A good science fiction military space opera which leaves a lot of questions unanswered for the next book in the series.

STARBURST’s Books of 2017

As 2018 and all its potential looms ever closer, it’s about this time of year that we have a quick look back at some of the more interesting books that came out in 2017. We aren’t going to stand on ceremony here. This is a mixed list of stuff that caught our eye over the year, each one chosen because it delighted us in some way.
To start off with, let’s mention Jeanette Ng’s Under the Pendulum Sun, a notably dense yet utterly absorbing tale of two Victorian Era Christian Missionaries head into the land of fairies to bring god to godless. It’s wonderfully bleak and though it’s hardly poolside holiday reading, it’s rather fun. Speaking of light reading is Andy Weir’s Artemis. Weir is best known for his book The Martian, which got turned into a movie featuring Matt Damon. Artemis is more of the same; believable science fiction (this time set in a moon base), slight less believable characters and lots of friendly science to go with the fiction. Bubblegum it may be, but it’s delicious bubblegum that feeds your brain.

This year also saw Jeff Noon return to form with A Man of Shadows. With a movie adaptation of Vurt planned and growing interest in Noon’s work hitting the mainstream, we were delighted to discover that Noon has not only stayed weird, he’s gotten all the more wonderfully strange.
Fans of strong and intelligent military sci-fi were well treated in 2017. Gavin G Smith joined the ranks of ‘Masters of Military SciFi’ with his book The Bastard Legion, which took many of the preconceived notions of the ‘shooty death in space genre’ and turned them around. This is a book that shouted ‘nope’ quite loudly and proceeded to deliver the sort of action the fans demand, whilst. Clarke award-winning author Adrian Tchaikovsky also stepped into this realm with two books. Dogs of War is a gripping take on the rights of sentient beings, which opens up with heavily armed genetically modified animals in a war zone, moves to a war crimes tribunal and moves further along the chain of consequence. Ironclads was a more traditional affair, with power armoured soldiers in a modern warzone and EZ Company hi-jinks, but also a powerful anti-capitalism polemic.

We also adored Yoon Ha Lee’s Raven Stratagem. A sequel to last year’s much-praised Nine Fox Gambit blends science-fiction high concept with high fantasy in a lovely clash of ideas and explosions. A similarly addictive (but entirely different) novel was Ann Leckie’s Provenance, a gripping bit of science fiction set in the world of the award-winning Imperial Radch series. It’s mostly a thriller with the trapping of a sci-fi world wrapped around it, with some wonderfully eye-opening moments peppered throughout.

Speaking of thrillers, it would be foolish of us to talk about books of 2017 without bringing up Sarah Pinborough’s Behind Her Eyes, a jaw-dropping work of jealousy and betrayal set in the modern day that has one of the most interesting endings we’ve seen. Fans who like their mysteries with a more fantasy bent may want to check out RJ Barker’s Age of Assassins, a tale about a crippled murderer charged to a protect a prince to stop a war. A stunning debut from Barker.

Other exciting new writers came to us via the excellent Fox Spirit books. The Bushy Tales series of anthologies concluded with Tales of Mice and Minotaur, which contained an amazing take on Medusa and some cracking new talent. Similarly, their collection Respectable Horror delivered the right sort of chills and introduced us to the likes of Rosalind Mosis and Su Haddrell.

Tie-In novels wise, our highlights were the Star Wars 40th celebration anthology From a Certain Point of View, which brought together talents such as Paul Dini, Wil Wheaton, Chuck Wendig and Kieron Gillen to present some rather beautiful and very entertaining stories. We also rather liked Judge Dredd Year Two Omnibus. Old Stony Face is hard to write well and this collection of novellas nailed it, especially as it covers the time in Dredd’s life where his very existence is being questioned.

We were also entertained by much of Quirk Books output this year; Paperbacks From Hell provided an essential window into the world of horror fiction and reprinted some pretty amazing covers. They also hit their stride with a series of tie-in books of their own. ET, The X-Files and Home Alone all got the ‘children’s book’ treatment. X-Files ‘Earth Children Are Weird’ is especially adorable. We got a big laugh out of The League of Regrettable Super Villains, a whistle-stop tour of some of the worst excesses of bad ideas from comic book history. They also gave us most of the Star Wars movie in Shakespeare form, much to the delight of geeks everywhere and the terror of many an English teacher.

Our stand-out funniest book came courtesy of Rebellion Publishing. Nate Crowley’s 100 Best Video Games (That Never Existed) took perfect aim at those endless ‘Christmas Stocking Filler’ books filled with bad reviews of obscure games. Instead, Nate just made them all up to hilarious results, producing a well-informed but clearly informed tome and parody of the nostalgia industry.

We’ll have missed loads out, so don’t forget to let us know what your recommendations are via Twitter or Facebook. Until this time next year, carry on reading.

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 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 Bastard's Legion es recomendable si quieres un rato de diversión sin complicaciones in space!

The Bastard Legion is the first in a military sci-fi series from Gavin Smith. Why is it awesome? Well, it’s about a penal legion. Our protagonist has hijacked a prison ship, attached explosive collars to all of the prisoners in stasis, and now plans to use them as her own private mercenary force. That, that is why it’s awesome.

This is a universe where humanity has had a diaspora. We’ve reached out to the stars at last, and found them welcoming. On the downside, we’re still people, still as messed up as we’ve always been. National governments began the space-race, but now they’re in it alongside mega-corporations and colony worlds that have their own agenda – and their own private armies. Space is seething with opportunity for those with the right skillset, and enough of a ruthless bent. This is a universe which seems familiar; its struggles between semi-accountable governments and corporations that are the size of governments is likely to resonate. It’s a time when humanity is reaching out to the stars, with, one hopes, It’s also a universe where labour problems (or unionisation) can be met with deadly force. The blend of these strands of hope and despair gives us a context we can recognise, a well realised projection into our own futures. It helps, of course, that the projection includes power armoured mechs and space travel alongside its convincing corporate dystopia.

Into this space steps Miska. She’s smart, ruthless, and willing to kill. Which is just as well really, because she’s stolen a maximum security prison ship. We spend the book following Miska, and it can get rather…explosive. She’s in mourning for her recently deceased father, and that grief bubbles away silently between the lines, occasionally arcing out of the page. Miska usually feels calm, in control, but the raw nature of her grief has an honesty to it which helps make her feel more human. Miska also has something of a troubled relationship with the rest of her family – including a particularly nasty case of sibling rivalry, whose visceral emotions are entirely on display, and have a genuine fire to them.

If Miska’s grief is part of what makes us able to sympathise or empathise with her, part of that is that it feeds her rage. Goal oriented, she’s got no qualms about kicking the living crap out of someone if they’re in the way, or pushing the button on the explosives strapped to all of her putative recruits. She’s harsh, hard, and willing to be lethal – which makes a great contrast to the other emotions she’s experiencing. She’s also a badass, and her kicking butt and taking names is great fun to read, both for the emotional catharsis and because the fight scenes are fast paced, kinetic, and bloody.

She’s joined by a cast of…well, mostly prisoners. A few of them get enough time on the page to suggest that we’ll be seeing more of them later, though they mostly seem to serve as a combination of sounding board and meat shield for Miska. Still, those we see the most of are distinctive and in some cases sympathetic; our emotional attachment to them grows alongside Miska’s. If they’re merely tools and ciphers at the start, by the close of the text, some of them have become people. Though in some cases, terrible, terrible people.

The story…well, it’s a fast-paced hard hitter, and no mistake. Smith shines writing his battle scenes; I can’t speak for their accuracy, but the rest kept me turning pages – small arms fire, giant stompy robots, hard choices, tension, blood. The characterisation wrapped around the battles is enjoyable, convincing, and puts emotional stakes into the fights. At the end of the day, this is a well crafted piece of military sci-fi, with enough genuine characters to make it feel real, and enough convincing battles to keep the pages turning.

If you’re on the look out for something like that, then this may be for you.

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.

A literary serving of grimdark military sci-fi anyone?

The Bastard Legion has a Suicide Squad type feel to it with Harley Quinn, sorry Miska Starrow taking lead on the prison ship, the Hangman's Daughter (awesome name) with lots of gruesome violence and zingy one-liners.

There is a plethora of really cool future tech and weapons, Wraith power armour suits, sentient AI, cybernetic augmentation and nanotech to name a few.

However, I was not emotionally invested in the characters and felt withdrawn from the story itself. Save for the brief cameo of the Ultra (what a cool character), there were too many replaceable secondary characters which did not tighten the narrative into a gripping read.

There was plenty of hardcore action, but mostly on a superficial action movie level with insufficient emotional depth to really punch you in the gut.