Legion

by Leo Champion, Cedar Sanderson (Illustrator)

The desperate. The underfunded. The completely expendable. The United States Foreign Legion was created as a disposable force to deal with America’s colonial conflicts. Paul Mullins was an American citizen with a successful career in advertising. Until one drunken night when a barroom acquaintance convinced him that you could back out of a Legion enlistment. He’s going to spend his next five years alongside a bunch of opportunists, felons, lunatics and screwups, in the dirtiest parts of America’s interstellar empire. The other military branches despise the Legion. The government considers them expendable. Secessionists, aliens and Earth’s other powers loathe them. The colonial business community grudgingly appreciates them, but that isn’t worth much. Mullins has a cheap uniform and sixty pounds of lowest-bidder equipment. He has an obsolete twentieth-century rifle and a vindictive enemy who outranks him. He’s about to find strength in himself that he never knew existed. And to survive one thousand, eight hundred and twenty-six days in the Legion, he’s going to need every bit of it.

Genres: Science Fiction

596 pages, Paperback

First published July 31, 2013

Reviews

[Billy Mullins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Damned Good Read

Champion is no Tolstoy, no Hemingway but he CAN write. Good story. Good, solid characters. Good, believable plot. All in all a good read. If you're looking for literature, Leo Champion ain't your author. But if you're looking for a little good fun. For some M&Ms for the mind, give Leo a try. Me? I was hooked when I saw the POV character had the same last name as mine. When, later on, he even drank my favorite brew - Steel Reserve: cheap, smooth (no bitter follow-on), and packing a punch (8% ABV) - I was hooked. GOTTA read the rest in the series!

[Kjirstin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A greatly enjoyable mil sci-fi novel that follows a reluctant recruit who got snookered into service. Not only is this somewhat soft, upper-middle-class fellow stuck with a military career that he got tricked into while drunk, but he's also managed to make himself a vindictive enemy who's out to get him (if the training doesn't manage that on its own).

For all that Paul Mullins wasn't a particularly likeable character in the beginning (he definitely started out as the spoiled rich kid that his enemy imagines him to be), as soon as he realizes that he's stuck in this mess, he starts to reform as a character, and shows a strength of will and character that you wouldn't have guessed at from the beginning. After a while you're rooting for him to not only survive, but to thrive in the midst of the difficult conditions. And he does.

My only real quibble with this book was that I wanted it to be a series, and was terribly disappointed to find that there wasn't a next novel to read!

[Jessica Traverson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a bad read. It feels a little too... smug I guess? Still, the writing is good, the characters are well done, and the story is engaging. I wanted something of a happier ending, but I didn't think I was going to get one.

One thing that I am confused on is if he is going to write a sequel? I thought that Desert Strike was related, but I'm not sure.

Overall, I recommend it as far as gritty military science fiction. Don't go into it expecting epic scale combat, think of it as Vietnam in space.

[Kal Spriggs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leo Champion writes an excellent story in the style of David Drake. It's a dark, gritty universe, and the main character is far from perfect. Lots of excellent action, great dialogue, and a story that gets you and doesn't let you go.

[Mark Kearney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great old fashioned military sci-fi