March Upcountry

Prince Roger Series, Book 1

By: David Weber, John Ringo

Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki

Length: 17 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

Roger Ramius Sergei Chiang MacClintock was young, handsome, athletic, an excellent dresser, and third in line for the Throne of Man. So it wasn't surprising that he became spoiled, self-centered, and petulant. After all, what else did he have to do with his life?

But that was before his mother, the empress, packed him off to a backwater planet and he found himself shipwrecked on the planet Marduk, with jungles full of damnbeasts, killerpillars, carnivorous plants, and barbarian hordes of bad disposition. Fortunately, Roger had an ace in the hole: Bravo Company of Bronze Battalion of the Empress' Own Regiment. Now all Roger has to do is hike halfway around the planet, capture a spaceport from the Bad Guys, commandeer a starship, and go home.

Don't miss the rest of the action in the Prince Roger Series.

©2001 David Weber and John Ringo (P)2005 Blackstone Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"Sure to please....Superb storytelling." (Publishers Weekly)

Great story ... that ends in midparagraph

Anyone who has read David Weber's Honor Harrington series will know what to expect: from military hardware so well imagined you can almost reach out and touch it, on the one hand, to a fully worked-out exposition of von Clausewitz's aphorism that war is a continuation of diplomacy by other means (or was it the other way around?)

This book does not disappoint: it is (with a few expository longueurs) a rattling good yarn, that continually presses the reader's "What happens next?" button.

My only gripe is that I took this book on holiday, and to find out what happens next, I needed Book 2, because Book 1 stopped in midparagraph, which would not have been bad, except that in my Sicilian hotel a big download was unfeasible. Readers not connectivity-challenged may regard that as a good point rather than a bad point.

The performance is excellent, which is no mean feat with a Weber novel. A cast of dozens of speaking characters will tax the ingenuity and imagination of any reader.

Great listen and awesome series!

Great listen and would recommend it to anyone. There's a few mispronunciation of some words and acronyms such as "HUD". Correct pronounciation is "huhd", but is constantly referred to as "H-U-D".

love this series

says it's optional but ok. I love this book series I love how the narrator does both portena mastugae

Read/listen over and over

I’ve had the book (series) for over nine years and read it at least three times, and now listened on audible.
The growth of a spoiled brat into a man through hardships and losses stirs my heart. The military humor (I’m a vet) is also well liked.

Definitely it’s own book.

I absolutely love this series. The first half of this book is slow. There is a notable skip when it comes to the setting of the galaxy they are in. Politics, history, scale and so on are not exactly present. But I agree with this decision due to the fact that it is only a filler that other series use. 10/10

Love the series

Great story and the narrator nails it. Recommend to anyone who enjoys adventure and military mixed

Wow, What a great series!!

Wow! What a great find! Don’t you just love it when you try the first book in a series and you turn out to LOVE IT? Well that is exactly what happened here with me. I could not wait to download the next book, and they are all nice a long (so you get a lot of ‘bang for your buck.’) All of these prince Roger books are the kind of ‘long’ that goes by fast. There is plenty of satisfying action and the character development if great too. You really get to love each character and see what happens to them. I highly recommend each and every book in this series…If you like the first book your will like them all.

Wonderful sci-fi fantasy with a sense of humor

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Absolutely. I grew up reading Asimov and Douglas Adams. A lot of SciFi is now derivative or just plain odd and I have a hard time finding compelling new material. This made me think somewhat of Stainless Steel Rat, I guess as it didn't take itself too seriously.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

The personal growth of the characters (Prince Roger) in face of adversity was well executed.

What does Stefan Rudnicki bring to the story that you wouldn???t experience if you just read the book?

I love some of the names in this book, but I'm glad Stefan had to pronounce them and bring them to life. Since I'm typically driving, he has a hard task in keeping me engaged over varying blocks of time and yet he manages to keep the appropriate pace and engage me. Great narration.

Any additional comments?

It took me a while to get into this book, give it a chance as it's when they land that things start to develop. If you realize that some of the humor is tongue-in-cheek and can relax and enjoy the odd cast for their eccentricities I think you'll enjoy this. Don't be put off by the cheesy cover art either, please.

Engaging but overly detailed military scifi

The narrator is very good. His female voices are distinct but not annoying and the characters are distinguishable by tone alone.

The story is also quite good: a young prince comes into his own (though not so much of this as I expected), a lot of blowing up stuff and killing people/aliens, a lot of military planning/battling, and an interesting alien planet.

The problems with the novel are a) it gets a little too detailed: there is often a long description of bullet types and weapons' effective distances, or how many body parts someone would be blown up into, etc. b) There are a handful of "tangents" - for example, near the end there is a 10 minute discussion of the process of making steel. In a military sci-fi book there's a discussion of steel-making? What?? It's out of place and unnecessary and irrelevant to the plot.

All in all though, the characters and setting are interesting enough to carry you through these rough patches - and if all else fails, you can just fast-forward through the slow bits.

No psycho killers or over-the-top evil gore

Any additional comments?

If you are looking for special victims unit over-the-top evil, you will hate this book. This book keeps you engaged and although I was seriously annoyed by one of the characters at first, the authors allow the characters to grow, develop, and even become people you like. Just a good story with a fun amount of violence and adventure. Nothing to creep you out.

Narration is superb and is no small part of making this a fun listen. Stefan Rudniki is one of the greats.