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Legion #3
By Blood Alone
In a Legion gone lax, Colonel Bill Booly, with his mixed blood and by-the-book attitude, is a misfit. So when he steps on some important toes, his punishment is assignment to the worst post in the Earth. But Booly and his troops will turn out to be Earth's best line of defense, when a Legion-led military coup topples the government. It's Legionnaire against Legionnaire in a struggle that will be won by strength and courage.
368 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1999
41 people are currently reading
332 people want to read
About the author
William C. Dietz
124 books453 followersNew York Times bestselling author William C. Dietz has published more than fifty novels, some of which have been translated into German, Russian, and Japanese. He grew up in the Seattle area, served as a medic with the Navy and Marine Corps, graduated from the University of Washington, and has been employed as a surgical technician, college instructor, and television news writer, director and producer. Before becoming a full-time writer Dietz was director of public relations and marketing for an international telephone company. He and his wife live near Gig Harbor, Washington.
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
December 19, 2020
Normally a big Dietz fan. This one didnt hook me. Need to read more books from the series. Novel seemed a little disjointed but I will seek out and the read the series.
March 19, 2017
Note on primary alien races in this book:
Hudathan: xenophobic murderous aliens defeated twice but now nominal allies b/c of
Thracki/Sheen threat.
Thraki: xenophobic murderous aliens chased by Sheen for centuries (apparently).
Sheen: xenophobic murderous aliens chasing Thraki for centuries (apparently).
This is apparently the book where I fall out of love. The first book in this series came out in 1993 and starts with a quote dated to 2169, so, while I didn't go back through and check for dates, it is set roughly 176 years into the future from when it was written and 150 years from now. So roughly think about the difference between 1940 military and 2000 military. Then multiply that by 3 (if you don't believe the rate of technological change is increasing, otherwise multiply by 9)
Then there's the first Hudathan war, a twenty year interval, the second Hudathan war, a 50 interval and now this book. Point being that over what amounts to 250 years in the future there is very little technological change- brain boxes, androids/robots and FTL travel. The grunts still use machine guns.
This book was written in 1999 and the basic technology, other than brain boxes and FTL, is about where we will be in 2019. I could overlook the lack of technological inovation in the first book because of how much I enjoyed it. In the second book I was still invested and only another 20 years had passed. Here the main story line is about a poorly conceived mutiny launched by surprise and bizarrely successful. Half the military ships in orbit around earth and every military base on earth had significant numbers of mutineers- there must have been tens of thousands of secret keepers if not millions. And the secret was kept for months since the mutineers were stockpiling weapons.
This story also has a lot of politics to explain why the Confederation that is being mutinied against doesn't actually act and why the mutiny eventually implodes in spite of holding most of the cards for a significant period of time. It has another story line about a guy stranded on an alien spaceship that is a part of an armada chasing other aliens into Confederate space and, in yet another (albeit related) story line, the aliens being chased first attack Confederate ships and then hatch plans with the "cabal" to take a currently unoccupied Confederate planet in an attempt by the cabal to destabilize the Confederacy and by the chased aliens to maneuver the Confederacy between them and their pursuers. AND STILL IT GETS MORE POLITICALLY COMPLICATED.
The Hudathans find out that one of the cabal members is seeking to destabilize the Confederacy so as to aid its own colonization of planets claimed by the Hudathans. So the Hudathans, who want to kill everyone in the Confederacy, work to save it from from the cabal (which makes no sense since the planets in question weren't doing them any good and if the confederacy fell the Hudathans should be capable of retaking the planets). AND YET THERE IS MORE . . .
Part of the cabal is an evil corporation who uses the mutiny to take by force its competitors. Also, there is an alien ocean plant being who can control minds- two of whom controlled 1/3 of an attacking fleet in space in the prior book. Here, however, the alien's abilities are much more limited and without explanation so I can only assume the author didn't want to write that story.
Funny thing is that the author still writes the ground-pounder portions of his books well. His books would be significantly better if he focused more on that. Unfortunately, I failed to foresee this undesirable turn and purchased 4 of these books at one time. So, looks like I'll be keeping on with this series.
Hudathan: xenophobic murderous aliens defeated twice but now nominal allies b/c of
Thracki/Sheen threat.
Thraki: xenophobic murderous aliens chased by Sheen for centuries (apparently).
Sheen: xenophobic murderous aliens chasing Thraki for centuries (apparently).
This is apparently the book where I fall out of love. The first book in this series came out in 1993 and starts with a quote dated to 2169, so, while I didn't go back through and check for dates, it is set roughly 176 years into the future from when it was written and 150 years from now. So roughly think about the difference between 1940 military and 2000 military. Then multiply that by 3 (if you don't believe the rate of technological change is increasing, otherwise multiply by 9)
Then there's the first Hudathan war, a twenty year interval, the second Hudathan war, a 50 interval and now this book. Point being that over what amounts to 250 years in the future there is very little technological change- brain boxes, androids/robots and FTL travel. The grunts still use machine guns.
This book was written in 1999 and the basic technology, other than brain boxes and FTL, is about where we will be in 2019. I could overlook the lack of technological inovation in the first book because of how much I enjoyed it. In the second book I was still invested and only another 20 years had passed. Here the main story line is about a poorly conceived mutiny launched by surprise and bizarrely successful. Half the military ships in orbit around earth and every military base on earth had significant numbers of mutineers- there must have been tens of thousands of secret keepers if not millions. And the secret was kept for months since the mutineers were stockpiling weapons.
This story also has a lot of politics to explain why the Confederation that is being mutinied against doesn't actually act and why the mutiny eventually implodes in spite of holding most of the cards for a significant period of time. It has another story line about a guy stranded on an alien spaceship that is a part of an armada chasing other aliens into Confederate space and, in yet another (albeit related) story line, the aliens being chased first attack Confederate ships and then hatch plans with the "cabal" to take a currently unoccupied Confederate planet in an attempt by the cabal to destabilize the Confederacy and by the chased aliens to maneuver the Confederacy between them and their pursuers. AND STILL IT GETS MORE POLITICALLY COMPLICATED.
The Hudathans find out that one of the cabal members is seeking to destabilize the Confederacy so as to aid its own colonization of planets claimed by the Hudathans. So the Hudathans, who want to kill everyone in the Confederacy, work to save it from from the cabal (which makes no sense since the planets in question weren't doing them any good and if the confederacy fell the Hudathans should be capable of retaking the planets). AND YET THERE IS MORE . . .
Part of the cabal is an evil corporation who uses the mutiny to take by force its competitors. Also, there is an alien ocean plant being who can control minds- two of whom controlled 1/3 of an attacking fleet in space in the prior book. Here, however, the alien's abilities are much more limited and without explanation so I can only assume the author didn't want to write that story.
Funny thing is that the author still writes the ground-pounder portions of his books well. His books would be significantly better if he focused more on that. Unfortunately, I failed to foresee this undesirable turn and purchased 4 of these books at one time. So, looks like I'll be keeping on with this series.
October 27, 2013
This is a good entry to a good series. We have followed some of the characters since book one and they remain interesting.
Here a rogue group of legionnaires is involved with a coup to overthrow Earth's government and pull Earth out of the Confederation. There is some good action, some political intrigue and of course enough of the "personal story stuff" to get me to give it a 4 instead of a 5.
One thing I think every reader will pick up...a lot of this book is involved with setting up the plot of the next book. Sort of security for the author I guess.
Still, not a bad book. I've liked the fictional universe from my first encounter with it and wonder how long it will be before we actually see military cyborgs.
Recommended...though I advise starting the series from the start.
Enjoy.
Here a rogue group of legionnaires is involved with a coup to overthrow Earth's government and pull Earth out of the Confederation. There is some good action, some political intrigue and of course enough of the "personal story stuff" to get me to give it a 4 instead of a 5.
One thing I think every reader will pick up...a lot of this book is involved with setting up the plot of the next book. Sort of security for the author I guess.
Still, not a bad book. I've liked the fictional universe from my first encounter with it and wonder how long it will be before we actually see military cyborgs.
Recommended...though I advise starting the series from the start.
Enjoy.
January 26, 2016
A good book to start the series with. Seriously...the first two books can be disregarded. The plot lines have gotten better with this one and more interesting but the same old problems are still there: no character development, poor attempts at describing the scenes, characters fall in love within moments of meeting (the romance is nothing other than corny), and the major plot line (a coup occurs within the Earth's government) has almost no motivation or reason for occurring. It also ends rather pathetically as well. It just kind of....ends. Like this...
May 8, 2024
Does every book in this series keep straying further and further away from the brilliance and premise of the first? Because this book certainly continues that sad trend.
Once again we have a huge time jump between books that nearly does away with the previous character development in the series. And once again, we have a ridiculous decrease in action scenes. These two factors alone make this book worse than the previous one, which was already worse than the first.
At the very least there is an attempt to bring returning characters despite the absurd time skip, mainly the Hudathan warrior (thanks to their extended life spans) and a character who is practically immortal now that he is a cyborg. But like I said in my review of the second, why do the time skip at all? Why not just continue the story if you're so intent on using the same characters that you left behind in time?
The perfect example, AGAIN, is "Booly". This Booly descendant acts and talks exactly like the first, and very close to the second, but he just isn't the same person. For no good reason. He's the same Booly, but just not Booly. Why???
At least the premise showed some great potential. Earth being taken over by renegade Legion members, aided by a corporate conspiracy to take over Earth's government. If this had been the focus of the story, then it would have been a great story. But instead, a lot more elements are brought in which turn this "war" story into a boring, meandering political thriller.
But before getting into that, let me talk about what pulled me into this series as a whole: the action. Once again, what little of what is here is brilliant. We have commandos infiltrating a military base, aerial battles with flying aces kicking ass, and of course Legion cyborgs and quad tanks facing off in battle. Each of these is highly entertaining, period. The problem is... they all add up to less than a few pages at most. If this had been the bulk of the book, it would have been fantastic... if only.
But nope, the bulk of the book, criminally even more than the second, is concerned with the political maneuverings of a couple of factions that "progress" the plot and provide the resolution to all problems, plus more than one alien threats that do NOT affect the main plot until the VERY end. So, we have a bunch of political meetings, corporate meetings, politicians being shifty politicians, and corporate rats being conniving and horny; all mostly humans (or clones), but sometimes alien politicians too. But.... this isn't at all what I signed up for!! This isn't what the first book promised this would become! Where's the battles changing the tide of war?
Instead of the ACTIVE WAR deciding the outcome of the WAR, we have, you guessed it, politicians resolving the conflict by doing politics. They just convince people to... give up. Literally, the war ends not because the battles continued, but because politicians surrendered after being talked to by other politicians. What. The hell. This is literally the OPPOSITE of the premise of the first book. Why have a Legion of kickass robots kicking ass in cool battles, when you can have talking heads resolving their issues in frickin' meetings?? WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA??
Plus, effectively half of the book, sprinkled in between all the politics BS, is dedicated to some dude stranded in the territory of a race of machines created to annihilate some alien race. THIS DOESN'T AFFECT THIS BOOK'S PLOT AT ALL. The only thing it affects is the aliens accelerating their plans, which the humans notice at the very end. In other words, SEQUEL BAIT. Which takes the entirety of this, the previous book, to set up. I don't care if it pays off in the next book. This is POINTLESS in this book. And frankly insulting.
So, this book manages to be even more infuriating than the second book. The potential of the entire series is squandered here, and replaced with something that I just don't care about. If you like political thriller sci-fi stories, then great, this is for you. But it's not for me. I weep thinking what these three books could have been: one of the best milSF series of all time but they're NOT. And perhaps the next books will improve on this possibility, but I've run out of what little patience I had since the second.
Once again we have a huge time jump between books that nearly does away with the previous character development in the series. And once again, we have a ridiculous decrease in action scenes. These two factors alone make this book worse than the previous one, which was already worse than the first.
At the very least there is an attempt to bring returning characters despite the absurd time skip, mainly the Hudathan warrior (thanks to their extended life spans) and a character who is practically immortal now that he is a cyborg. But like I said in my review of the second, why do the time skip at all? Why not just continue the story if you're so intent on using the same characters that you left behind in time?
The perfect example, AGAIN, is "Booly". This Booly descendant acts and talks exactly like the first, and very close to the second, but he just isn't the same person. For no good reason. He's the same Booly, but just not Booly. Why???
At least the premise showed some great potential. Earth being taken over by renegade Legion members, aided by a corporate conspiracy to take over Earth's government. If this had been the focus of the story, then it would have been a great story. But instead, a lot more elements are brought in which turn this "war" story into a boring, meandering political thriller.
But before getting into that, let me talk about what pulled me into this series as a whole: the action. Once again, what little of what is here is brilliant. We have commandos infiltrating a military base, aerial battles with flying aces kicking ass, and of course Legion cyborgs and quad tanks facing off in battle. Each of these is highly entertaining, period. The problem is... they all add up to less than a few pages at most. If this had been the bulk of the book, it would have been fantastic... if only.
But nope, the bulk of the book, criminally even more than the second, is concerned with the political maneuverings of a couple of factions that "progress" the plot and provide the resolution to all problems, plus more than one alien threats that do NOT affect the main plot until the VERY end. So, we have a bunch of political meetings, corporate meetings, politicians being shifty politicians, and corporate rats being conniving and horny; all mostly humans (or clones), but sometimes alien politicians too. But.... this isn't at all what I signed up for!! This isn't what the first book promised this would become! Where's the battles changing the tide of war?
Instead of the ACTIVE WAR deciding the outcome of the WAR, we have, you guessed it, politicians resolving the conflict by doing politics. They just convince people to... give up. Literally, the war ends not because the battles continued, but because politicians surrendered after being talked to by other politicians. What. The hell. This is literally the OPPOSITE of the premise of the first book. Why have a Legion of kickass robots kicking ass in cool battles, when you can have talking heads resolving their issues in frickin' meetings?? WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA??
Plus, effectively half of the book, sprinkled in between all the politics BS, is dedicated to some dude stranded in the territory of a race of machines created to annihilate some alien race. THIS DOESN'T AFFECT THIS BOOK'S PLOT AT ALL. The only thing it affects is the aliens accelerating their plans, which the humans notice at the very end. In other words, SEQUEL BAIT. Which takes the entirety of this, the previous book, to set up. I don't care if it pays off in the next book. This is POINTLESS in this book. And frankly insulting.
So, this book manages to be even more infuriating than the second book. The potential of the entire series is squandered here, and replaced with something that I just don't care about. If you like political thriller sci-fi stories, then great, this is for you. But it's not for me. I weep thinking what these three books could have been: one of the best milSF series of all time but they're NOT. And perhaps the next books will improve on this possibility, but I've run out of what little patience I had since the second.
October 31, 2020
By Blood Alone by Willam C. Dietz is third part in the tale of the legion of the damned trilogy is set again years after the predecessor, (The Final Battle) and is again, seeing the Galaxy back into a state of war, first off, to understand the real complexities of this, you really do need to go back and read the first two of the series. This isn’t a bad thing, I had the pleasure of getting to review them previously and they are superb. As a stand alone though, ‘by blood alone’ could prove a bit difficult to follow even considering the time scale in which it is set in comparison. Dietz manages to prove again why he has such a well regarded reputation in sci fi. This time, as in the second novel, Dietz moves the focus a little further away from the Legion of the Damned, a cyborg army made up of the worst criminals and terminally ill looking for an alternative to death and onto a human focal point instead. In doing this, Dietz has managed to keep an ever more familiar set up fresh and just as interesting as on it’s first use, there is also a lot of future plotlines set out and some very interesting speculation on advancement in the technicalities that could be seen in weaponry and warfare. The characters throughout being linked to previous proves to be a nice touch and leads very quickly to them becoming just as good to read about as any of the plot and warfare that made this series as appealing from the start.
April 29, 2018
Some interesting stories on politics, but little action. This series is turning into more hypothetical futuristic politics than military scifi.
January 5, 2025
not liking the direction this series is going.
September 23, 2025
great book
Awesome book and I recommend reading it if you have a chance to read it. I loved this book a lot.
Awesome book and I recommend reading it if you have a chance to read it. I loved this book a lot.
October 7, 2014
I have been working late and didn't think that I could get far enough into my big read in the short time I had to read each night before nigh-nighs so I opted for some lighter fair for a while...
I think that this is the first in a series but I have not been able to determine what the others in the series are from the author's works nor what sequence they might be read. Never mind though because this is one of those most excellent books that stands on its own two feet regardless of sequels etc.
The story had a great blend of land and space combat, a number of interwoven plotlines which you can opt to accept as resolved at the end of the book, and an interesting range of human and alien characters. This was the first one of William Dietz's books that I read and I have since sought and read some more, just none from the series. I have read this book 5-6 times now and it has yet to get tired on me, possibly because a. it is well-written, b. because the story has a broad scope on and off Earth, and c. the technology is plausible but nauseatingly technical and the author does not feel that he has to delve into the workings of each and every widget...
I am most keen to acquire the devour the remainder of the series if I can determine what titles I need and what order to read them...
I think that this is the first in a series but I have not been able to determine what the others in the series are from the author's works nor what sequence they might be read. Never mind though because this is one of those most excellent books that stands on its own two feet regardless of sequels etc.
The story had a great blend of land and space combat, a number of interwoven plotlines which you can opt to accept as resolved at the end of the book, and an interesting range of human and alien characters. This was the first one of William Dietz's books that I read and I have since sought and read some more, just none from the series. I have read this book 5-6 times now and it has yet to get tired on me, possibly because a. it is well-written, b. because the story has a broad scope on and off Earth, and c. the technology is plausible but nauseatingly technical and the author does not feel that he has to delve into the workings of each and every widget...
I am most keen to acquire the devour the remainder of the series if I can determine what titles I need and what order to read them...
February 14, 2015
The third part in the tale of the legion of the damned series is set again years after the predecessor, and is again, seeing the land back into a state of war, first off, to understand the real complexities of this, you really do need to go back and read the first two of the series. This isn’t a bad thing, I had the pleasure of getting to review them previously and they are superb. As a stand alone though, ‘by blood alone’ could prove a bit difficult to follow even considering the time scale in which it is set in comparison. Dietz manages to prove again why he has such a well regarded reputation in sci fi. This time, as in the second novel, Dietz moves the focus a little further away from the Legion of the Damned, a cyborg army made up of the worst criminals and terminally ill looking for an alternative to death and onto a human focal point instead. In doing this, Dietz has managed to keep an ever more familiar set up fresh and just as interesting as on it’s first use, there is also a lot of future plotlines set out and some very interesting speculation on advancement in the technicalities that could be seen in weaponry and warfare. The characters throughout being linked to previous proves to be a nice touch and leads very quickly to them becoming just as good to read about as any of the plot and warfare that made this series as appealing from the start.
October 26, 2013
The third book in William Dietz' series about a futuristic Foreign Legion. This book deals with a coup directed against an ineffective Earth government, which is supported by various factions in the Confederation. Rogue elements of the Legion and other military services support the coup; very reminiscent of the post-WW II revolt of the French Foreign Legion in Algeria. As the coup plays out, the Confederation must face a new threat from outside. Many familiar faces from the previous books in the series; "By Blood Alone" relies on non-stop action and political intrigue, not character development, to carry it along. It is a very entertaining read.
August 16, 2014
I had no idea this was a series when I picked it up. It does a very nice job as a stand-alone story.
The military sci-fi genre has a lot of big names associated with it, and to me Dietz matches up well and I'm confident he holds his own.
This story has it all - the disgraced unit, the leader who will restore them, military and political coups, intergalactic senates, returning heroes of the past, and even aliens that are alien to the aliens.....
Dietz has an easy flowing style and craft the type of novel that you just have to get back to,whenever you get a chance and wherever you may be.
Highly recommended.
The military sci-fi genre has a lot of big names associated with it, and to me Dietz matches up well and I'm confident he holds his own.
This story has it all - the disgraced unit, the leader who will restore them, military and political coups, intergalactic senates, returning heroes of the past, and even aliens that are alien to the aliens.....
Dietz has an easy flowing style and craft the type of novel that you just have to get back to,whenever you get a chance and wherever you may be.
Highly recommended.
February 12, 2017
The new techno-thriller from the author of Legion of the Damned and The Final Battle, it takes more than guts to win a war. It's Legionnaire against Legionnaire in a struggle that will be won by strength, by courage, and fittingly so, by blood alone. In a Legion gone lax, Colonel Bill Booly, with his mixed blood and by-the-book attitude, is a misfit. So when he steps on some important toes, his punishment is assignment to the worst post in the galaxy: Earth. But Booly and his troops will turn out to be Earth's best line of defense, when a Legion-led military coup topples the government.
September 6, 2016
Bill Boolly testifies against Gov Pardo's son and is punished by being assigned to Djibouti, where all the misfits of the Legion are. Meanwhile Gov Pardo conspires with Ramanthians and the Clone Hegemony, as well as rebellious Legionnaires, to take over Earth. Sergi Chien Chu and Maylo Chien Chu wage an economic and political battle to protect Earth. The entire series starting with Legion of the Damned is enjoyable, and this was a good part of the series.
July 10, 2016
Another great story that started with the Legion of the Damned. This is book 3 in that series.
Earth is at peace, for the time being but some of the politico's see an opportunity to enrich themselves even more and what's a couple of dead bodies but a minor political inconvenience.
Meanwhile in deep space someone is approaching that bodes well for no one. We get a little peak at them but have to wait for book 4 to get the full picture
Great book, great series
Earth is at peace, for the time being but some of the politico's see an opportunity to enrich themselves even more and what's a couple of dead bodies but a minor political inconvenience.
Meanwhile in deep space someone is approaching that bodes well for no one. We get a little peak at them but have to wait for book 4 to get the full picture
Great book, great series
October 10, 2011
Satisfying if somewhat no frills military sci-fi. Likeable two dimensional characters, very competently described and fast paced battle scenes, with some intrigue thrown in for good measure. Liked this book enough to read some more by the author, but not enough to necessarily read the next book in the series.
December 29, 2012
The series of the 'Legion of the Damned' is entertaining reading. Nothing deep, nothing spectacular, and not a lot of thinking involved. They are good with the plot lines, and action, characters are not too deep. Overall, not too thought provoking, but entertaining.
November 14, 2013
This was a tough book to slog through. The writing was difficult to follow and the story jumped from so many places that the story was really hard to follow. Characters came and went without my really being able to understand where they fit into the plot.
March 10, 2016
The author is very good at what he does which is to write a well paced, entertaining space opera- military scifi story ! This is the third book in the series and it is a nice easy read that I enjoyed very much !
March 25, 2016
The start of the main plot arc of "The Legion" series. A civil war on earth, with the legion itself also split down the middle, each side trying to draw support form the outside.
Was fun, prefer it in the context of the entire series. The books itself is merely okay.
Was fun, prefer it in the context of the entire series. The books itself is merely okay.
April 1, 2012
A fundamentally flawed novel.
August 28, 2013
a little disjointed and the mutiny motivations really didn't seem developed well.
still, I have hopes for the rest of the series as I continue.
still, I have hopes for the rest of the series as I continue.
December 17, 2013
Mutiny in the Legion and self-centered politicians put the Confederacy in peril. No shortage of action.
May 30, 2014
Great future war stories alien alliances an all !!!!
February 24, 2014
An interesting perspective on politics and coups very good
March 24, 2015
I enjoyed this continuing story, complex but well layered. Will continue to read more.
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews