Last week I started to listen to the Empire Of Man series of audio books. The series has been written by David Weber and John Ringo, and all I can say is Wow!

It starts with March Upcountry, which gets interesting in the first few minutes, rather than the usual longer opening of most books, proceed with March to the Sea and then to March to the Stars and finally to We Few, where the books (but not the story) ends.

You may have noticed that I didn't have much activity in the last week, that is because I spent most to all of my free time listening to those books. Excellent is too weak a word to describe them. Suffice to say that a quick calculations shows that out of 168 hours in a week, I spend over 70 hours listening to those books (and walking the dog till she dropped :- ).

Page turner is not quite the word to use for an audio book, but I can't think of an appropriate term to use for them.

The story is good, very believable, highly consistent, great characters, a lot of depth, great pace, a lot of action, and a sense of a full world behind the story. It is also a story that has managed to make me forget the real world for more than a few times.

I have just finished listening to We Few, and the only think that I can think right now is how to get the next book in the series, which apparently doesn't exists (extremely disturbing, since I really want to know what comes next).

I am usually on the side of fantasy when it comes to reading, but this has certainly convinced me to go back to hard core SF. So if you like SF, and if you have better self control than I am, I can strongly recommend these books.

Update: Apparently the first two books can be gotten (legally) freely from the net. Part of Baen's Free Library:

• March Upcountry
• March to the Sea