Everything has been oh so quiet on the hobby front since 2012 rolled in. My workbench is gathering dust with unmade models and unpainted figures. A hectic January workload as well as some health issues have prevented me from indulging in wargaming and modelmaking. I plan to correct this problem soon but until then I've indulged in voraciously going thru my read pile. I'd like to share a few books which could be good sources of wargaming/rpg material and first up is a military science fiction novel.
Marshall S. Thomas' Soldier of the Legion is the first book of a six part series that follows young Legion trooper Thinker's adventures in the ConFree Legion. He and his squad mates are kept young, strong and seemingly immortal through advanced biotechnology. As a fighting force, they must fight to survive horrific battles against a corrupt, slave-raiding empire as well as relentless alien enemies. Fast and furious military science fiction without the overwhelming angst of the 40k universe! The first book has been recognized with awards, namely the 2003 IBPA Ben Franklin Award Finalist for Popular Fiction & 2002 Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Finalist for Science Fiction.
The book firmly balances itself between the politicized agenda of books like Heinlein's Starship Troopers and Haldeman's Forever War and the adventure and violence of military sci fi books like William Dietz' Legion of the Damned and David Gunn's Death's Head. The action, centering mostly on small unit tactics, is well written and enjoyably exciting. The prose though, isn't about to elevate this novel to the level of Starship Troopers. Some of the terms are quite quirky, such as "OUTVAC" and Thomas has a tendency to drop in futuristic jargon here and there without explanation, kinda like the way the reinvented Battlestar Galactica people used FRAK for everything. Over time though, the unfamiliar terms helped make the world building feel more real, more authentic. Even then, I found the way Thomas constructed sentences and paragraphs to be awkward and sometimes clumsy. Battles tend to be written violently with some graphic descriptions but with none of the heavy-handed angst I've come to expect from military sci fi like the ones set in the 40K universe. Overall a good enough read and a good source of new SF resources.
The book has some interesting armored infantry genre slants, namely the E Mark , the legion firearm that delivers "one-round hits on all targets" meaning that its a smart gun that NEVER misses (no need to roll to hit, just name the target and roll for damage!); Psyprobes - a form of alien mid control limited by range (take over an opponent's figure whenever your figure is xx inches away from them!); genetic snakes and spheres that penetrate armor and consume organic material ( no saving throws!); etc. Rules-wise, I bet I could find some similar concepts in FUBAR (our latest ruleset of choice) over at Gawd'elp Us games. Maybe one of these concepts would show up on our game table soon.
Check out the Soldier of the Legion homepage here.
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