Military SF with a sociopathic heroine and her penal legion spitting in the eye of whomever they face.

Miska is a special forces military veteran with hacker training and she uses her skills to steal the Hangman's Daughter a maximum security prison barge. After setting up the convicts with explosive low-jack collars, she hires her and them out as mercenaries. But what's really going on is a good question as she has ulterior motives, both professional and personal.

The parts of this world that we see are well fleshed out, although we do get the obligatory milSF references to the 21st century present even though the action takes places centuries later. (I don't regularly reference the 16th century; it's not clear to me why so may people centuries in the future have such an interest in the 21st century).

Miska herself is refreshing. She's like a manic pixie version of John McClane, although almost completely unburdened by a moral code. Instead she's motivated by whatever will give her the biggest adrenaline rush and revenge for the murder of an important figure in her life. Her interactions with the prisoners/slaves under her command are fascinating as well, with her complete contempt for them, but grudging respect for some of them as they face battle together.

An entertaining milSF novel, and I'm likely to want to continue with the series

overall interesting book but i found myself getting a bit lost, either because i am not typical a read of space operas or if something was missing from the book i can't say. But it was still entertaining and nice writing with good world building.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This review is spoiler-free.



The Bastard Legion was published in eBook format in January 2017 under the name The Hangman’s Daughter.



This is the first book by Gavin Smith that I’ve read, and I’m so happy to say that The Bastard Legion lived up to my hopes and expectations. It has so many things that I absolutely love: a dark and gritty world, cool and complex technology, morally grey characters, and a butt-kicking leading lady. This is a tough one to review because I feel like you should really dive in and discover for yourself, but I’ll do my best.



A thrilling new down-and-dirty military SF series set in a world of mercenary actions and covert operations… The ultimate Suicide Squad for lovers of Aliens.

Four hundred years in the future, the most dangerous criminals are kept in suspended animation aboard prison ships and “rehabilitated” in a shared virtual reality environment. But Miska Corbin, a thief and hacker with a background in black ops, has stolen one of these ships, the Hangman’s Daughter, and made it her own. Controlled by explosive collars and trained in virtual reality by the electronic ghost of a dead marine sergeant, the thieves, gangsters, murderers, and worse are transformed into Miska’s own private indentured army: the Bastard Legion. Are the mercenaries just for fun and profit, or does Miska have a hidden purpose connected to her covert past?



World Building and Plot

When the books opens, you’re very much thrown directly into the action and need some time to sort out what is going on. To be honest, when this is done well it is one of my favourite approaches to sci-fi. Concepts that seem confusing at first are clarified as the world is slowly revealed to the reader. Smith’s exquisite world-building makes this one of the most fascinating sci-fi worlds I’ve read in a long time. There are so many layers to the world and plot of The Bastard Legion, and it is an absolute delight to watch everything unfold.

Pretty much the entirety of The Bastard Legion takes place off-planet. We spend a great deal of time inside ships, asteroids, and virtual reality. I particularly loved how pervasive the virtual reality was. In order to rehabilitate the prisoners, they’re kept in suspended animation but kept mentally active in virtual reality. When Miska takes over, she uses the VR to train up the prisoners as soldiers. VR is everywhere in this book, but remains unique. They train in VR, they fight in VR, they communicate in VR, and they hack in VR. Characters dip in and out of the virtual world, gaining new perspectives and uncovering secrets about their current location and who they interact with.



Characters

So the character I’m going to focus on here is Miska. Not only is she the person we see the most of, but she’s also just so incredibly cool. I personally love a good morally grey character. Miska is not a villain, despite what some of the prisoners and her employers might say. She is also not really a hero — she commits some horrible crimes. She lies somewhere in the murky, greyish realm of ‘antihero’, which honestly makes her so much more believable and cool in her role. She’s an ex-marine who is obviously incredibly capable, but has a whole bucket of issues.

In the beginning, she aims to present herself to her new, unwilling mercenary force as a psychopath, and she doesn’t really need to act much. I personally don’t fully buy that Miska is a psychopath – she’s someone who knows what needs to get done and will do anything to fulfill her personal mission – but she has moments of humanity and emotion. She does, however, have no issue setting off the explosive collars around her ‘soldiers’ necks in order to establish dominance and discipline. Like I said, she’s pretty morally grey.

She’s a fascinating character because you never really know what she’ll do next, especially as her motivations are revealed. I loved the slow reveal of her back story, which explains so much of why she does what she does. Her interactions with various prisoners shows the difference between the Miska she presents to others and who she truly is.



The Bastard Legion is a book that’s best discovered by the reader. It’s filled with incredibly cool and unique twists on familiar concepts and morally grey characters. While I wouldn’t recommend it to sci-fi newcomers – simply because it is a little more on the complex side – military sci-fi enthusiasts must pick this one up. If you’re looking for an action-packed thrill ride that will sweep you far away from the ordinary, The Bastard Legion is the book for you. It’s easily one of the best sci-fi books I’ve picked up this year.

Just to let you know this story was originally published under the title The Hangman's Daughter (ebook only) and has now been rereleased as The Bastard Legion. As far as I'm aware the story hasn't changed.

Miska is a ex special forces veteran and an expert hacker and she has used her skills to hijack a prison ship containing thousands of violent prisoners in suspended animation. The prisoners are supposed to be rehabilitated via virtual reality but Miska has something very different in mind - turning them into her own private army. After taking control of the ship Miska fitted each of the prisoners with an explosive collar around their neck and it didn't take long to prove to them that any disobedience would cause them to lose their heads. With the help of an electronic ghost of a marine sergeant Miska has set out to train the prisoners and turn them into an elite group of mercenaries. She knows the prisoners would happily kill her but unless they can figure out a way to remove their collars she's in no danger right now.

I thought The Bastard Legion was an incredibly promising start to this new series, I kind of love the idea of taking a bunch of violent murderers and turning them into elite soldiers even though it's pretty terrifying to think of the damage they could do once they're fully trained. Miska is a totally kickass character who is a skilled fighter but at the same time she's not exactly the most likeable character, she is pretty willing to use the prisoners as canon fodder and she doesn't seem to have much of a conscience. Okay these guys all did something horrible to earn their prison sentence but she's basically turned them into slaves and that did make me feel kind of uncomfortable, especially when so many of them died. It takes a long time to reveal why Miska is so set on her plan and I think even now there are things going on behind the scenes that we're not aware of yet but she's definitely ruthless and not afraid to make difficult choices.

The story is incredibly action packed, there is always something going on and danger comes from all kinds of directions so try not to get too attached to anyone because you never know who is going to end up dying next. There were a few prisoners I'm curious about getting to know better but it's hard to know how much anyone can be trusted when they're in such a controlled environment, it'll only be when (or if) the collars come off that we'll really see the true measure of people. Some of them definitely seem to have more of a conscience than Miska though and it was quite amusing to see murderers question the morality of what she was doing.

It took a while to get into this book but by midway through I was totally hooked and I'm very curious to see how things play out in the next book. I have a feeling there is a lot more to Miska than meets the eye and it's going to be interesting to see if she's really as hard as she acts or if there is a nicer side to her buried down deep.

This Military space opera was a good idea which was spoilt by the jumping about in timelines.
It left a lot of questions unanswered for the next book in the series.

I tried, oh how I tried to read this book. It seemed to tick all my boxes when I read the blurb, but I kept having to take a 'rest' from it. I stopped after the first chapter, then thought I'd been a little hasty and forced myself to read on, but now I'm 28% into it and not enjoying spending time with sociopathic Miska. (I'm not generally against sociopathic characters as a principle, but Miska was maybe too cold and self-serving.) I keep feeling that something is about to unfold, but if it hasn't unfolded yet then ... sorry, I'm done. The writing flows smoothly and the worldbuilding is good, but I'm reminded that not all books are for all people and this one is simply not for me. Don't let me put you off reading it. There are loads of four and five star reviews on Goodreads, so it's obviously well liked by others. It would be unfair of me to give it a star rating.

I remember when Gavin Smith’s debut novel, Veteran, hit the shelves, and with it came this confident and action-orientated voice that was much fun to read. For reasons that escape me, I never did get around to its sequel, War in Heaven, and while I did try Age of Scorpio, I just couldn’t quite get into it. However, Smith’s latest novel, The Hangman’s Daughter (the first book in the Bastard Legion series) jumped out at me the moment I heard about it. Military SF with a twist and some very interesting characters to go along with a plot that begged to be read – this book has pretty much everything I could ask for. And it delivered the goods too…

From the publisher:
The Suicide Squad for lovers of Aliens, a thrilling new down-and-dirty military SF series set in a world of mercenary actions and covert operations
Four hundred years in the future, the most dangerous criminals are kept in suspended animation aboard prison ships and “rehabilitated” in a shared virtual reality environment. But Miska Corbin, a thief and hacker with a background in black ops, has stolen one of these ships, the Hangman’s Daughter, and made it her own. Controlled by explosive collars and trained in virtual reality by the electronic ghost of a dead marine sergeant, the thieves, gangsters, murderers, and worse are transformed into Miska’s own private indentured army: the Bastard Legion. Are the mercenaries just for fun and profit, or does Miska have a hidden purpose connected to her covert past?

Along with the virtual reality construct of her dead Marine Sergeant father, Miska Corbin is in charge of the stolen prison ship The Hangman’s Daughter. Holding around 6000 convicted felons, all controlled by explosive collars, The Hangman’s Daughter is a treasure trove of violent offenders for Miska to use for her own means, namely tracking down her father’s killer. Yet while this is an overreaching goal of hers, she must also make ends meat, and hiring out herself and her indentured prisoners on risky missions is the only way to go…

Gavin Smith doesn’t hang around in The Hangman’s Daughter, throwing us straight into the action and introducing both the premise of the story and the slightly unbalanced personality of Miska. However, given her situation it’s easy to see why her behaviour is the way it is, and it has the added benefit of keeping the convicts on their toes. We get to see quite a few of these prisoners both during their VR training and as they take turns coming out of cryo stasis for various duties and jobs, and the core team that Miska ends up using is varied enough to give the group some good – or bad, depending how you look at it – dynamics.

While the action scenes are a pure highlight of the novel – Smith can really immerse you with these – it’s the way he gradually tells Miska’s story as the novel unfolds. We find out more about her, and her relationship with her father, piece by piece, raising questions but never quite giving the answers until the time is right. It gives The Hangman’s Daughter something more than just action set pieces, raising it to something well worth reading.

The publisher touts The Hangman’s Daughter as one for lovers of Suicide Squad and Aliens, both of which ring true as the pages turn, and due to this it will appeal to many readers looking for that bit of SF action, while delivering more than is apparent at first glance. Some great worldbuilding, a varied cast of characters, and a take-no-nonsense anti-heroine make this a novel that is well worth checking out. Recommended.

The story:
Miska and her father have commandeered a prison ship, The Hangman’s Daughter, and forcibly recruited the inmates into their own private army of mercenaries. As their first job, Miska and her unwilling legion of convicts are hired to put down a rebellion on a mining planet, but things don’t go as planned.

My thoughts:
I’m torn with this book. There were lots of aspects that I really enjoyed, but some that I struggled with. On the plus side, the majority of the characters are really well developed and the author does a great job of building up an entirely believable and complex world in a short period of time.

The prisoners Miska forces into her employ are not are soldiers, they are dangerous criminals with their own agendas, and they hate her for making them risk their lives on seemingly pointless missions. She’s well aware that she has to be feared to stay in control. The result is that Miska is a fascinating character to read about – at times she comes across as almost as deranged as the criminals in her employ. She’s ruthless, cunning and not scared to make tough decisions.

However, we don’t find out anything about Miska’s true motivations behind taking over The Hangman’s Daughter, or why she makes certain decisions, until about halfway through the book, which is when it starts to get interesting. For me, if this had come a bit earlier in the book it would have kept me more engaged. As it was, I struggled through the first 25% of the book. It does pick up after that though.

I enjoy some aspects of science fiction, however, for me there was just too much science in this book. The descriptions of advanced technology, types of guns and spaceship parts were too lengthy for me and I had to force myself to keep reading on several occasions. I really enjoyed the scenes with character interaction, but felt like there was too much time spent in Miska’s head or bogged down in minute details.

As I said, I’m on the fence with this one. If you’re into science fiction though, this would probably be a great book for you.

Does this not sound AWESOME? I love the idea of it so much. I mean --- an unrepentant anti-heroine uses criminals to be her own army and if they disobery she blows their heads off? LITERALLY? I mean sure the whole "indentured" part is beyond messed up but that sounds like a helluva draw for a science fiction story. There's a large scope to this story that appeals, even if the execution is not up to meeting the challenge. The Hangman's Daughter launches a series that is dark and different and has so much potential....

Which is why it's such a shame that The Hangman's Daughter can't live up to its own synopsis. This is a messy, jumbled narrative -- clarity issues abound, character dialogue is clunky, and the storyline's pacing is all over the place. I can take the high levels of violence, I can take characters I don't like -- but I have to have something connecting me to the story. There was none of that personal investment here. There's violence for violence's sake and a thin plot that never really coalesces into anything meaningful. Disappointing enough to turn me off trying the rest of the series, The Hangman's Daughter is a forgettable mess.

Imagine Harley Quinn in space. Add political intrigues (as are the norm for space opera books). Give Harley 6000 Harlequins.

That's the novel.

Welcome to the future, where humanity left Earth for the stars 400 years ago. In this future, we have expanded through the stars, although some things are still the same. There is still crime, as humanity hasn’t evolved into purely altruistic beings, the CIA is still enforcing American values abroad and people are still joining the armed forces of their country, but now humanity fights against aliens, with the last big war being fought against Them.

The Hangman’s Daughter starts with Miska’s first mission to take back control of an asteroid mining company, we learn during this that Miska stole a prison ship containing around 6000 condemned prisoners. With the help of Miska’s father, who is a virtual reality memory download of her deceased father, they have begun training these prisoners to become mercenaries.

In a move reminiscent of the Suicide Squad (comic or film), Miska controls these dangerous individuals with the threat of immediate death for insubordination by necklaces laced with explosives which Miska can activate with a thought.

I really enjoyed how you are thrown into the action right from the start. That you don’t find out Miska’s reasons for doing all the things she has done until you are halfway through the story makes it indelible. Miska is very smart, but due to the events of her life, she is barely able to control the rage that drives her on. Miska is very happy to take risks, she wants to make a name for herself, but she also gets a kick from pushing herself and defying death. Having a legion of mercenaries under her control is a dream come true, which is amusing as we learn that Miska was never great at being told what to do.

This isn’t only Miska’s story even if it is told from her point of view. As the story continues we also get to know some of her makeshift mercenaries, these include both members of the Mafia and the Yakuza, who have their own power struggles and seem to be waiting for the opportunity to test Miska for any weakness that they can use to gain influence. There are also characters like Torricone who is very resistant to the path Miska forces him on, and yet he becomes a voice of reason, even if it is a voice that is barely listened to, Torricone has still managed to keep his life for now. The prisoners are a bunch of misfits, strangers and very dangerous individuals and to make a situation more combustible the prison ship was men only.

Miska’s world view is quite nihilistic, she is forcing bad people to do what she wants, never knowing or caring if the people hiring her are worse than the people forced to do her bidding. The corporations in this book are forces of capitalist ideals, where the only thing they care about is profit, whether that is from other people misery, as long as they can operate without being seen to do so. In this world, it seems that everyone is a slave to something or someone, with Miska being no exception.

I was really excited to hear that Gavin Smith had a new book out and I was not disappointed with The Hangman’s Daughter, as it is a great start to a new series. His novels are always dark and ultra-violent with hints of psychological trauma, as part of the character’s make-up. Miska is my new idol, even if she may be the loneliest person in this universe, she is very layered and I can’t wait to see what happens to her and her legion in future stories.

La ciencia ficción militar, cuando solo habla de batallas, no suele ser plato de mi gusto, ya que acaba aburriendo. Pero cuando se mezcla con otras cosas, puede dar lugar a maridajes atractivos. En este caso Gavin Smith salpica todo el libro con un humor un tanto especial, pero apropiado al mensaje.

La idea subyacente a la serie The Bastard's Legion, de la que The Hangman's Daughter es la primera entrega, es muy conocida. Utilizar a los reclusos más peligrosos para llevar a cabo misiones prácticamente suicidas. Es como ver Los doce del patíbulo pero en versión corregida, aumentada and in space! (las cosas siempre son mejores en el espacio) . La forma de hacer que los miembros de esta legión obedezcan a las órdenes de la protagonistas es con una preciosa alhaja en forma de collar-bomba (tampoco en esto brilla por su originalidad).

El elemento diferenciador es la protagonista, Miska Storrow, una ex-marine con experiencia en operaciones encubiertas y con unas relaciones familiares cuando menos tormentosas. Miska roba un penal entero con sus reclusos (para qué andarse con chiquitas) y lo utiliza para vender sus servicios mercenarios al mejor postor.

Miska es un personaje sin medias tintas, o la odias o te encanta. El término ambigüedad moral se queda corto para definir su código de conducta. Por si faltara salsa para este libro, el entrenador virtual de los reclusos es el padre muerto de Miska, con el que mantiene algunos diálogos realmente hilarantes.

Si soy sincera, de las escenas de combate, que las hay y muchas tengo un recuerdo nebuloso, mucho bang, bang y fiu fiu, pero no me ha quedado mucho, aparte de una retahíla enorme de siglas y números para nombrar todas las armas habidas y por haber. Pero los diálogos si que están presentes y me han hecho soltar alguna que otra carcajada, a pesar de su manía de ponerse a hablar de asuntos personales en mitad del fuego cruzado. ¿No había un sitio mejor?

The Hangman's Daughter es recomendable si quieres un rato de diversión sin complicaciones in space!

Miska Storrow leads an unusual band of mercenaries in The Hangman's Daughter, Gavin G Smith's latest novel (review copy from Gollancz). Hers are pressed men, prisoners kept in suspended animation on a prison ship and fitted with collars that enable Miska to explosively decapitate them at will. Miska and her mercenary legion have been retained to infiltrate a mining base that has been taken over by rebels, but she has few resources to back her beyond some ageing weapons and ammunition, and an AI version of her late father.

This is classic military science fiction - lots of running around, explosions and gory injuries and deaths. In between, a conspiracy plot begins to be revealed. Is Miska the rogue special forces operative turned cold-hearted and ruthless killer that she claims to be, or is there more going on under the surface? Obviously there is, otherwise this wouldn't be much of a story.

The plot rattles along fairly well, but the cast of supporting characters is pretty thin and straight from central casting - identikit gangsters and idealistic rebels plus a stereotyped drill sargeant for a father. There is some disturbing fetishisation of a dangerous cohort of three high security prisoners held on Miska's ship, including one particular serial killer that she is inexplicably attracted to. But the biggest difficulty for me was Smith's reliance on concealing information from the reader. It jars me out of the story for a close third person narrator to not share information that would be known to the perspective character, particularly in a knowing way that is clearly designed to build suspense.

Goodreads rating: 2*

The Hangman’s Daughter was my first Gavin Smith novel and it is a novel about space, marines, prisoners and all kinds of corrupt officials. It is not just the name of the novel but also of the main ship – a prison barge with a 6000 strong crew of murders, thieves, sex offenders and more.

The basic premise of the book is that the main character Miska commandeers a prison barge orbiting space with 6000 prisoners encased in some sort of cryo-stasis in the hunt for the criminals who murdered her father 6 months prior. What follows is possibly one of the weirdest stories I’ve read but with plenty of action and messed up scenarios.

I had a real issue with Miska personally as a reader, she had this overwhelming feel of psychosis that wasn’t really explained until right at the end – for example, she’d just been shot at and followed that up by blowing someone’s head up and she goes “This is fun!” – all kinds of crazy. Though, in fairness, grief does crazy things to people and finding out what she did about her father’s death would cause some problems.

As this was my first Gavin Smith book I went into it quite openly with no exact expectations and found myself pleasantly surprised by the writing style. Although I had a dislike of the main character the story itself was interesting, with just the right amount of space interaction to class it as a Sci-Fi but there was also a slight undertone of romance which was unexpected given the overall seriousness of the book.

Plenty of humour with good secondary characters (Mass and Ultra in particular) and an ease of reading that is unparalleled for the genre.