a peace treaty. The Bantag are confined to a huge reservation at the southern end of the continent and must give up technology and eating human flesh or suffer destruction by the expanding human Republic.
Down to the Sea picks up the story line twenty years later. The Bantag chafe under their imposed restrictions. Over hunting has reduced the food supply. Warriors teach their children the "good old days" before the human revolt. As for the humans, they have expanded the republic to embrace fifteen states including descendants of Chinese, Japanese, Viking, Celtic, and medieval Greeks. English is the unifying language. After ten years of war against the horde, the humans relish the long peace. Technology has improved somewhat, but without the fear of war, military technology has all but stagnated.
Readers get a glimpse of world geography. It seems that the first eight books took place on a northern continent separated by thousands of miles of ocean from a southern continent. Another horde, the mysterious Kazan, are across these intervening waters. The human Republic and the Kazan honored a border in the middle of this ocean. The Kazan, we learn, were also visited by fellow hordesmen from across the stars about two centuries earlier. These visitors lifted the Kazan from nomads to city-dwellers with a technology level we would recognize as pre World War One. The Kazan world is sprinkled with human communities completely subservient to the horde. Over the past centuries, the Kazan were completely occupied by civil war as royal family members and their huge navies and armies of followers competed for recognition as emperor. Add to this mix a religious cult which infiltrated all civil government bodies with brain-washed zealots, moles who wait years to obey the suicidal bidding of their cult masters.
After years of intrigue, betrayal, and open conflict, the civil wars which nearly destroyed the fabric of Kazan society are over. The new emperor enjoys an uneasy peace with the likewise new leader of the cult. How do these surviving despots consolidate their power? Political maneuvering suggests that the fragmented empire can unify itself by an external war. The likely foe? The human Republic of course. The humans, unaware that they are outnumbered and technologically behind, are slow to read the signals. It is only when a newly commissioned lieutenant returns from a spying mission in Kazan territory that the frightful truth is revealed. The Kazan will strike within weeks with naval and air technology far beyond that attainable by the humans.
Well, you are going to have to read the rest of this gripping tale. Trust me that William Forstchen has given his many loyal readers a real treat with this latest novel. The entire series is grist for the mill of a wargaming campaign game, but more of that later.
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