Review: Beyond The Call Of Duty
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 25, 2013
US space colonies want independence and the US Foreign Legion is used as a cheap and expendable force to suppress them.  Champion uses several military SF standard cliches, such as the boot camp experience, the platoon, downtrodden colonies wanting their rights or their independence and being used as dumping grounds for unwanted people, and heroes in danger both from combat and from evil enemies, but rises far above them. "Legion" is quite well written, with fully realized cultures (the Legion, the corrupt US ruling a space empire, aliens called Masons, and a colonial planet based on the Old South) and characters, including the two protagonists, who are not your usual jut-jawed fearless leaders of men.And Champion cleverly wraps up the "failed" insurrection by showing that the leader is thinking long thoughts (like Mao) - making it too costly for the US to want to hold on to the colony.I don't agree with another reviewer that 400-year old tech (the M-16 rifle) would not be used.  Besides the fact that the AK-47 (or its variants) will probably still be used 300 years from now, the bullet-firing long gun has been around since the beginning of the 1300s.  And Champion makes the point that the downtrodden colonies, with their lower-than-Earth tech, could easily produce parts and extra M-16s, which makes sense.One off note, though, is the lack of female soldiers.  Women are already in the modern US military, and even a Legion composed mostly of low lives and convicts would easily find women in that category eager to fight so they could become citizens and to escape jail or their dismal lives.  And much of military SF has women fully integrated in the military.  But that didn't detract from my enjoyment of the novel.I hope this becomes a series.  I'd welcome seeing more action, both from the Legion and from the colonists smart revolutionaries.