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Title: Legion of the Damned by William C. Dietz ISBN: 0-441-48040-3 Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: August, 1993 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.93 (14 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Mad Sweet
Comment: This novel by William C. Dietz introduces the interesting concept of life after death in the form of a cyborg solider. This book is not only wicked cool, but should be considered a literary masterpiece. Dietz makes his words flow with undeniable flair. His story plot is original.
Dietz's characters are real and easy to relate with. They have depth and experience the joys and follies of real people. His insights into the minds of his aliens are fascinating. They truly do think in an alien way.
His aliens always manage to stay in their race's persona. That is something that a lot of authors manage to slip up on. Despite my inklings towards evil, I can't help rooting for the good guys. Usually it's hard not to root for the bad guy, but Dietz somehow manages to put me in the situation of liking both.
Dietz's action sequences are second to none. When the action is going full tilt it's mad sweet. He also isn't afraid to kill off his characters,which is both refreshing and frustrating at the same time. It makes things more realistic, giving the baddies a fair chance at killing the good dudes.
Ok to sum it all up. Dietz is a sick writer definitely worth your time reading. I can't pump it anymore than that so I'll stop writing. I will leave you with this though. For Sci-Fi, Dietz is as realistic as you can get.
One more thing, I have to agree that this book should have been more about the cyborg themselves rather then being sidelined. That would be my only beef about the story. Hopefully Dietz will read this and because of these reviews decide to write a novel just about the borgs.
Rating: 3
Summary: Entertaining
Comment: 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: 4
Summary: The few. The proud. The dead. The cyborg legionnaires.
Comment: 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.
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Title: The Final Battle by William C. Dietz ISBN: 044100217X Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: July, 1995 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: By Force of Arms by William C. Dietz ISBN: 044100735X Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: 05 June, 2000 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: By Blood Alone by William C. Dietz ISBN: 0441006310 Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: July, 1999 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: For More Than Glory by William C. Dietz ISBN: 0441010911 Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: 07 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Prison Planet by William C. Dietz ISBN: 1585863262 Publisher: E-Reads Pub. Date: December, 1999 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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