Customer Reviews

Foreign Legions

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

 

 

One of David Drake's earliest stories (and one of his best known), is "Ranks of Bronze", which leads off this volume of tales. "Ranks" dealt with a short, ugly campaign by a group of bought-and-paid-for Roman Legionnaires, the survivors of Crassus' utterly disastrous Parthian campaign. To the aliens, the primitive humans are useful puppets who can be used to conquer other primitive worlds. But THESE puppets have swords, which can cut strings... and their masters' throats.

The stories in this volume range from non-stories like S. M. Stirling's "Three Walls", which is a fairly dull run-of-the-action description of a battle, turned into a story only by a throwaway moment at the end which warns of what is to come in the final story.

There's also "A Clear Signal", which doesn't really feel as if it fully belongs in this book, since the political circumstances described don't match anything else, nor do the Romans even get mention. It's not a bad story, but it really belongs elsewhere.

Drake himself contributes "Lambs to the Slaughter", which I'd call the sprightliest tale in the book, being how one underofficer, known to all and sundry as "Froggie", manages to outwit both his masters and his enemies. I laughed like hell at the ending of this one, and Drake doesn't usually do that for me.

David Weber contributes "Sir George and the Dragon," which serves both as solid entertainment and as a reminder that humans are dangerous, whether they be Romans or English, and a tribute to what has probably been the finest weapon of battle ever created, the English Longbow.

Finally, Eric Flint's "Carthago Delenda Est" is the treasure of this volume, and it was worth getting this volume for this story alone, even without Weber and Drake's work. I don't want to spoil it, but read the other stories first, then read "Carthago." The beauty of this one is that you have to read the story to understand both why and how it ends, and in my case, it took me a few seconds to puzzle it out, but the reward for doing so was to know true joy.

Well worth the time invested.

overall this was an enjoyable read. comments on individual stories/authors follow

ranks of bronze (short story version) - you can see why this was so intriguing drake was pushed for a novelization.

sir george and the dragon - it seemed a bit dull, probably because in great part it is a re-run of the original novel with another set of humans.

lambs to the slaughter - dry drake story, he didn't show any occupation-force/pacification activity in original story, wonder if this is an afterthought.

a clear signal - interesting concept, though half the story being flashback to establish relationship between protagonist and antagonist was dull as dirt. this could easily have been a generic SF story ported to the ranks of bronze universe by simply changing the nature of the aliens, there is really nothing else involving drake's concept here.

the three walls/32nd campaign - roman legion in another battle, with familiar characters. written pretty much in character, straight military story

cartago delenda est - the most interesting of the stories - what happens after the legion returns to earth, and the guild figures out where they have gone with the missing ship. overall flint does a good job with this, though i am baffled as to why he needs to have a 'funny' character in his stories. In this case clodius afer becomes the 'funny' character, with his wailing and moaning during one battle sequence. I do think the conclusion could have used some more expansion (despite getting the historical reference to the ending of the third punic war, something the title gives away anyway with cato's famous mantra), but what do i know...

One of rare works of science fiction that just could not hold my interest. I never finished it.

David Drake seems to be recycling a lot of his work and Eric Flint and Weber become more and more verbose. Incidentally, Weber's story reads like a ripoff of a story that Poul Anderson wrote for Analog many years ago.

Liked some of the concepts, Good writeing, Would have liked to see more, highly recomend this book.