Brigador

by Bradley Buckmaster, Ryan Cooper (Narrator), Makeup and Vanity Set (Music)

Private Ranulph Kinny swears his Mongoose - an eight-foot-tall powered armor suit - is trying to kill him. Life in the Outer Colony of Solo Nobre is hard enough, but now a mysterious broadcast blankets the city and plunges Kinny's world into chaos. The Concern wants their colony back, and will do anything to get it. Now Kinny and his power-suited platoon fight for survival as their city falls. Welcome, Brigador.

Writing from expert insight as a career soldier, author Brad Buckmaster weaves an unforgettable tale of military science fiction/action storytelling. A dark future companion novel to Brigador, the isometric mech action game, that conjures that brutal world from the street level. A must for fans of hard military science fiction.

Genres: Fiction, Audiobook, Science Fiction, Military Fiction, Cyberpunk, War

Audiobook

First published June 2, 2016

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked this up on a whim as part of a package that came with the game of the same name. It's a military sci-fi that follows a group of soldiers that are part of the government military when the "Great Leader is dead" event occurs, and the chaos that ensues after. It's not the 80s action-movie tongue-in-cheek parody you might expect, but a "serious" book following characters dealing with dying friends, the horrors of war, and wrestling with loyalty to a cause vs loyalty to comrades and promises. Or at least, that's what it's about between the frequent battles and descriptions of well-oiled machinery firing high-powered machine-and-body-melting lasers, explosions, gore of every variety, and the "cacophonous beauty" of high caliber rounds decimating enemy armor. It's a very visceral and violent R-rated novel.

Interestingly, it really does try to be serious, which leads to a dissonance as it periodically breaks from "this is terrible and awful and I don't want to hear about more people being gibbed" to "oh my gosh mechs are awesome and explody and did you SEE that?"

The characters were interesting enough that I stuck with it, but the story ends without the plot finishing. It really is designed to lead into the game, and in that sense does an *excellent* job, ending in a way that makes you want to pilot a mech of your own and stomp through buildings (and the game does this very well). But on its own it is not very satisfying, and overly gory for my taste.

[Jay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brigador is one of the best novelizations of a video game ever. With a fascinating world, interesting characters and a gritty, dark sci-fi setting, Brigador is a must read for anyone who is interested in mechs or military fiction.

[Michael Burnam-Fink · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Welcome Brigador. Great Leader is dead. Solo Nobre must fall. Here is your contract..."

Brigador is the novelized tie-in to my Game of the Year, Brigador a tactical mech action game with a kicking synthwave vibe. This novel covers the events of the night of great leader's death from three perspectives. Armbruster is a recon mech pilot, who turns on his comrades and takes the brigador's contract to destroy Solo Nobre's defenses so it can be reclaimed by the corporation. Captain Blake is an efficient officer trying to carry out her mission in the midst of a massive uprising. Private Kinny is a young recruit with a balky powersuit, trying to stay alive with nothing more than a pair of 8mm machine guns and a vague loyalty to his squad.

There three of them stomp across the slums of Solo Nobre, an isolationist planet a lot like Space North Korea, dealing out high velocity death to anyone unfortunate enough to come in their path. Kinny is the main protagonist, and Buckmaster has a real talent for describing the desperate chaos of a firefight (he's a combat veteran), the superiority of the powered armor suits over human infantry and the improvised technicals of the Corvid rebels, and the building stomping, 105mm cannon blasting, destructive power of Captain Blake's Touro heavy mech.

This is pretty solid milSF, with a few moments that rise above the average. It definitely is superior to Marko Kloos' inexplicably popular Frontline series, even if the 24 hour timeline compresses what can be done with characterization. The thing that dropped this a star for me (and I hate to say it) is that the novel wasn't very Brigador. Videogame tie-in novel is not a medium that gets a lot of respect, but part of the reason why I love the game Brigador is it's event horizon-black sense of humor. Much of the setting is conveyed in snippets of lore about weapons and vehicles, which you buy with money you earn by indiscriminate firefights in populated areas, and the entries are funny. e.g. "This is one of the rare Spacer vehicles you can get good video of if you know a guy. You don't want to know a guy. I am that guy. --Marvin Beck" (who writes a lot of the entries). The novel mostly plays it straight. This is a serious business, people are really suffering, death happens all around you. Armbruster and the spacer who shows up towards the end have some of the proper attitude, but (and it's weird to write this), this novel cares too much.

Still, good enough that I grabbed Buckmaster's novellas on the chance he loosens up with a little more space to write in.

[Bogdan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pe ceva colonie izolată, pe ceva planetă îndepărtată, în ceva viitor transuman, o corporație malefică vrea să controleze financiar o capitală declanșând un război civil și în același timp o invazie. Asta la scară macro; la polul opus, avem o echipă de piloți în costume de luptă gen carapace care se luptă pentru supraviețuire cu invadatorii Spațiali, Corvizi și Separatiști.
Cartea este folosită ca introducere în universul jocului de acțiune izometrică cu același nume (https://www.gog.com/en/game/brigador) și este o oglindă aproape 1:1 a produsului pe care-l precedă. Adică, avem perioade rare de acalmie în care abundă info-dumpurile și world-buildingul, urmate de scene viscerale de acțiune în care pistoanele suflă obosite, servo-direcțiile bâzâie, laserele kinetice fâșâie, roboții explodează și trupurile umane se lichefiază. Autorul a fost contractat (aproape ca mercenarii din joc/carte) să scrie această operă de producătorii de la Stellar Jockeys (cei cu jocul în cauză) într-o mișcare excelentă de PR. Înainte de această scriere, mai reușise să-și auto-publice pe Amazon două nuvele de acțiune cyberpunk. Stilul său este haotic și bombastic, jonglând destul de liberal cu toate gloanțele care răpăie și toate clădirile care se prăbușesc în grămezi de moloz șamd. Faptul că are în spate o experiență de veteran de aproape 20 ani (a fost infanterist în Irak și Afghanistan și recent se pare că a ajuns tanchist), neîndoielnic că-l ajută, scenele de luptă având o anume sinceritate la baza lor, în ciuda distrugerilor gratuite. Probabil cel mai bun mijloc de a experimenta această "operă" de military sci-fi este ca audio-book, firul epic pretându-se foarte bine relatării orale a unor povești de război de un narator priceput.

[Philip Kahn-Pauli · Rating 5 out of 5]

I mean yes, this isn't *high* literature but Buckmaster and the Brigador team wrote an outstanding tie-in novel. Buckmaster's voice is pure squaddie and authentic in a way a lot of other mech books aren't. You could practically smell the fear, the burning bodies, and the motor oil. Highly recommended for anyone who plays the game!

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brigador is a pulp action science fiction mech war novella. If you’ve stumbled across it by some pure luck and lack of awareness, it is a lore supplement for the computer game of the same name. It’s a dystopian future world of Solo Nobre. The Great Leader is dead. The world descends into chaos and it’s 18 chapters of action from that point on. The viscera of the combat is riveting in a mindless sort of way. The characters are all the standard military tropes: the old commander with a dark story, the young questioning private and so on. The idea of a chaotic future world with mechs is fun. The writing isn’t stellar and the author falls back on a few lines he likes one too many times. An example of this is when two different characters “let out a breath he/she didn’t know she/he was holding.” Overall, it’s as functional as a Loyalist Tourus Unit.
Does this book succeed without the game? No, but it’s not intended to. This is a deeper dive for those already intrigued by the world presented. The story follows the beginning of the chaos with no conclusion, the rest is up to you. Accept the contract, Brigador.

[VANGLUSS · Rating 4 out of 5]

GREAT LEADER IS DEAD. SOLO NOBRE MUST FALL.

A throughly entertaining military sci-fi work with decent character work, BIG STOMPY MECHS, and a grim, gritty, but darkly enchanting setting that is more or less accurately described as "Cyberpunk Space Cuba" meets "Cyberpunk Corporate Bay of Pigs Invasion That Wasn't An Embarrassing Failure."

The best part and suckiest part of Brigador is somehow the same thing - in that the best part is how incredibly good every action scene in Brigador was; while the suckiest part is how 60-75% of Brigador consists of action scenes. While it does seem to odd to dog on an explicitly MILITARY SCIENCE FICTION novel for having too much of action, there's such a thing as too much of a good thing.

Less combat oriented scenes to flesh out some of the characters, their world, and how such people baseline existed would've been nice. There's only so many scenes of one can tolerate people driving badass robots turning other people driving badass robots into chunky salsa or roman candles made of metal - quality of said writing related to said salsafication/roman candlefication notwithstanding.

[Razia Rasheed · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exceptional dive into an exceptionally crafted world. Even without a single character to follow or single flowing narrative, the worldbuilding in the game and book together are very strong and will draw you in.

The book stands on its own as well, so those who haven't played the game can enjoy it as well, but the experience is definitely enhanced by a solid grasp on the lore entries in the game. An absolute must for those who enjoy cyberpunk settings with a strong dose of military realism in a setting where everyone and everything is a shade of grey.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

THIS WAS WILD.

Characters are put in the grinder of a military dictatorship and have to decide whether they want to give in to a corporate hellscape or continue under an oppressive regime.

The violence and action was truly top notch. The character work was exceptional and everyone were bastards in one form or the other.

Grimdark executed to perfection.

I haven't played the game, so this was just a cool standalone book for me.

[John Roy Gittakus Liley · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was fun, there was set up for a "we need to destroy X" plot with the Spacers that isn't resolved and well the entire spacer plot is kinda underdeveloped, but Killers is in the works so who knows.

[Yomu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome writing, awesome voice acting. Best audiobook I've listened to yet.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well done heavy mech novel. Audiobook was fantastic.

[Thomas Mann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Leader is dead
Solo Nobre must fall.

We need more books like this in the world.

[John Liley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a good listen; I would recommend if you like military books such as Gaunt’s Ghost and Sharpe. Despite being a tie-in book, I didn’t feel like I needed to know the vehicles that were being mentioned and I’ve hardly had the opportunity to play the game, so forgive me if I get the feeling that this was meant to be part of a series of books that never came. I won’t spoil much but there’s set up for a “we need to destroy X before it’s to late” plot and it’s not brought up again, I’m not sure if it’s resolved in the game or not as I’ve only play 2 hours of it.

(Edit: the second book will be released with the second game)