William R. Forstchen was born on October 11th, 1950, eight years and three days before my birthday. He earned a Ph.D. in history, specializing in the American Civil War, and teaches at Montreat College in North Carolina. He’s one of my favorite authors. He isn’t quite Sword & Planet but has a series that is adjacent with lots of S&P elements. It’s called The Lost Regiment and ran to 8 books. He later wrote a 9th book that took place 20 years after the end of the original series, but has not written any more.

All were published by Roc Science Fiction. Sanjulian is credited with the covers for books 6, 7, and 8, and if he did those I’m pretty sure he did all the previous ones as well, which clearly have the same style. However, book 9’s cover is credited to Edwin Herder. The Sanjulian covers are great but are quite small on the books and should have been larger.

[Click the images for regimental versions.]

Rally Cry and Union Forever (Roc, May 1990 and February 1991). Covers by Sanjulian

The series consists of:

1. Rally Cry, 1990
2. Union Forever, 1991
3. Terrible Swift Sword, 1992
4. Fateful Lightning, 1992
5. Battle Hymn, 1997
6. Never Sound Retreat, 1998
7. A Band of Brothers, 1999
8. Men of War, 1999
9. Down to the Sea, 2000

Note: there are some mild spoilers ahead.

Terrible Swift Sword and Fateful Lightning (Roc, February 1992 and January 1993). Covers by Sanjulian

The first book, Rally Cry, starts out in good S&P fashion when two regiments of Union Soldiers from the Civil War board a transport ship to be taken to a battle against the Confederacy. While in the “Bermuda Triangle,” a storm hits and a tremendously bright light envelops them. They lose consciousness and wake up on another world, which they learn is called Valdennia. Other human groups have been previously transported to the world, including some Medieval Russians, Romans, and Carthaginians.

There is also an alien race of humanoids 8 to 10 feet tall and of massive build. These are called “Tugars” by most people, although we find out later there are different hordes of them. They are nomadic and ride huge horses bred from Earth stock, and use only primitive weaponry such as swords, lances and powerful bows. In fact, they reject anything resembling guns. The Tugars “eat” humans, and as they pass through the lands of human settlements they take a tithe of 20 percent of the people living there, but their territory is very large so they don’t pass too often. The Tugars also come from another world and it turns out their ancestors built the Light Gates, although the current Tugars don’t know how they work.

Battle Hymn and Never Sound Retreat (Roc, January 1997 and January 1998). Covers by Sanjulian

The series consists of the two Union Regiments allying with the humans of Valdennia to stop the horde. Their guns and cannon make a big difference and they decimate the Tugars. But then another horde, the Merki, step in, and behind them is a third horde called the Bantang. The Merki began to make use of gunpowder themselves and start to train human slaves to fight for them. The Union regiments and their allies must industrialize and advance in weaponry in order to survive.

These are thick books but scarcely a word is wasted. They are full of action and intrigue, but really have glorious battles. The characters are interesting and sympathetic. This was the first series like this I ever read, although a writer named Taylor Anderson, another historian, used the same concept in his Destroyermen series. I don’t believe these books would have existed without the influence of Sword & Planet works like ERB’s Barsoom tales.

A Band of Brothers and Men of War (Roc, January 1999 and December 1999). Covers by Sanjulian

William Forstchen’s first book was published in 1983 and called Ice Prophet, with a cool cover by Darrell Sweet. It’s a post-apocalyptic fantasy set on a future, frozen Earth, similar to the setting for Michael Moorcock’s Ice Schooner. Rival religions rule the remnants of humanity but a new prophet arrives. There’s kind of a Dune vibe to the tale. It spawned two sequels but I haven’t read those. The book is good but it doesn’t have the quality of many of his later books. Forstchen’s clear strength is in using historical settings and historical types of characters.

The next book I read from Forstchen after The Lost Regiment series was Gettysburg, (2003), which he wrote supposedly with Newt Gingrich. I personally don’t believe Gingrich had much to do with it. Everything in it seems to be Forstchen through and through, and there are even some characters and situations that are virtual rewrites of scenes from The Lost Regiment series. It was very good and there are two sequels that I will likely read at some point. Forstchen can really capture the heroism of men at war. The excellent cover is by Don Troiani.

He started a trilogy in 2009 with One Second After, followed by One Year After in 2015 and The Final Day in 2017. I actually suspect he meant the first book to be a standalone but it was so popular he came back to write two more some six years later. One Second After is one of the most memorable books I’ve ever read. I literally wept at the end.

The two sequels are not as strong and are a little wordy in places, but they are still very good reads. The basic premise is what happens to a small town and its people after an EMP attack (electromagnetic pulse) on the US that wipes out all our electricity, bringing down our entire economy. This certainly isn’t the first time this kind of phenomenon has been used in fiction. S. M. Stirling’s Dies the Fire series posits a strange even that stops all electricity from working worldwide.

But Forstchen’s take is very well done and — I think — gives a pretty realistic, though perhaps optimistic view of what would happen. It chronicles the attempt by this one small town to hold onto their civilization and their humanity. One Year After looks back at the same folks a year later, and The Final Day takes place after a more general recovery has begun but is being corrupted from the inside.

Quite possibly because of his association with Newt Gingrich, who wrote the Foreword of One Second After, Forstchen has been criticized for holding overly right-wing views. After reading many of his books, I do believe that he is probably a political conservative, which I am not. However, his views seem nuanced to me. What he has created are very real seeming characters who hold certain conservative viewpoints. I know and get along with plenty of people who share such viewpoints and I would not consider them to be “right-wingers” in the pejorative sense of that word. Ultimately, these are good stories.

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Charles Gramlich administers The Swords & Planet League group on Facebook, where this post first appeared. His last article for Black Gate was The Sword & Planet Fiction of Robert Moore Williams.