Customer Reviews

Soldier of the Legion (Beta 3)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

"A rough truce divides the known galaxy between the System, the despotic slave empire that rules the inner systems, and the Confederation of Free Worlds." That brief beginning blurb on the back cover of this book did not prepare me for the exciting read I found in Soldier of the Legion. Heart pounding action.
Mind blowing battles. Adrenalin pumping encounters with alien life. Mr. Thomas packs that and more into this futuristic sci fi masterpiece.

From first page to last, the action stopped just long enough to let me catch my breath. The story unfolds through the eyes of Thinker, a Legion warrior who joined up after a broken romance. Thinker and his fellow warriors are kept young and strong, immortal, through biotechnology beyond our present imagination. The barren worlds they face and alien life they battle become real through the author's creative mind and skillful writing style.

Horrific other-worldly combat assignments come alive through Mr. Thomas's prose. Eerie images of fire and destruction dance on the face plates of their armor as our heroic warriors slog their way through blood, fire, slime, and body parts to hard-won victories. From fossilized cities that once housed vanished civilizations, to violent volcanic worlds, Thinker and his Beta unit take on forces that are bent on destroying life. All human life. These immortal warriors face horror and human degradation beyond imagination. But ruthless slavers and hives of terrifying alien maneaters barely prepare them for the scourge of all creation, the soulless Omnis.

Times of respite are few and far between for soldiers of the Legion. Thinker has the violently possessive Valkyrie and tender-hearted Priestess to take his mind off warring. Except for those rare occasions, Thinkers mind is seldom far from thoughts of battles, past and future. It's the way of the Legion.

At the end of Soldier of the Legion, the author sets us up for what will no doubt be an equally exciting sequel. If what follows is as good as his first, Marshall Thomas should soon be a major name in futuristic sci fi. I enthusiastically recommend this book to fans of the genre as well as those who simply enjoy excellent story telling.

Beta 3, called "Thinker," because others see his capacity to reason even though he has been trained to react instantly as a part of a military team, is sent with his detachment to Andrion 2 to secure the planet. He is part of "The Legion," an army sworn to protect to the death. And death is the price a soldier of the Legion must be willing to pay to defend the Confederation of Free Worlds against the "System." Although an uneasy truce exists between "ConFree" and the System, unusual activity on Andrion 2 leads the Legion to speculate about possible illegal actions from the "Systies." Thinker is part of a unit. Each soldier has a unique personality. Some, Thinker is convinced, are insane. But in the Legion, they are brothers. One mind - one heart - and one life.

The planet is inhabited by a people the soldiers refer to rather derisively as "Scalers." These people, actually called the "Taka," attack the Legion. But, when they are saved by the soldiers from the disgusting exosegs, horrible, deadly creatures that aren't supposed to be on Andrion 2, the Taka declare their loyalty to the Legion.

What is happening on the planet? Are the Systies there? How did the exosegs get to Andrion 2? Nothing makes sense. Thinker's sense of alarm is muted by his desire for another soldier, Priestess - and the conflict he feels when a past love from his training days on Planet Hell shows up and declares that she and Thinker are tied together for eternity. Where is his heart? Does it belong to Priestess or Valkyrie? Is this emotional battle compromising his ability to sense danger? Thinker needs all of his wits and training - because there is a surprise on Andrion 2. One more diabolic and dangerous than any of the soldiers have prepared themselves for.

SOLIDER OF THE LEGION is a deep, rich story that captures the heart of Sci-fi while bringing the elements of suspense, mystery, horror, and romance together and blending them into a perfect story that everyone will enjoy. Thomas's talent as a writer shines through the action, making the dialogue captivating, and in many passages, moving. His protagonist, Thinker, may be involved in a life that few of us have experienced, but Thomas keeps Thinker so human that we are able to experience the joy, the pain, and the fear that a soldier of the Legion endures while putting his or her life on the line without question.

I highly recommend SOLDIER OF THE LEGION, one the best books I've read this year! Watch for the next books in this exciting series!

Lots of potential with this one. Far future troopers who are effectively immortal thanks to their technology fighting another formidable opponent. Once you get past the concept though it goes down hill fast. The biggest complaint I have with this is the complete lack of explanation. You are thrust into a new world, looking through the eyes of a new legionnaire and are inundated with the terms of his world. I'm ok with that. Most authors that throw you new terms and concepts right off the bat tend to explain them as the book goes on. But no this guy. No. I surmised a lot, but I don't have any clue as the motivations, origins or pretty much anything else that has to do with the Legion. The personal motivations of this main character elude me, frankly I don't actually like him that much. The use of different terms as replacements for our current modern terms takes a lot of use to figure out. There is apparently an entire religious aspect to the Legion that could be very interesting, but isn't touched at all. How there are so many other books after this baffles me, but I assure you that I will not be reading them. This was a struggle to read, the skill of the author is very minimal in using a first person narrative. I'd normally give it 1 star, but it gained a 2nd star simply for being just interesting enough to make me finish it (though I was anxiously awaiting it to end so that I could finally be done trudging through this trash).

Started to read this book on a whim, and was pleasantly surprised. Decent character development, and interstellar war is always churning, giving the author the ability to add/subtract new characters at will. The underlying back stories, what motivates Thinker and Beta Squad, starts out with basic needs like survival in a chaotic combat situation. Technology changes all the time, but the authors example of human spirit remains constant throughout the book. The Legion Armor makes all of the members of Beta Squad the same during combat, which is a great analogy to the quest for uniformity in the current professional military services. The author makes the assumption that the seasoned reader knows that soldiers fight and die for the squad mate on their left or right, not for theology/politics/social order. It's a good lesson for all to learn. The character's war names took me a while to get past, but then I remembered my own experiences, and we had nicknames for everybody... the character's war name makes it official. Great first book in the series and I would recommend it to anyone needing a few hours of exciting escapism!!

I have read other $0.99 items that were enjoyable or entertaining. This one felt like I wasted my time. The prose style is sophomoric. The editing is horrible; quite often, the same words or phrases are repeated a few sentences apart. Even character actions are re-described with tiny variations in the phrasing, less than 2 paragraphs apart. This pattern occurs throughout the book. It is as though an outline were filled in by multiple prose writers (or even computer generated prose) and no editing cleanup occurred.

Once past the horrible prose, there are more holes inside the "suspension of disbelief" than you can count! We have technology that allows an individual soldier to fire projectiles at almost random aim points and his suit AI will ensure that each hits an enemy, but we also have aircars being flown by human pilots in the thick of battle. We have a soldier fighting a force of approximately equal technology, yet none of his unit gets killed throughout battle after battle. We have no socio-economic framework that drives the conflicts. We have interstellar capable starships launching from the surface of a planet and evading established forces already in orbit. We have enemy soldiers in armor being taken out by simple laser shots, yet our hero's armor withstands nearby micro-nukes, antimatter bombardment fit to take out an entire base... and on and on. No consistency inside the story.

Once past the horrible use of tech, there is almost no over-arching plot or theme. A weak attempt is made at portraying the Legion as harsh and death-centric, yet no foundation is under this skin. Why are characters named by call-signs such as "Psycho" or "Valkyrie"? What about duplicate call signs? Is the expeditionary force thousands or hundreds or a handful?

Anyway, enough typing for me. Skip this one.

This series is poorly written. The dialog is the same from book to book and it is on the level of a teen-age mind. No real development of character and the so called "hi tech weapons" are confusing and bunk. The overall development of the series would be better suited to a oldtime "B" class Saturday matinee like Rocket Man. Save your money and seek out Sci-Fi reading from estabished known authors.
Bill

I really enjoyed this book. It started out a little strange for me because some of the technical terms and acronyms were hard to remember. Sometimes I felt like I needed a glossary. However, the more I read it, the more I enjoyed it. I plan on reading the entire series.

I just finished the entire series. This series is an epic tale and each book actually get better than the last. You can definitely ascertain the political viewpoint from the author in the series. This was no problem for me because I agree with him 100% :). If you don't, you won't like the series; I can pretty much guarantee it. In any case, this series was so good it made tears come to my eyes at times. I read a lot and there's not much that can surprise me, but this one got me.

This book is not for everyone - it's style is rather unusual, in fact. As someone else noted, the author doesn't explain all of the technology in detail. To me, that's good! I'm a techno-geek, but really if it's something in the far future and far advanced technology, then it's likely unexplainable in terms I can understand. (the Arthur C Clarke "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" idea)
Using future colloquialisms and jargon is a bit annoying, but ok.
Other than that, though, this is a fun and fast-paced military-SF series, and well worth the price. I was sad when I finished the last book, because I wanted it to continue!
It's not Honor Harrington so don't expect that.

A good book but the writing style i found a little disjointed,the book is like a cross between Halo and Starship Troopers.The legion is made up of soldiers taken as teenagers and made immortal with armoured fighting suits to combat slavers and aliens i would definitely be buying the rest of the books in the series.