The Prince (2002) is an omnibus edition containing the four novels of the Falkenberg's Legion series. These novels are based on the CoDominium universe in which the US and USSR joined forces against the rest of the world and started colonizing planets, mostly with convicts and welfare clients. However, the CoDominium itself was not very stable and could have self-destructed at any time. Only the Fleet was holding together civilization.

In Falkenberg's Legions (1990), the first novel in the series, John Christian Falkenberg the Third joins the CoDominium Armed Services and serves on his first and his last assignments as a CoDominium officer. The novel itself incorporates two previous novels. West of Honor describes the admission of Falkenberg into the CoDominium service and his first field command on Arrarat with the 42nd Line Marine Regiment, where they fought against a former gang, the Mission Hills Protective Association. The Mercenary describes Falkenberg's last field command in the service with a cadre of men from the disbanded 42nd on a mission to stabilize the government of Hadley and the subsequent formation of the Legion. Additional material has been incorporated in this fixup to enrich the backstory.

In Prince of Mercenaries (1989), the second novel in the series, the Legion accepts a contract on Tanith to wipe out some pirate gangs and to quell a tax boycott Arthur W. Jordin

It was Coleridge who coined the term, "...the willful suspension of disbelief", and it is this concept, I think, that marks successful fiction of every genre. It is the element that gets the reader "into" the story, and it is hardest to achieve in epic fantasy and military science fiction. This is because the writer has to do more than create believeable characters and plot; he/she has to create the very worlds in which the characters exist, including geography, politics, economics, etc. All of this comes across in superb manner in "The Prince". Originally published several years ago as four separate books, this is the story of the death of one civilization, and the gritty birth of another, from the standpoint of Falkenburg's Legion, a mercenary unit whose origins include such seemingly disparate military models as the Roman Legion and the French Foreign Legion. I would have given this book a 5 star rating but for a stylistic aspect that I have always found to be off-putting, because I find that it interrupts the story: in the first book, the writers switch between first person and third person narrative. It may be simply a personal quirk of mine, but there it is. On the other hand, the writing is of a consistantly high quality, and the plot move with a good pace and some very intense action. If you like the genre, read this book. Jim Baen of Baen Books has the inside track on military sci-fi, with a cadre of writers which includes David Weber (my alltime favorite), Eric Flint, David Drake and many others.
"The Prince" is a worthwile addition to the Baen Catalog and is sure to please most readers.