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Lost Regiment #2

The Union Forever

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Union Colonel Andrew Keane and his men discover that descendants of Roman soldiers, sixteenth-century corsairs from the Spanish Maine, and some of Ghengis Khan's men have also been transported in time to the distant future

464 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published February 5, 1991

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About the author

William R. Forstchen

117 books1,712 followers
William R. Forstchen (born 1950) is an American author who began publishing in 1983 with the novel Ice Prophet. He is a Professor of History and Faculty Fellow at Montreat College, in Montreat, North Carolina. He received his doctorate from Purdue University with specializations in Military History, the American Civil War and the History of Technology.

Forstchen is the author of more than forty books, including the award winning We Look Like Men of War, a young adult novel about an African-American regiment that fought at the Battle of the Crater, which is based upon his doctoral dissertation, The 28th USCTs: Indiana’s African-Americans go to War, 1863-1865 and the "Lost Regiment" series which has been optioned by both Tom Cruise and M. Night Shyamalan.

Forstchen’s writing efforts have, in recent years, shifted towards historical fiction and non fiction. In 2002 he started the “Gettysburg” trilogy with Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich; the trilogy consists of Gettysburg: A Novel of the Civil War, Grant Comes East, and Never Call Retreat: Lee and Grant - The Final Victory. More recently, they have have published two works on the events leading up to Pearl Harbor and immediately after that attack Pearl Harbor, and Days of Infamy.

In March 2009, Forstchen’s latest work, One Second After, (Forge/St. Martin’s books) was released. Based upon several years of intensive research and interviews, it examines what might happen in a “typical” American town in the wake of an attack on the United States with “electro-magnetic pulse” (EMP) weapons. Similar in plotting to books such as On the Beach and Alas Babylon, One Second After, is set in a small college town in western North Carolina and is a cautionary tale of the collapse of social order in the wake of an EMP strike. The book has been optioned by Warner Bros. and currently is in development as a feature film. The book was cited on the floor of Congress and before the House Armed Services Committee by Congressman Roscoe Bartlett (R.-MD), chair of the House Committee tasked to evaluate EMP weapons, as a realistical portrayal of the potential damage rendered by an EMP attack on the continental United States.

Forstchen resides near Asheville, North Carolina with his daughter Meghan. His other interests include archaeology, and he has participated in several expeditions to Mongolia and Russia. He is a pilot and co owns an original 1943 Aeronca L-3B recon plane used in World War II.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/willia...

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5 stars
455 (37%)
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470 (38%)
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258 (20%)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
Profile Image for Little Timmy.
7,331 reviews58 followers
February 21, 2019
If you like the "displaced person in another world" stories then this is the series for you. Now we get an entire regiment of people on another earth. Fantastic story and awesome characters. Highly recommended
Profile Image for Mark Harrison.
984 reviews24 followers
March 7, 2019
Not as good as book one as the Union soldiers stranded on a strange planet are betrayed by one of their own, need to develop fighting ships and have to form an alliance with other displaced people from history - this time from ancient Rome. Good fun but not a patch on the first installment.
Profile Image for Carol Storm.
Author 28 books232 followers
July 20, 2011
Classic example of the sophomore jinx.

The second book in THE LOST REGIMENT SERIES is one of the worst. When Colonel Keene and his Union Army heroes first came to this strange world, they had the privilege of liberating the Rus from their Tugar masters. The first novel was compelling because the Rus were such a simple, earthy people, and because the Civil War infantry tactics were so easy to understand and apply.

This second novel loses all of that great stuff. First it's all about naval warfare, which was not as important to the Civil War and is not as interesting. The ironclads are just not as exciting as real battles on lands. Second of all, the Roum and Cartha peoples are not nearly as decent and caring as the Rus -- they are more like sleazy low life tribes. They have no problem with fighting AGAINST Keene and his heroes and switching sides whenever it's convenient.

Last of all, the main American character in this book is actually the VILLAIN in the first novel, the corrupt sailor Cromwell. This guy is really hard to like, he's creepy, mean, shifty, and has some very unappealing personality traits. It's hard to care what happens to him one way or another.

Just about everyone I know who loves these books reads #1, then skips to #3 and #4, the high points of the series.
Profile Image for Peter.
40 reviews21 followers
July 15, 2007
OK these books are really not that great, but come on a civil war regiment sucked thru a wormhole to a world where humans are kept merely as cattle by an giant alien race of mongol like warriors. And it is a well written as that sentence. Those damn aliens never tasted minie balls and grape shot. Go Humans. Plus there is a whole series of them. Awesome. Who the hell publishes this stuff and did anyone ever read them but me?
Profile Image for Scott.
1,091 reviews10 followers
April 2, 2014
Great second book. Good characters, good story.
Profile Image for Chance.
1,102 reviews19 followers
June 17, 2023
2 years have pasted since the Republic of Rus and the Yankees deafeated the Tusgar horde, but it set the path for old an new enemies to join forces to destroy this nation before its American ideals and inventions spread to the rest of the world.


The story gives has mugh details to the process of ship-building to different cannon types lay not letting over load the reader by keeping simple. Do this does leave so e gap in hard facts has most people wouldn’t understand the damage and skillusage of 19 century weapons. Then author does do a good work of incorporating historical training methods to help bring other countries from different time periods up to speed on using new weapons and ships within short timeframes.


Do the author should’ve done a better proof read has I noticed a few missspelled words or scentces that were to close that I was lost on who was talking at times. It’s hard to say if the good out lay the bad grammar writing of passages that it toke going back to see if can notice the change over in who’s talking I hope the author fixes this in the next ch.
34 reviews
November 23, 2020
Its a good continuation of the series. While not as good as the first book and it is slow in some parts and a little boring in others, I don't think its as bad as other reviews have stated. The odds/events keep escalating in the series and sometimes I feel that they increase for the heck of it, to make the stakes seem more dire; which they are, but it does feel a tad convoluted at times. All in all, not bad but not as good as the first book. Still a good continuation and good addition to the series. Recommend the series and the book
Profile Image for Chuck McGrady.
566 reviews3 followers
May 25, 2025
This is a very hard book to characterize. My guess would be that this is historical science fiction. The author, a historian, brings his knowledge of history to a science fiction story. While impressed by the author's knowledge of what it takes to raise an army, to defend a city, to engage in naval battles, and do a myriad of other similar things, the story lost me at several points as the reader is put through a litany of actions which relate to building a government, raising an army and navy, and serving a war.
Profile Image for George.
1,725 reviews6 followers
December 25, 2019
Not as good as book one as the Union soldiers stranded on a strange planet are betrayed by one of their own, need to develop fighting ships and have to form an alliance with other displaced people from history.. Quite a slow book, following on from Rally Cry--it goes 19 hours, quite a long commitment. I wonder if the story is going anywhere in the nine book series...or just same-same?
11 reviews
September 21, 2017
Good read

Another good book in the series, I recommend the entire lost regiment series you don't want to put it down.
Profile Image for Jordan Baker.
364 reviews2 followers
August 5, 2018
Not as awesome as the first one, but it’s a good continuation to the story. 3.5/5
Profile Image for Arnaldo Lopez Jr..
Author 2 books4 followers
December 15, 2017
Thoroughly enjoyable!

This series is a pulse-pounding, heart-tugging, action-filled page turner that does not ever disappoint! Chapter after chapter takes you to the brink of defeat and/or disaster and back!
Profile Image for Daniel Shellenbarger.
525 reviews19 followers
August 7, 2025
So it's been a couple years since the end of Rally Cry. In the wake of their victory over the giant man-eating nomadic Tugars, the surviving men of the 35th Maine regiment and the local Rus population have managed to build a new republic and have begun expanding eastward, hoping to forge an alliance with Roum, the next people along in the Tugars' former line of food stop civilizations. However, while the Republic has prospered and the people are largely happy with how things have turned out, all is not well. Many of the nobles still yearn to see the old order reestablished (what do they care that 1/5th of the population got eaten every 20 years, the nobles were exempt) and the merchants are frustrated at how the Yankee innovations have caused their businesses to lose ground to upstart former peasants. Likewise, Rus's neighbors, the Carthas and Roum both look upon its republican revolution with nervous glances. While Roum might've joined the Rus in throwing off the Tugars, the old order still holds power and isn't sure how closely it is willing to work with the Rus. As for the Carthas, they have another problem, they dithered too long over whether to emulate the Rus or not and before they knew it the Merki (the horde to the south of the Tugar, same deal: 10 foot tall man-eating horse-riding giants, circle the world every 20 years, eating 1/5th of the human population along the way, but a bit more numerous and a bit more brutal/cunning) vanguard was among them and they've been given an "opportunity": build weapons copied from examples provided to them by the Yankees (in a failed attempt to woo them to their side) to use against the Yankees and conquer them and Roum and the Merki will grant an exception to the Carthas on this pass. Even though this means wiping out mankind's first glimmers of freedom on this brutal world, the Carthas leap at the opportunity and aided by renegade Yankee ship captain Tobias Cromwell and his vile toady Private Hinsen and by 5th columnist elements in Roum and Rus, they develop a despicable plan to put meat on their masters' tables.

So.... yeah, I found this book very compelling: the story is intriguing and moves well, the world-building continues to develop in interesting ways, the protagonists are likeably flawed and always brimming with interesting ideas, and the action scenes are always gripping, but it also made me very angry. The antagonists' behavior is just so infuriatingly short-sighted. They and their ancestors have lived on this world for centuries (if not millennia), they know that the Tugar/Merki view humans as animals whose only value is as food, and that as such, lying, betraying, and using humans doesn't trouble them in the least after all why should one keep one's word to one's food. Yet, again and again, they swallow the Merki lies that if they betray the only hope of freedom humanity has ever had on this god-forsaken world, then all will be well with them... until the Merki return in 20 years to slaughter them again. Yet they keep lying to themselves, saying, "Oh, once the Merki are gone, we can use the things we've learned to make ourselves strong before they return again." As if the Merki are stupid enough to leave anything behind other than scorched Earth. The chance is before them to grasp, and yet instead they turn their every effort to killing the people who are their only hope. Stupid. Believably human, but so frustratingly shortsightedly arrogantly stupid. THE FOOLS! It doesn't ruin the book for me, but it constantly ticks me off.

Again, on the whole I liked the book, and in my older age I've become much more inured to the grimdark tendencies these books seem to insist on indulging (though I prefer triumphant heroic stories), but it's certainly one of the factors behind why I've never gotten beyond book 4 in this series. Between my anger at the stupidity and collaboration of the Carthas (and others) with the creatures who literally want to eat them, the oft-downbeat and even nihilistic tone of the protagonists when they think about how impossible their situation is, the frequent deaths of beloved characters, the graphic depictions of the giants' dietary habits, the fact that by necessity our protagonists are always on the defensive, and that all their victories are near-pyrrhic given the scale of their casualties, the result is a draining effect which with each succeeding book gradually kills reading momentum until one can't help but think "maybe I should take a break and read something else" and from there it's "I SHOULD get back to that series, but..." and then it's been 10 years and you're back to thinking "I should try reading that series again..." and we're back to book 1 and the cycle continues with book 5 a fever dream beyond any real expectation. Still, I'm not giving up... even if I am seriously thinking of reading something else next... here we go again...
127 reviews3 followers
August 18, 2013
Another second in series book, this time from that well renowned author William R Forstchen.

These, I have discovered, were written in the early 1990's which surprised me. Why ? Because somehow I'd missed them among all the other Sci-fi and Fantasy I've read over the years.

Perhaps it is that this type of book was not freely available at that time. These are American after all, and picking and buying books pre- internet is not what it is now.

To the meat then. Well for those not familiar with this series (which is beginning to rival Turtledove in sheer length)a Union regiment from the end of the ACW has been transplanted, via some sort of time vortex, to a planet not unlike our own. Trouble is, it's already occupied by various races from the historical past.

If that's not juicy enough for you, then add in hordes of human eating Aliens that believe these new arrivals are send to extend the variety at their dinner table.

Indeed, all the humans are regarded as,and referred to, as 'cattle'. The federal arrival has changed all that, with the introduction of modern weaponry (well ok, if you call muzzle loading muskets modern)and,of course, the almost inevitable democratic principles and ethics brought from the old World.

After the watery victory of the first of these nine-foot carnivores, the Tugars, the Yankees have built a nice little corner for themselves by hooking up with the first locals they encountered, the Rus. It was hinted in the first novel that these folks were also from earths past and novel number 2 continues the theme. This time we have the 'Roum', who are obviously meant to be Romans , descended from earlier time transplantees.
A remarkably short time has elapsed and already the Yankees have equipped and trained their Rus allies into regiments of their own. They've got sawmills, iron mines, foundaries and all sorts of industry up and running and are now seeking another alliance with the next door neighbours, the Roum.

Unfortunately these Roums aren't quite the military machines their forefathers were and need a lot of help, even though they beat off the remnant of the Tugar onslaught beaten by the Yankees in the first round.

It seems the advantage the humans have over the second lot of monsters, the Merki, at one time seemingly insurmountable, has diminished with the defection of a disgruntled captain of the Ogunquit - a transport sailing vessel that brought the regiment into this land.

These Merki, one of a numbers of alien man eating hordes, are not quite as dismissive of the 'cattle' as the Tugars were and have now merged with the remaining Tugars with a change of strategy, plus the assistance of Captain Hook and his sidekicks.

Mix all this up with a couple of big ol' battles and the usual heroics from the usual suspects and you have a good series building here.

The only moments of tedium are the rather dull thoughts of the American protagonists and the Abraham Lincoln impression from Kal the one-time Rus jester.

This all hints at further interaction with more hordes of meat eaters and more displaced peoples from the past - and maybe from the future ? - and an Age of Empires type development of even more modern weapons, including balloons and aircraft. Ah these Americans are sure clever chaps aren't they ?

Great read then, can't wait to read the other 94 novels in this series.




Profile Image for Marcus.
520 reviews50 followers
October 25, 2016
The fact that a couple of years have passed since I've finished first volume in this series and reached for second installment only now is an indication all in itself that 'Lost regiment' failed to make a lasting impression on me. Still, I'm glad I found my way back to this series, because there is a lot to like here as long as one's after pure entertainment value. The author certainly has a gift of story-telling and once you accept the somewhat prepostrous premise, the plot flows quite nicely. I also like the characters and social evolution of the verse in which the events take place. Also, the author doesn't make things easy, unlike some other sci-fi writers (yes, David Webber, I'm thinking about you right now), and makes his heroes work hard and pay a steep price for each success that they have.
The main problem that I have both with this volume and the first book in the series consists of the fact that in the end you know that things, however bleak they may look at the moment, somehow will work out into a happy ending. I understand why author does that, but this certainty somehow takes away from the enjoyment.
I guess that I will continue with next volume at some time, but I'm not in much of a hurry.
Profile Image for Brian Turner.
707 reviews12 followers
March 29, 2015
Quite a slow book, following on from Rally Cry, as the Yankees who were transported through a wormhole to a Stargate style world of different races from different times face off against a different horde and try to build alliances.

This time, they try to expand from the Rus area (mediaeval Russians, originally under the yoke of corrupt church and the Boyars) into Roum (ancient Romans), who still use slaves for manual labour and are against the American way of freedom for all.

There are various traitors within all camps, from people who may lose their power base to ones who aren't too happy at being stuck on an alien world.

The main battles are fought at sea, with the newcomers introducing ironclads alongside Roman galleys. Luckily the enemy seem to give the Yankees time to build a fleet of them, which manages to swing the tide of battle.

A decent book, but all the outcomes seem a bit too pat, so you're never really too worried if the good guys will manage to come through.

Profile Image for Andreas.
Author 1 book30 followers
May 20, 2011
An American Civil War regiment gets transported to a world where a savage spieces comes around every few years and collects tribute in the form of human flesh. Thisseries trods a well-worn path of military sci-fi (a prime example is Jerry Pournelle’s “Janissaries”?), Fortschen does decently well. The first book is not bad, but by the time I got to the end of book three, I discovered that the story was not really going anywhere anymore. There is better stuff than this out there.

http://www.books.rosboch.net/?p=749
Profile Image for Alex Hayler.
13 reviews2 followers
June 21, 2012
Loved the book, love the series. Great premise and execution by Fortschen. Battle scenes, on both land and sea, are as exhilarating as they come, and several characters are developed more fully than previously. My only complaint, and the reason I only gave 4 stars, is that I felt the book was overlong in places, and even slightly over descriptive, especially in matters of logistics. This is merely down to preference however, as others may enjoy this level of detail, so don't hesitate to give it a read!
Profile Image for Brenton J..
Author 8 books16 followers
April 29, 2012
The lost Regiment series is a fabulous story set in the days of the American Civil War. It is basically the Civil War meets Planet of the Apes. It is one of those refreshing stories that no on has done before or since. The writing style is smooth and easy to understand, and the plot moves just right. A great series is one where the reader gets to grow with the characters and this one does just that.
Profile Image for Jennifer Wright.
Author 1 book3 followers
September 21, 2011
The second book in the "Lost Regiment" series is almost as good as the first. Forstchen is able to continue the narrative in a compelling manner and the triumphs and setbacks of the regiment are painted in vivid detail.
11 reviews
April 12, 2014
This is a great follow-up to Forstchen's first Lost Regiment book "Rally Cry." The Americans bring together several different cultures to fight the human-eating Merki and succeed with weapons inspired by the American Civil War. Great reading!
1,158 reviews4 followers
May 20, 2025
I remember being very doubtful- I love a variety of lost regiment tales, but I'm not normally a grim/dark fan. But I enjoyed it more than expected. Not enough to seek out other volumes, remember the details, or want to read again.
Profile Image for Bookbrow.
93 reviews12 followers
August 30, 2012
A better written book, and quite compelling world building, very good battle drama and better richer characters. Good stuff if you like historical action with a twist.
Profile Image for Scott.
81 reviews
September 18, 2010
Well not bad, I think I well come back to the rest of the books later
Profile Image for Jonah.
109 reviews28 followers
November 25, 2010
Better battles in this one, good character development (less do-gooder rah-rah than the first book). I'm interested to see how the next one plays out.
Profile Image for Arnaud.
65 reviews1 follower
Read
July 28, 2011
Rather interresting second opus, the Union regiment from US civil war still kicks hard those Huns look alike
Profile Image for Bill.
2,402 reviews17 followers
August 5, 2012
Good sequel to Battle Cry.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews

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