Customer Reviews

Cld: Collective Landing Detachment

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of the grimmest pieces of Science Fiction I have ever read. I found it to be well written and funny (in an extremely brutal and nasty way). I would recommend it to anyone that enjoys military SF.

This isn't a happy ending, enjoyable sort of book - far from it. But after reading a lot of military SciFi, this story sticks tenaciously in my mind, whereas many others quickly fade, and to me, that by itself makes it a noteworthy accomplishment. If you aren't squeamish, and can enjoy a gritty, grisly story about an group of criminals force-drafted into a vicious, bottom-of-the-barrel military outfit, who are abandoned during a botched invasion on a hostile planet, look for this one; otherwise stay away. Personally, I wish the author had written more stories about the CLD.

This is probably the darkest, most brutal novel I've ever read. It's the story of a futuristic penal unit used as canon fodder by a brutal totalitarian regime, and then left for dead on a hostile alien world after the invasion of it goes wrong. It's extremely grim and depressing, but the story is very good, and Milan does a good job of bringing the characters to life. Highly reccomended.

A lot of this book seemed very familiar to me, but I was reading Sven Hassel's novels about the 20th Panzer Penal Unit in World War II years ago. In general, this book is even more of a downer than a lot of Hassel's work; these future-soldiers do their work in a society and army so degrading that Hell itself would be preferable.

I first read this book years ago when it first came out. I have re read it about 6 times since. I keep checking to see if a new one in this series has ever come out. Im wondering why Mr Milan has never written the next one. Please do so!