Lieutenant Colonel (Dirigent Mercenary Corps) [Paperback]

Rick Shelley (Author)

Book Description

Series: Dirigent Mercenary Corps | Publication Date: May 1, 2000

Lon Nolan, the newly appointed Lieutenant Colonel, prepares to lead the Corps into a savage war on a frontier mining planet. But once he plunges into the heart of combat, can he bring his men out alive?

Product Details

• Paperback: 279 pages
• Publisher: Ace (May 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441007228
• ISBN-13: 978-0441007226
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #760,731 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Field Grade blues, June 30, 2000

By 

Lawrence Krauser - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lieutenant Colonel (Dirigent Mercenary Corps) (Paperback)

As a Lt Col myself I can appreciate the hero's dilemmas. If you screw up, others are going to eat it big. I've enjoyed the series, and am wondering how soon he'll pin on 0-6. The hero does spend a lot of time agonizing over his thought processes. He should be more confident of his abilities, otherwise he shouldn't wear the rank. The one book, one rank option will limit itself. I'm sure there were other missions he could have done as, say, a Captain. You generally do not get promoted after a small campaign. Overall good series, the author does have a good understanding of the military community.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Only one more left?, June 8, 2000

By 

Mark Garrett - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lieutenant Colonel (Dirigent Mercenary Corps) (Paperback)

Yet another in the on again off again installment following our protagonist into ever higher commands. One of the interesting aspects of this series is that Shelly doesn't try and give us a campaign-by-campaign account or the hero's (Lee Nolan) career. it almost has the feel of a "best of" series which is refreshing and different. Shelly has also started to (thankfully) move away from the always predictable, and always boring formula present in many sci-fi military books. That of having a climactic battle at the end where the hero and his friends are almost killed, only to have some outside deus-ex-machina force come to save the day. My only knock is that the ending feels rushed. Like there was a publishing deadline and all the action and story lines had to be wrapped up in five pages. It's one thing to have an "ends with a whimper" finish, quite another to make it rushed. Overall a good afternoon's read, better than most of the sci-fi movies out there :-)

2.0 out of 5 stars Is it me?, October 2, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Lieutenant Colonel (Dirigent Mercenary Corps) (Paperback)

I continue to find Shelley's writing stilted, his characters wooden, his science uncompelling and his plots trivial. Any number of military SF writers do a more compelling job: Weber, Moon, Drake, Dickson, Pournelle - even Roland Green. Shelley seems to have taken a basic course in expository writing and over time his ability to infuse characters with complex emotions, conveyed in some way other than baqld narrative, has remained static. This is a book in which the author neither challenges himself nor his readers.