This book was hilarious. Between Catarina's bad puns and the antics of Mickey, Minnie, and Bunkie, not to mention Ken, Harry and the gang, I was rolling on the floor. I must have the first book!!!! He must write a sequel!!!! More messed up people than the Mcdonalds I've never met. And this crew could scare and destroy the galaxy!

YOu must read this book! Its great!!!!!

I picked it up because my innitials are VMR... a fact which only made the thing funnier :) I may not have McLendon's, but I have been called a vampire, and I most certainly think that we constitute the master race. So there.

Actual review: This is one of the funniest books I've ever read. I'm not entirely sure wether to call it satire or random sillyness with a binding.

"Refreshing!" "Unpredictable!" "He bought the WHAT!?!"

VMR IS JUST AS CRAZY AS THE FIRST BOOK IN THE SERIES. THE ONLY QUESTION IS "WHEN WILL THERE BE MORE!!!"

The first two books in the series (Fire in a Faraway Place and A Small Colonial War) set a standard that's hard to beat, but Cain's Land manages. You need to read the first two before reading this one. This whole series is top-flight miltary/socio-political science fiction. Vereschagin, Coldewe and the Iceman set a standard for thoughtful military heroes (or maybe anti-heroes). If you like David Drake's Hammer's Slammers (and I do), read these books to see what the genre can really do

"Fire" is a worthy sequel to A Small Colonial War. Robert Frezza's universe and characters are equal to David Weber's Honor Harrington series and arguably are even better. Superb military SF.

THIS AND THE OTHER BOOKS IN THE SERIES ARE OUTSTANDING EXAMPLES OF MILITARY SCIENCE FICTION.
I RE-READ THIS BOOK AT LEAST ONCE A YEAR AND HAVE RECOMENDED IT
TO ALL OF MY FRIENDS WHO ENJOY THE GENERA.
I REALLY WISH A FOURTH BOOK WOULD BE WRITTEN BUT THE SERIES DID END AT A LOGICAL POINT.
FREZZA IS TO GROUND COMBAT WHAT WEBER IS TO STAR NAVIES.
ENJOY!

This is the first of three novels. The story line is beleivable and well crafted. The main characters are very life like and I found myself identifying with them at once. The action and environment is remarkably well written. You find yourself wishing that the book was twice as long so that you could spend more time with each of the main characters. Be advised that this is not happy-ever-after material. In my opinion this story is the best literary effort of Frezza and is a must read for any serious military sci-fi reader

A Small Colonial War captures the soul of military life in the midst of a bitter and difficult campaign.

Anton Vereschagin and the members of his battalion are complex characters and Robert Frezza has done an excellent job of evolving the story on the basis of the viewpoints of the main characters.

After finishing the book, I had to read it again several times to fully flush out the nuances in the opening scenes which set the context for the storyline to emerge.

This book really brought home the humor and the pain of men in the battlefield for whom going home is not really an option.

I'm not a military man myself but I could identify with several of the characters and the situations they were in.

I highly recommend this book to all fans of military SF as well as fans of military fiction in general.

After reading a couple of good reviews for this book, I found a used copy and plunged in. After I was done, I wasn't really satisified with the book. While some ideas were good, others were flawed or good but weren't taken to their fullest.

The general plot is ok in the beginning of the book, but about halfway through it just begins to take some strange twists and turns. And after awhile it just gets wierd. Another reviewer complained that the book is a combination of several different styles, and I have to agree.

While this isn't a bad book, it also is not a great book. This is the kind of book that you can read and get some laughs. Avid Sci-Fi readers will get some chuckles from some in-jokes or references to other book series by other authors. It's decent, but really can't hold it's own against others in the genre.

You know what they say about those combinations scanner/printer/photocopiers, how they don't do any one of those things quite as well as a single-purpose machine. Or think of the phrase "Jack of all trades, master of none." That's where this book falls.

It's not really a vampire story, even though the cover blurb tries to bill it that way. As murder mysteries go, it's pretty thin. As space opera, it's adequate.

The book is stronger on puns than on actual witty dialog. And it aims for a lot of its humor through references to other books, science fiction cliches, movie references, etc. If you don't already know what Callahan's Place is, for example (if you don't read Spider Robinson, in other words), then many of the allusions here will go right past you. And unless you are a rabid fan of puns, you may not want to go read all of the Callahan's stories just so you can get those allusions. (There are also references to the White Hart, Gavagan's, and the Vulgar Unicorn. And to Casablanca!)

So: if you like puns, and you already like all the bars mentioned above, you'll enjoy this book, although it won't be the best-written punny space bar story you've ever read; if you were looking for a vampire story, though, forget it.

I thought I knew what I was getting into when I got this book. I can usually guess plot lines, but not here! Excellent writing with satirical wit.