Mercenaries in protective armor under the skies of alien planets tell anecdotes and incidents from their military past... Giant crabs in a fog-shrouded forest whisper in women's voices... The "Desert Lord", similar to a giant praying mantis, crawls out of its sandy hole... The smell of blood, sweat and gunpowder, the deathly glow of laser beams - everything a lover of real military science fiction needs is in this novel. On the Way to Heaven, Dave Wolverton's first novel, published in 1989, instantly attracted the attention of both readers and critics. Science fiction writer Orson Scott Card said of Dave Wolverton's first book: "This is one of the deepest and most powerful science fiction novels in the history of the genre."