Cld: Collective Landing Detachment

by Victor Milán

Risk is high...and life is cheap

Three centuries ago, the Earth was abandoned - and the Stellar Collective was formed. Now their deathbirds do the dirty work - an intergalactic kamikaze fighting force made up of criminals sentenced to die for their offenses against the State and Nature.

But for the 50 percent who survive the training, the reprieve is merely temporary...

For this time their mission is to a distant, primitive planet outside Realized Space that stands in the way of the Universal Will. The planet must be subjected, completely and for all time - as the Collective Landing Detachment races toward what may prove to be the largest and most terrible battle in the history of the galaxy. And once engaged, death is a most acceptable sacrifice.

Except the "expendable" CLD has other plans...

Genres: Science Fiction

298 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1995

About the author

Victor Woodward Milán was an American writer known for libertarian science fiction and an interest in cybernetics. In 1986 he won the Prometheus Award for Cybernetic Samurai. He has also written several shared universe works for the Forgotten Realms, Star Trek, and Wild Cards Universes. He has also written books under the pseudonyms Keith Jarrod, Richard Austin (Jove Books The Guardians series), Robert Baron (Jove Books Stormrider series), and S. L. Hunter (Steele series with Simon Hawke, who used the pen name J. D. Masters). He also wrote at least 9 novels under the "house name" of James Axler for the Harlequin Press/Gold Eagle Books Deathlands series & Outlanders series.

Reviews

[Sheldon Wiebe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid military sf with an incredibly hard edge.

First in a series, but not quite good enough that I'd seek out subsequent volumes.

[Michel Meijer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Space marines on a planet to concur with a twist. The storyline focusses on the convicted son of a high burocrat that is leading his platoons of space-marines on a far away to-be-concurred-planet. Of course the evasion fails and they are marooned without food on this planet. The twist is the nature of the space marines. These are convicted men and their death penalty is to be cannon fodder in Landing troops. A big deal of the story is therefore about a bunch of extremely hard criminals that are trying to survive in an alien setting.
For me the story was just too much about the hard men, and not enough circumstancial storyline about the society they were convicted from and the reason they were on that planet. Eventually it became a snapshot of the landing on the planet without too much information about the why's. Fair enough, the book started really strong, but the end was really weak. Two stars.

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent novel on rebelling military force in space. Unfortunately, I never found a sequel.