The novels are set in the 25th century[1] and are written from the viewpoint of the men of the Confederation of Human Worlds Marine Corps 34th FIST (Fleet Initial Strike Team).
[2] David Sherman was a United States Marine veteran, whose military experience influenced his work from the start of his writing career.
[3][4] The Confederation of Human Worlds in the 21st century established its capital city at Fargo, North Dakota, which grew into a large metropolis with a multitude of skyscrapers and government buildings.
[5] A short time after the authors submitted the manuscript of Double Jeopardy the series publisher, Del Rey, decided to cancel it.
As the Marines are deployed to isolated villages in Elneal, violence soon abates - one of Third Platoon's squads is given a new communicating device to field test, and dropped off some tens of kilometers away from the base.
First to Fight contains a veiled criticism of free and widespread gun ownership, which David Sherman considered to be a pathway to violence and possibly institutional collapse.
[11] In this installment, the men of 34th FIST are deployed to help the rulers of Wanderjahr put down a rebellion that threatens the planet's political and economic stability.
Author Colin Salt gave it a positive review, claiming it to be "a delightfully laughable tale", "helped by better fundamentals than the Starfist series sometimes has".
[13] In Steel Gauntlet, St. Cyr, a maniacal sadist who has reinvented the doctrine of armored warfare, has taken control of the planet Diamunde, and 34th FIST is deployed as part of a larger force in a full-scale war to remove him from power.
And beside the tactical and strategic problems presented by the armor, the overall commander of the Confederation force is a political admiral with a talent for making bad choices.
This book follows Gunnery Sergeant Bass and the rest of 3rd Platoon, Company L, 34th FIST as they investigate a missing scientific team on the uninhabited planet Society 437.
Initially expecting that pirates are to blame for the failure of the team to check in as scheduled, 3rd Platoon discovers something far more deadly and dangerous is behind the destruction of the station.
The Skinks, a race of bipedal, amphibian-like creatures who wield acid guns, conduct a campaign to wipe out the entire Scientific Society.
This time they head to an alien planet kept in complete secrecy to hatch open a nefarious conspiracy of corruption at the highest levels of Confederation power.
In the previous book, Hangfire, it was related that the Skinks (an alien race thus far mostly unknown to the Human Confederation) had invaded the planet Kingdom.
The planetary government reluctantly requests Confederation assistance, but thanks to miscommunications and pure bureaucratic bungling, the Marines of 34th FIST are deployed thinking that they are on their way to put down a peasant rebellion.
The Margelan government is developing a secret technological project in Atlas; the Marines are ordered to discover what it is, and, if it is a weapon of mass destruction, to either destroy it or seize it for the Confederation.
Second platoon is dispatched to the far-off world of Haulover, where local forces are fighting a losing battle against the skinks, an extraterrestrial enemy which for years has been violently raiding the frontiers of human space.
The novels were criticized for their all-male cast of soldiers, using contrived inter-service rivalries as a plot device, and a "tendency to telegraph their denouements".
But as the Publishers Weekly review of STARFIST: Lazarus Rising stated, at the end "The politically correct may have trouble with the lack of female soldiers à la Honor Harrington, but the traditional male audience at which this is targeted will have no complaints.".