Would this be the Lost regiment series?

[Nibin]

Evening all.

Every so often I do a quick search to see if I can find the title of this book that I have been looking for for years and nobody can help me with. I came across another post on this forum that might identify the book so decided to ask and see if I can confirm this.

A little background:

I picked up this book at Newark airport around 2001. You know what it is like, delayed plane, looking for something to read, walk in to a bookshop and pick up something that looks entertaining and easy. I actually quite enjoyed the book and read it a few times after that always meaning to buy some more of the series until I lost the book a few years later.

The details I can remember are slightly sketchy so I don't know if you will be able to help me. Please bear in mind I was 16 at the time and was reading a lot of one off fantasy/scifi books (probably 3 or 4 a week, it was a nice lazy summer) that I came across randomly in second hand bookshops, etc so I might be confusing different titles.

Here is what I can remember for sure:

In this book there was some kind of aircraft/airplane used that was either steam powered or had gas filled wings or something like that. If it wasn't steam that ran this aircraft it was some kind of acid. I just remember that the idea of powered flight without the use of the internal combustion engine really appealed to me at the time.

I also think that the setting was the whole civil war age people that cross over to another dimension and have to fight cannibal aliens which is what pointed me in the general direction of the Lost Regiment series by William Fortschen. But it could be that I just also happened to read one of those books at around the same time.

Basically I am looking for someone who has read the Lost Regiment series that can confirm that a similar kind of aircraft featured at some time in the books.

If not and this concept of plane rings a bell I would also be very grateful.

Thanks a lot

 

[murphy]

There was a Lost Regiment series written by William R. Forstchen, see here:

William R Forstchen

However, it's been a long time and many books since I've read them. I don't remember an airplane, though.

 

[Nibin]

Hi, thanks for the answer.

I came across the Lost Regiment series that you mention when I was searching for info on this book I'm looking for and the one you mention is the one I have read about. It's just that I don't know if I am mixing up two books or if they are the same one. I might just have to obtain these books somehow and see if any one of them is the book I remember.

Pity you can't remember about the planes.

Thanks anyway.

 

[williamjm]

I seem to remember they did have some sort of airship in the Lost Regiment series.

 

[murphy]

I seem to remember they did have some sort of airship in the Lost Regiment series.

A dirigible, maybe?

 

[ghost8772]

First book of Lost Regiment, they had standard Balloon, they filled it with hydrogen by bathing zinc shavings in Sulfuric acid. Later they made dirigibles, but used a combination of hydrogen in fore and aft pockets, and hot air from a kerosene burning engine to fill the middle one, it also rand their propellers.

I think you might have gotten two books mixed a bit, the civil war regiment battling aliens (they weren't cannibals strictly speaking, but they were man-eaters) is Lost Regiment plot, but acid powered air craft I haven't run across yet. Of course I haven't read the last couple books, which might have had that setup.

list of books I recall from top of head:
Rally Cry
Union Forever
Terrible Swift Sword
Fateful Lightning

Ones I had to look up:
Battle Hymn
Never Sound Retreat
A Band of Brothers
Men of War
Down to the Sea

So I haven't read the last three as yet.

 

[robvil]

I have read the last few books and whilst there were indeed airplanes they were not acid powered. I think they were kerosene powered. How long ago was this lazy summer thta may shed some light as the latest Lost Regiment books aren't that old, well to me anyway

 

[ghost8772]

if you were asking me how long ago I read them, I read Never Sound Retreat when it was new, late 90's. couldn't find a copy of the later ones...apparently not much sci-fi call for them.

 

[robvil]

Sorry I was asking the original poster, If he recalled when he had read these books to see if that could narrow the field so to speak

 

[ju2au]

This reply is about 4 years late but I think that book OP has read should be:
Down To The Sea (Lost Regiment, Book 9) by William R. Forstchen.

The book was first released in 2000 which fits with the OP picking it up from the airport in 2001. The time period was set to be around 20 years after the events of Book 8 of the Lost Regiment series. In Book 9, they have planes flying around. Before the invention of planes they were using balloons and airships. Flight was made possible via the use of Hydrogen and this Hydrogen gas was created by mixing acid with some other reagent. The character who made Hydrogen said that he knew the Helium was much safer but he didn't know how to create that so they had to use Hydrogen instead.

Because the main characters are from the Civil War era, they haven't discovered the Internal Combustion engine yet. Because conventional steam power was too heavy for flight due to the heavy fuel, they came up with burning kerosine instead (if I remember correctly).