Legion of the Damned

Rating:
Summary: This book was five stars until it received my reveiw!
Review: ...This is a great book full of heros and maidens... but the science is dreadful... Dietz pulls normal technology from the present day and expects us to belive it will survive unchanged until the far future... very nice concept, the legion. Nice stage to place some good characters. BUT these people can jump through hyperspace but insist on fighting their battles on the ground. what? A few races hell bent on destroying eachother sacrificing everything except planets that their enemies reside on. like... if my enemy was on a planet that I could not survive on without an enviromental protection suit I think I would NUKE IT FROM ORBIT. I can understand not destroying a planet I could potentially live on but to battle hand to hand for the sake of an already dead world is worthless. the entire premis of the book would have been better served with an antagonistic race that would actually like living on an earth like world... if they don't like the planet why do they risk thousands of lives to capture it? the human race has never been beyond cutting off a foot to save the body. in a few hundred years we should be able to destroy an entire planet...we can do it now! his universe has plenty of empty worlds to inhabit.. why does the human race risk the loss of their entire race instead of dropping a few nukes?

Rating:
Summary: ENGAGING, VIOLENT, POINTLESS FUN, WITH NO REAL PAYOFF.
Review: For this book, and the sequel, Dietz came up with a number of brilliant Science Fiction concepts, each of which could have been the basis for a book. On one level it is quite impressive and imaginative, but he never truly explores any of his ideas fully. In fact, some of them he just plain forgets about, never mentioning them again either in this book or in the sequel. The problem here is that there's no payoff. Humans battle, and they win,just barely. I could have predicted that. The key fun of reading is to see what happens to the individual characters. But they are just not developed enough to be satisfying. Many of the emotional stakes that I thought he was developing early on, get totally forgotten in the chaotic sequence of galactic events. I love the idea of an emperor who is half mad because he has a bunch of 'counselors' occupying his brain. It's such a nifty idea that there just wasn't enough exploration of it. It think this book and the sequel could have easily been TWICE as long. They are just a bit thin. But impressively imaginative anyway. I don't much care for star-trek style humanoid aliens, but it's a standard sci-fi thing I guess.

Rating:
Summary: ENGAGING, VIOLENT, POINTLESS FUN, WITH NO REAL PAYOFF.
Review: For this book, and the sequel, Dietz came up with a number of brilliant Science Fiction concepts, each of which could have been the basis for a book. On one level it is quite impressive and imaginative, but he never truly explores any of his ideas fully. In fact, some of them he just plain forgets about, never mentioning them again either in this book or in the sequel. The problem here is that there's no payoff. Humans battle, and they win,just barely. I could have predicted that. The key fun of reading is to see what happens to the individual characters. But they are just not developed enough to be satisfying. Many of the emotional stakes that I thought he was developing early on, get totally forgotten in the chaotic sequence of galactic events. I love the idea of an emperor who is half mad because he has a bunch of 'counselors' occupying his brain. It's such a nifty idea that there just wasn't enough exploration of it. It think this book and the sequel could have easily been TWICE as long. They are just a bit thin. But impressively imaginative anyway. I don't much care for star-trek style humanoid aliens, but it's a standard sci-fi thing I guess.

Rating:
Summary: Sven Hassell Meets Mechwarrior
Review: Galaxy spanning non-stop science fiction action. The legion are comprised of cyborgs; the killers, victims, dropouts, desperate and just plain unlucky remmnants of an eye-for-an-eye justice system. Now they are called on to fight to the death against alien invaders who have no word for "mercy". Weaponry galore, hardwired to the brain of psychos and tempered by only the desire to show humanity that the honour of the Legion is invincible. Shocking. Hard-core science fiction. Buy it.

Rating:
Summary: The best book I've ever had the honor to read.
Review: Given to me by a friend this book is GREAT. You have the greedy humans on one side and the paranoid Hudathens on the other. It even has traitors and POWs. Great example of how Sci-Fi should be written.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining
Review: I agree that there is some lame science in this book, but it is still QUITE good, with a lot of riveting action and some very thought provoking concepts. I wish Dietz would have concentrated much more on the cyborgs, whose bizarre life's theme deserved a book in itself. I was captivated by this book during the first half of it, and though the book never slows down, some of the writing does get a little far fetched, or seems scientifically unbalanced. The one that bugged me the most was the alien and human conceiving a child late in the book. Also, like the guy from Alaska points out, some of the war materials and strategies seem unlikely so far into the future. The book was good enough though that I was able to put all that aside. This book sizzles along at a breathtaking rate and includes some sci. fi. concepts that I found thoughtful and fascinating. It is DEFINITELY worth reading!

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining
Review: I agree that there is some lame science in this book, but it is still QUITE good, with a lot of riveting action and some very thought provoking concepts. I wish Dietz would have concentrated much more on the cyborgs, whose bizarre life's theme deserved a book in itself. I was captivated by this book during the first half of it, and though the book never slows down, some of the writing does get a little far fetched, or seems scientifically unbalanced. The one that bugged me the most was the alien and human conceiving a child late in the book. Also, like the guy from Alaska points out, some of the war materials and strategies seem unlikely so far into the future. The book was good enough though that I was able to put all that aside. This book sizzles along at a breathtaking rate and includes some sci. fi. concepts that I found thoughtful and fascinating. It is DEFINITELY worth reading!

Rating:
Summary: A must read for miliary Sci-Fi buffs!
Review: I found this a very well written book. Rating up with the best military sci-fi authors, such as Drake, if not better!! Not just a blood and guts type book, Deitz looks at many different aspects of futuristic war, from both a human AND an alien perspective. Everything from heroic sacrifices to a commanders ultimate defeat/victory, to politics in the future!! All in all, a very well done book, and one of the best military sci-fi books I have read.

Rating:
Summary: The few. The proud. The dead. The cyborg legionnaires.
Review: I'm quite pleased that I finally got around to sampling the wares of William C. Dietz, a writer with an impressive number of science fiction novels under his belt already. Legion of the Damned is a well-paced, absorbing novel of futuristic military science fiction based on a premise I find fascinating. A couple of centuries into the future, murderers and their ilk are still being executed, but they are given a second chance - of sorts - to evade the permanent clutches of the Grim Reaper. Those who choose the option of resuscitation are, if approved, reborn in the form of cyborgs - basically, these are gigantic robots of death consisting of a human head inside an artificial and quite deadly body. (For the record, other humans, such as the terminally ill, also have the chance to opt in to the cyborg program.) The cyborgs serve under the command of the Legionnaires, a military force founded on the twentieth-century French Foreign Legion. While they serve in the military of imperial Earth, the Legion is their country (just as their motto says). By the time of the events described herein, the Legion has finally been granted a home of their own, exercising a form of self-autonomy on Algeron, near the outer rim of the Empire's control. Of course, there are many human Legionnaires, but the cyborgs pack most of the punch. Training is so rigorous that many fall along the way, and some even hope for a second death in order to finally fall into oblivion.

There is great trouble in the Empire. The Hudathans, a militaristic alien race, have begun decimating imperial planets on the outer rim and are obviously working their way toward Earth itself. The Admiral of the Imperial Navy is an opportunistic and power-hungry individual who supports a retreat of the Imperial Navy, ostensibly to prepare an overwhelming attack against the Hudathans when they move farther into the empire's region of space; in actuality, her desires are fuelled largely by a determination to make a hero out of herself and to finally rob the Legion of its might and power. Many on the home world (especially those with an economic interest in the planets that stand to be abandoned) argue that Earth's forces should engage the enemy now, while they are still in the outer rim. To the misfortune of everyone concerned, the Emperor is basically insane - as mad as Nero and possibly even more decadent. At least Nero didn't have seven advisors hard-coded into this brain as a child and left to fight amongst themselves inside his mind.

Obviously, a major space battle between Earth's Imperial Navy and the Hudathan fleet is to be expected as this novel wends its way to a conclusion. However, a war between the Imperial Navy and the Legionnaires on Algeron, a localized imperial civil war, looms even closer on the horizon, for the Legion is quite unwilling to give up its home base and allow its forces to be dispersed. Basically, a lot of action is to be found in these pages, and Dietz excels at describing the militaristic aspects of his plot. There are a number of sub-stories incorporated into this fictional fabric involving the formation of a cabal to oppose the Emperor on Earth, an inter-species love story (that never completely clicks, in my opinion), legalistic power-plays among the alien Hudathans themselves in preparation for cosmic war, and a coming together of two cyborgs who "met" in a most unusual fashion in their prior human lives. The ultimate conclusion seems to come a little too quickly and easily, but all in all this is a thoroughly enjoyable novel that all fans of military science fiction should quite enjoy reading.

Rating:
Summary: The few. The proud. The dead. The cyborg legionnaires.
Review: I'm quite pleased that I finally got around to sampling the wares of William C. Dietz, a writer with an impressive number of science fiction novels under his belt already. Legion of the Damned is a well-paced, absorbing novel of futuristic military science fiction based on a premise I find fascinating. A couple of centuries into the future, murderers and their ilk are still being executed, but they are given a second chance - of sorts - to evade the permanent clutches of the Grim Reaper. Those who choose the option of resuscitation are, if approved, reborn in the form of cyborgs - basically, these are gigantic robots of death consisting of a human head inside an artificial and quite deadly body. (For the record, other humans, such as the terminally ill, also have the chance to opt in to the cyborg program.) The cyborgs serve under the command of the Legionnaires, a military force founded on the twentieth-century French Foreign Legion. While they serve in the military of imperial Earth, the Legion is their country (just as their motto says). By the time of the events described herein, the Legion has finally been granted a home of their own, exercising a form of self-autonomy on Algeron, near the outer rim of the Empire's control. Of course, there are many human Legionnaires, but the cyborgs pack most of the punch. Training is so rigorous that many fall along the way, and some even hope for a second death in order to finally fall into oblivion.

There is great trouble in the Empire. The Hudathans, a militaristic alien race, have begun decimating imperial planets on the outer rim and are obviously working their way toward Earth itself. The Admiral of the Imperial Navy is an opportunistic and power-hungry individual who supports a retreat of the Imperial Navy, ostensibly to prepare an overwhelming attack against the Hudathans when they move farther into the empire's region of space; in actuality, her desires are fuelled largely by a determination to make a hero out of herself and to finally rob the Legion of its might and power. Many on the home world (especially those with an economic interest in the planets that stand to be abandoned) argue that Earth's forces should engage the enemy now, while they are still in the outer rim. To the misfortune of everyone concerned, the Emperor is basically insane - as mad as Nero and possibly even more decadent. At least Nero didn't have seven advisors hard-coded into this brain as a child and left to fight amongst themselves inside his mind.

Obviously, a major space battle between Earth's Imperial Navy and the Hudathan fleet is to be expected as this novel wends its way to a conclusion. However, a war between the Imperial Navy and the Legionnaires on Algeron, a localized imperial civil war, looms even closer on the horizon, for the Legion is quite unwilling to give up its home base and allow its forces to be dispersed. Basically, a lot of action is to be found in these pages, and Dietz excels at describing the militaristic aspects of his plot. There are a number of sub-stories incorporated into this fictional fabric involving the formation of a cabal to oppose the Emperor on Earth, an inter-species love story (that never completely clicks, in my opinion), legalistic power-plays among the alien Hudathans themselves in preparation for cosmic war, and a coming together of two cyborgs who "met" in a most unusual fashion in their prior human lives. The ultimate conclusion seems to come a little too quickly and easily, but all in all this is a thoroughly enjoyable novel that all fans of military science fiction should quite enjoy reading.