Review: First time I found someone take the French Foreign Legion idea and make it work in serious Sci-fi
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 22, 2014
The Phule's Company series by Robert Asprin was a good take on the dysfunctional future military unit, but that was a comedy.  Here Leo Champion tries to make the tale work in a serious situation as the hero winds up volunteering while drunk and then discovering that the Legion allows no take backs.The descriptions of the training and the fighting are good, although the sheer number of "important" events that Leo tries to stuff into the story leaves more than a few events as little more than summaries and a few quick scenes.  There isn't a lot of character growth or events that can be clearly seen to be building up the plot and moving the story forward.  Instead, it seems to ride along from action to action and crisis to crisis until reaching an interesting if somewhat underwhelming climax.The idea is good, and the characters although rather two-dimensional are still interesting enough that I wanted to see a bit more.  For a first novel this was a surprisingly well written tale.