The Reformer (The Raj Whitehall Series, Book 7)

After the collapse of the galactic Web, civilizations crumbled and chaos reigned on thousands of planets. Only on planet Bellevue was there a difference. There, a Fleet Battle Computer named Center had survived from the old civilization. When it found Raj Whitehall, the man who could execute its plan for reviving human civilization, he and Center started Bellevue back on the road leading to the stars; and when Bellevue reached that goal, Center sent copies of itself and Raj to the thousands of worlds still waiting for the light of civilization to dawn.

On Hafardine, civilization had fallen further than most. That men came from the stars was not even a rumor of memory in Adrian Gellert's day. The Empire of Vanbret spread across the lands in a sterile splendor that could only end in another collapse, more ignominious and complete than the first. Adrian Gellert was a philosopher, a student whose greatest desire was a life of contemplation in the service of wisdom...until he touched the "holy relic" that contained the disincarnate minds of Raj Whitehall and Center. On that day, Adrian's search for wisdom would lead him to a life of action, from the law-courts of Vanbret to the pirate cities of the Archipelago -- and battlefields bloodier than anything in the history he'd learned. The prize was the future of humanity.

Getting military sci-fi right is tricky. As with any genre fiction, there are certain rules to be followed. When you pick up a book with a cover depicting a sword-wielding Roman-type firing a primitive cannon under the shadow of a swirling nebula, you have certain expectations and woe unto any author who fails to meet them. Fortunately, S.M. Stirling and David Drake are both decorated vets (Stirling for the bestselling Anne McCaffrey collaboration The City Who Fought and Drake for the well-loved Hammer's Slammers series, about "the meanest bunch of mercs who ever nuked a world for pay.")

The Reformer continues their Raj Whitehall series, with its intriguing schtick of the cloned consciousnesses of a military commander (Raj) and a battle computer (Center) becoming voices in the head of a would-be hero on a primitive world who is trying to coax humanity back--one planet at a time--to the level of progress it had acheived before a crippling galactic civil war. In The Reformer, Raj and Center are guiding a clever, scrappy philosopher named Adrian and his studly soldier brother Esmond, helping them introduce gunpowder and civic order (eventually) to the quasi-Roman civilization on Hafardine. Fast-paced, but not quite as meaty as earlier installments in the series, Reformer still gets the job done with believable battle scenes and knowing descriptions of early weapons and technology. --Paul Hughes