The Mercenary: Pournelle, Jerry: 9780531150849: Amazon.com: Books (original) (raw)
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Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2020
It's a good one (military action), when you start this series some research should be done to get the action in chronological order and later issues have more than one book under one cover with a new name so it can be confusing. It's all in Jerry Pournelle's Co-dominion universe.
Reviewed in the United States on March 5, 2017
Very good "military sci-fi" book. The whole series builds depth to the characters, but have enough detail that each story stands alone well. The series has excellent and believable military strategy and with plausible weapons advancement while still having plots that are realistic enough given one major advancement of star travel at faster than light speed travel and the decay of Earth's political and ecological systems with over population.
Reviewed in the United States on November 10, 2017
The second book after West of Honor. I think I enjoyed the first book more, but this another easy read in the series. This gives more of a background on John Christian Falkenberg, which was good to know. More like a future dystopia than a present day one.
Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2018
One of Jerry Pournelle's finest character, John Christian Falkenberg. This book is a part of the Co-Dominion arc of stories, and the only bad thing I can say about it is that there are too few. This is a richly imagined future history, and a pleasure to read.
Reviewed in the United States on July 26, 2018
Decent Quality. Timely Delirvery. All was good.
Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2016
Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2010
The Mercenary by Jerry Pournelle
To be precise the book titled "The Mercenary" is a collection of related stories "fixed-up" as a novel. The stories were all published in the American science-fiction magazine, "Analog". Following are the individual story titles and magazine date of publication: "Peace with Honor" May, 1971, "The Mercenary" July, 1972 and "Sword and Sceptre" published as a two part story May and June 1973. First paperback edition was published by Pocket Books in January 1977.
In summation this book is a militarized Space Opera: glamorous US marines of the space ways (referred to as the CoDominium) battle hired mercenaries on foreign planets.
I will concede that author Pournelle's efforts at verisimilitude are laudable, but overall they ring hollow, reality is sacrificed to the yarn. This is not to concede that the story is tedious or uninteresting but what might have been a sweeping epic is just a good read - and quite honestly there is nothing wrong with that!
Pournelle presents a future where political dissidents and felons are involuntary shipped out to become colonist on habitable planets. This is similar how Britain populated Australia. On Earth the electorate is being manipulated by unscrupulous politicians - not much new here folks. The story line concerns an ex-CoDominium marine discharged for "political" reasons who recruits a mercenary army that is hired out by the colony worlds to fight the inevitable wars.
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Reviewed in the United States on July 12, 2012
Wars are breaking out all through human space as the Codominion teeters on the brink of falling apart. Falkenberg, ex-marine and military genius, is back with a vengeance, not just fighting for money, but trying to prop up the planetary goverments that will be needed as the long night approaches. Pournelle does a great job of describing the military culture, and the battle scenes are first class. I have always liked this series about the Codominion, which is a precursor to the Terran Empire as shown in The Mote In God's Eye. Great read for the fan of military science fiction.
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4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 25, 2017