The Domination

It's about time! No more scouring used-book stores for tattered copies to replace the ones you loaned your friends: the first two installments of S.M. Stirling's superlative military-SF/alternate-history Draka trilogy are back in print, bound along with the third installment in hardcover. The only downside to this collection--which spans Marching Through Georgia, Under the Yoke, and The Stone Dogs--is the disappointing omission of the helpful maps, glossary, and so on that appeared in the original editions. But as some consolation, we at least get a bit of new backstory for the pseudo-sequel to Stone Dogs, Drakon, in the form of a prologue and a few interspersed paragraphs bookending each title.

The Draka series (dubbed The Domination in this collection) still requires a strong stomach--you'll find no shortage of blood and bullets or sex and violence here. But it's prudish to argue with Stirling's choices. A skilled writer and rigorous thinker, he's spun a compelling--not to mention plausible and well-researched--alternate history for earth: in this timeline, the Loyalists losers in the American Revolution set up shop in South Africa and then proceed to subjugate and industrialize the continent, eventually exporting their brutal system of slavery and conquest through WWI, WWII, and beyond to cover the better part of the globe. Page-turning, blood-pumping, realistic, and masterfully written combat SF, The Domination is part of the genre's canon. --Paul Hughes