Well…I am going to post this. Get started on the next month…
This is the first in a series called the Childe Cycle. While reading the series isn’t important it is rewarding. The whole series is part of the sub Sci Fi genre called Military Science Fiction
The story is about Donal Graeme, a brilliant (if not odd) military leader. In the Childe Cycle universe, the human race has split into a number of cultures. Donal is a Dorsai, a culture based on the planet of the same name, which specializes in producing the best military soldiers. Since each splinter culture specializes in a specific area of expertise, a system of contracts between the cultures.
The Dorsai, inhabiting a resource poor world, hire themselves out as mercenaries to other governments. Donal has ambitions, and the book follows his rise. The book begins as a straightforward tale of his career and then becomes something else, as it becomes clear there is something different about Donal himself.
The whole series is simply wonderful. You can read them seperately. I did…in fact it was difficult to get the books before the advent of the internet. Now its rather easy from Amazon. Now…a moment of the series. Dorsai! was the first published but not in chronological order. In fact its hard to understand out of order which is why I reccommend this book first. For those interested in the whole series wiki has a pretty good run through: