Customer Reviews

The Last Legion

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

 

 

Excellent work, best of Mr. Bunch's work since the Sten series with Alan Cole. Much more gritty and realistic approach to his heroes, written by someone who seems to know what really goes on in covert operations. I found the ranking a little too cute, since the structure seemed the same as today, with just an alien sounding name. I think it would have been as effective and easier to keep up with if the ranks had been in english. Excellent work, could not put the book down. His humor had me laughing out loud at times!

Good book, quite engaging. Not a derivitive of the Sten books, but essentially built with the same technical know how. The characters are not saints, but are people. People whose story and actions quickly grab you and draw you into the story. Character development that doesn't bore you, but actually helps to let you get to know the characters. Bunch proves that he has the know how to write good, believable action. He also proves that the good guys do not always win (at least on the first try). He is a master of incorporating everyday politics (ie, backstabbing and stupidity) of human beings into his characters. All in all a good effort, I really enjoyed reading this book!

Mr. Bunch's book, The Last Legion, deals with a human space empire has reached a decedent stage, and like the Roman Empire has begun to fragment at the seams. As always, the lonely outposts far from the empire's capital are left to stand on their own or evolve to something new. In this case, Mr. Bunch takes us to a lonely stretch of space where some new recruits are being brought into the military, interestingly enough, into a legion. I say this because in reading this book I couldn't help but compare it to Jerry Pournelle's books dealing with Falkenberg's Legion (several of Mr. Pournelle's books deal with a similar situation). The similarities are there: young recruits that perform well, a world going thru an uprising from a suppressed population, and an empire crumbling from within. In this case though, Mr. Bunch focuses on the rebellion being a mixture of Vietnam and Iraq. Instead of the crisp professionals that Pournelle's Line Marines were, Mr. Bunch's Legionaries come across as a good old boy's club. Mr. Bunch's Legionaries (the line troops, not his force recon guys) stumble into ambushes and fall for whatever the insurgents want them to fall for. Once the Legionaries do achieve the big win (mainly due to their Force Recon), the fight turns to intercity terrorism that smacks of what you can read about happening in Baghdad. In a very predictable way, Mr. Bunch's main hero's lead the way in crushing the insurgent forces.

The bottom line on this book is that while entertaining, it was far from compelled to continue reading. The combat sequences were ok, Mr. Bunch had a major focus on sex, something that made the book seem more like something for the teen market rather than focusing on the political or military situation as Mr. Pournelle did. The story telling was mixed because there were to many points of view that weren't coherent, unlike Ms. Cherryh's novels where things are brought together from multiple viewpoints. Given this, The Last Legion is a three star book.

After genuinely enjoying the Anteros series from Bunch and Cole, I was pretty eager to get started on this "Find" from a used book store.

It never happened. I kept waiting for some Bunch magic to occur, but nada.

Complicated characters that I just didn't care about, unresolved issues from the opening chapters (as far as I could see), an antagonist that was uninspiring, and a fairly flat ending.

By half way or so, finishing this became a labor.

Bunch is definitively talented, this work isn't.

I will not be finishing this series.

I am currently really enjoying Bunch's "Seer King".

As the world's greatest STEN fan, I was excited by Chris Bunch's return to the world of science fiction in his new series, starting with THE LAST LEGION. Although I've avoided the Alan Cole fantasy works (blah), I feel justified in saying that either the magic that STEN had was solely from Mr. Bunch's co-author's hands, or from some combination of the two. This book is just not good.

I could feel no identification with the main characters of the book; they were too-rapidly introduced and too silly in their natures to be even moderately interesting. The dialogue is ridiculous, and has the sound of someone TRYING to emulate the conversation onboard a troopship. Sure, STEN wasn't exactly high art, but at least the characters made you feel what they felt; the Last Legion feels nothing.

Sorry, Chris, I had really high hopes for this series. Maybe I'll try again someday, but after two attempts to make it through the first book, I gave up and returned the three books (THE LAST LEGION, FIREMASK, and STORM FORCE) to the store.

This is not the sort of book I would normally choose. I'm a bit of an anomally as I am a mature woman who always has loved sci/fi. But my favorite sci/fi authors didn't have new books out so I thought I'd branch out.I'm glad I did.This book is action packed the heroes are both truly heroic yet human.The descriptions of querilla style warfare ring true.Usually I skip battle scenes but his were absorbing. At one point I had to flip back to check the copyright date.He seems to have foreseen the type of terrorist and terrorist acts we are up against now.I don't want to give away any plot lines but the last part of the book is truly eerie. Oh, and the sex is fun.

Mr. Bunch is the VietVet of the Bunch&Cole duo and in this book he gives his views of how the Vietnam War should have been fought. Although his character development and plot lines are simplistic and predictable, the battle scenes/descriptions are superb and, as usual, he is very sound on why men (and women) fight. I found the book to have many (too many?) similarities to the Sten series but maybe thats why I purchased it: I was buying a known product. Anyway, who reads this stuff for the complex character development anyway?

I heartily recommend it to any Sten fan. Mr. Bunch certainly does know what makes good guerillas and good SF types tick.

The Last Legion: Book One is the first book I've read by Chris Bunch, so I really can't compare this to his other works. However, standing alone, this is an average piece of SF. Things are said and never brought up again. Yes, I understand that the Book One part means that there will be more, but there were too many questions left dangling. The writer's style makes this book very easy to read, so I found myself reading it very quickly. None of the characters grabbed me though. If I see Book Two on the shelves, I may pick it up. But I won't be waiting with baited breath.

I've been a massive fan of Chris Bunch (and his co-conspirator Allan Cole) since I got ahold of their fantastic 'Nam war tome, A Reckoning For Kings, back in 1988. I was surprised one year later to stumble across the now-famous Sten saga in 1989, and avidly read the entire Sten series as a result.

The first thing I will say right off the bat is that Bunch w/o Cole is not as good as Bunch with Cole. The same can be said for Cole w/o Bunch, as I have read both authors' solo works. The collaborating minds of Bunch and Cole are capable of putting together some of the finest true-grit war stories I have ever read. By themselves, neither author has been able to capture me in quite the same fashion as when I first read the Sten books or A Reckoning For Kings.

Having said this, Bunch's The Last Legion is a competent piece of military SF and a great start for what is obviously going to be an arced series. The arc itself has its highs and lows, but the first book is quite good in my opinion. Like other reviewers it was impossible for me to not be reminded of the Sten novels, but I think this is just Bunch's general style carrying over, not a knock on the plot, and I would recommend this book to any reader fond of military SF--regardless of whether they have read any Sten or not.

Hard SF readers are sure to be distracted by some of the scientific faux pas that crop up in the book. Bunch seems to confuse solar systems with galaxies when discussing the scope of the Legion's parent government, the Confederation, while at the same time he employs a very generic Hyperspace drive that is never fully explained nor expounded upon. Both no-nos in the land of Hard SF nitpickers.

But The Last Legion is a great entry-level SF book just the same. One that I would put in the Christmas stocking of any teenager or college student, especially if he or she was already hooked on a television or film SF franchise like Star Wars, Baylon 5, or Star Trek. Young SF readers are not born in a vacuum after all, and The Last Legion and its other companion books in the series would be an engaging break-out read for someone ready to graduate beyond media SF. Lord knows the Sten series was a huge break-out read for me, in the days when my entire SF diet was composed almost exclusively of Star Trek. Thanks to the Sten series I started reading other and different SF besides Star Trek, and pretty soon my tastes advanced and I was reading Card, Niven, Bear, Asimov, and other greats.

In summary, The Last Legion is not perfect, and it is not the best I have seen from Bunch, but it is classic Bunch just the same and anything Bunch writes I will read.

Clearly the start of a series, seemingly a trilogy from internal clues (1 foe down, 2 to go). Semi-standard space opera fare, with a declining empire and a legion stranded on the frontier. While most of the characters are stereotypes, there is an engaging quality to them akin to the quirky characters of the Sten books. Has a couple of engaging heroes with criminal backgrounds but hearts of ...silver, anyway. Some good sneaky tricks and realistic combat. I liked the alternate ranking system (tweg, mil, cent etc.) which was a nice touch of "future" difference. The book dragged a bit in the middle,but was overall a good effort, better than Sherman and Cragg and LOTS better than Rick Shelley.