Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.99 AVERAGE
3.99 AVERAGE
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Torture, Violence, War
adventurous
dark
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
My review of The Light Brigade can be found at High Fever Books.
On her Twitter page recently, Kameron Hurley noted that one reader said The Light Brigade is “like The Forever War meets 12 Monkeys” and that’s probably the most on-point assessment of this book imaginable. I’m legitimately bummed that I didn’t come up with that description first, but huge kudos to whoever opined that one! What I can say, though, is that The Light Brigade is the military science fiction novel of 2019 to beat — and good luck with that.
This is an absolutely marvelous read. It’s tough, gritty, challenging, intricate, thoughtful, dark, and violent. It’s also got one hell of a knock-out premise that’s marvelously executed.
The six corporations that control Earth are at war with revolutionaries from Mars, some of whom have returned to Earth to repair the land destroyed by climate change. An act of terrorism known as The Blink has wiped Sao Paulo off the map, costing soldier Dietz everything once held dear. In order to combat the Martian terrorists, the military has devised a new method of travel to quickly route soldiers to and from the battlefield, a technology very similar to Star Trek’s teleportation, only with far more periodic disastrous results. Soldiers are broken down into particles of light and projected to their destination, whereupon their atoms are reassembled. Sometimes, they even reach their points intact!
Dietz is experiencing strange occurrences with each drop, though. Although she doesn’t suffer from the physical misalignments befouling some other unfortunates, she does have some highly disorienting traumas that call into question her sanity. Is she suffering from PTSD or is she really experiencing this war out of sequence, traveling not just across space, but through time as well?
Hurley does a fantastic job establishing the tone and worries surrounding Dietz’s experiences, and her world-building is wonderfully rich, drawing on current trends in social, political, and economic worries and philosophies to project a far-future outcome where unchecked capitalism and corporate monopolies and eroded freedoms have created a highly fractious society. There is no dividing line between the military-industrial complex, and these once-separate roles have become unified with the bulk of planet Earth divided into corporate hegemonies rather than individual nations and governments. CEOs have taken their place as rulers of the land, and people have become little more than disposable widgets. It’s kind of like living on a planet composed solely of six different version of Amazon, each caring equally about nothing and nobody unless it serves their bottom line, fiscally, and hell bent on wiping out of the competition with little regard for anything else.
The Light Brigade is also excruciatingly assembled. In the afterword, Hurley thanks her friends, assistants, and editors for helping her keep the timelines straight and making sure all the various puzzle-pieces fit together. Everybody involved certainly had their work cut out for them! There’s a meticulousness to the various scenarios presented over the course of the book, but goddamn is it ever creatively and smartly assembled. This is the type of mind- and temporal-bending sci-fi I love, and since it’s Kameron Hurley, it’s also vicious and gritty as hell. It’s is all hard, jagged edges, but it’s also got a lot of food for thought. It’s violent, and at times unsettling with the graphic mental imagery some scenes call up, but it’s damn smart the whole way through.
Given the entrenched nature of Dietz’s world, the idea of the Light Brigade takes on some really lovely metaphorical overtones as the novel progresses. These soldiers are broken down into particles of light to fight against the forces of Martian darkness, but as the war wears on and Dietz begins to learn more and more about what is truly at stake, and what dark forces need contending with, the war between light and dark takes on additional meaning. Hurley seeds in some measures of optimism and hope, even as Dietz’s reasons for joining and her outlook on the war are forcibly scrutinized. You want Dietz to become that figure of brightness shining in the dark, even as you’re never quite sure what eradicating those shadows might mean or how it can be done.
The Light Brigade is an assault on the senses every bit as much as it’s a wonderful thought puzzle. The depiction of war and the life of a soldier is necessarily grim and violent, but the biggest selling point is the remarkable skill and intelligence with which this story is told. Hell, just from a craft perspective alone, the manner in which Hurley plots and assembles her story is remarkable. This is a thinkers take on military science fiction. It’s also the first real contender I’ve come across for one of 2019’s best reads. You’re gonna want to add this one to your collection ASAP, grunts.
[Note: I received an advanced readers copy of The Light Brigade from the publisher, Saga Press.]
On her Twitter page recently, Kameron Hurley noted that one reader said The Light Brigade is “like The Forever War meets 12 Monkeys” and that’s probably the most on-point assessment of this book imaginable. I’m legitimately bummed that I didn’t come up with that description first, but huge kudos to whoever opined that one! What I can say, though, is that The Light Brigade is the military science fiction novel of 2019 to beat — and good luck with that.
This is an absolutely marvelous read. It’s tough, gritty, challenging, intricate, thoughtful, dark, and violent. It’s also got one hell of a knock-out premise that’s marvelously executed.
The six corporations that control Earth are at war with revolutionaries from Mars, some of whom have returned to Earth to repair the land destroyed by climate change. An act of terrorism known as The Blink has wiped Sao Paulo off the map, costing soldier Dietz everything once held dear. In order to combat the Martian terrorists, the military has devised a new method of travel to quickly route soldiers to and from the battlefield, a technology very similar to Star Trek’s teleportation, only with far more periodic disastrous results. Soldiers are broken down into particles of light and projected to their destination, whereupon their atoms are reassembled. Sometimes, they even reach their points intact!
Dietz is experiencing strange occurrences with each drop, though. Although she doesn’t suffer from the physical misalignments befouling some other unfortunates, she does have some highly disorienting traumas that call into question her sanity. Is she suffering from PTSD or is she really experiencing this war out of sequence, traveling not just across space, but through time as well?
Hurley does a fantastic job establishing the tone and worries surrounding Dietz’s experiences, and her world-building is wonderfully rich, drawing on current trends in social, political, and economic worries and philosophies to project a far-future outcome where unchecked capitalism and corporate monopolies and eroded freedoms have created a highly fractious society. There is no dividing line between the military-industrial complex, and these once-separate roles have become unified with the bulk of planet Earth divided into corporate hegemonies rather than individual nations and governments. CEOs have taken their place as rulers of the land, and people have become little more than disposable widgets. It’s kind of like living on a planet composed solely of six different version of Amazon, each caring equally about nothing and nobody unless it serves their bottom line, fiscally, and hell bent on wiping out of the competition with little regard for anything else.
The Light Brigade is also excruciatingly assembled. In the afterword, Hurley thanks her friends, assistants, and editors for helping her keep the timelines straight and making sure all the various puzzle-pieces fit together. Everybody involved certainly had their work cut out for them! There’s a meticulousness to the various scenarios presented over the course of the book, but goddamn is it ever creatively and smartly assembled. This is the type of mind- and temporal-bending sci-fi I love, and since it’s Kameron Hurley, it’s also vicious and gritty as hell. It’s is all hard, jagged edges, but it’s also got a lot of food for thought. It’s violent, and at times unsettling with the graphic mental imagery some scenes call up, but it’s damn smart the whole way through.
Given the entrenched nature of Dietz’s world, the idea of the Light Brigade takes on some really lovely metaphorical overtones as the novel progresses. These soldiers are broken down into particles of light to fight against the forces of Martian darkness, but as the war wears on and Dietz begins to learn more and more about what is truly at stake, and what dark forces need contending with, the war between light and dark takes on additional meaning. Hurley seeds in some measures of optimism and hope, even as Dietz’s reasons for joining and her outlook on the war are forcibly scrutinized. You want Dietz to become that figure of brightness shining in the dark, even as you’re never quite sure what eradicating those shadows might mean or how it can be done.
The Light Brigade is an assault on the senses every bit as much as it’s a wonderful thought puzzle. The depiction of war and the life of a soldier is necessarily grim and violent, but the biggest selling point is the remarkable skill and intelligence with which this story is told. Hell, just from a craft perspective alone, the manner in which Hurley plots and assembles her story is remarkable. This is a thinkers take on military science fiction. It’s also the first real contender I’ve come across for one of 2019’s best reads. You’re gonna want to add this one to your collection ASAP, grunts.
[Note: I received an advanced readers copy of The Light Brigade from the publisher, Saga Press.]
I really liked some of the concepts this book plays with--time, teleportation, morality--but I think reading this so closely to finishing Old Man's War may have done it a disservice. The military training scenes felt SO long since that is a specific trope that does not interest me.
The dystopian setting where corporations run everything and have private armies was evergreen, and I appreciated a lot of what this book had to say about the grunts who sign up for the prospect of a better future. I do think this is the kind of book that will do well with a second reading, and I plan to revisit it again at some point when I'm not so war storied-out.
The dystopian setting where corporations run everything and have private armies was evergreen, and I appreciated a lot of what this book had to say about the grunts who sign up for the prospect of a better future. I do think this is the kind of book that will do well with a second reading, and I plan to revisit it again at some point when I'm not so war storied-out.
This was a double fist pump book for me. I listened to the audio version while convalescing from laser vision correction as the weather warms into spring here on the Oregon coast. It also coincided with the acquisition of a hammock setup. Could not ask for a better way to experience some first class scifi.
Had some Starship Troopers vibes at the beginning, but luckily diverged from that similarity pretty quickly. You could even say this book refutes the macho nationalistic exceptionalism vibe of ST. Definitely has a far more evolved treatment than Heinlein's coed shower fantasy.
The plot twists, it slaps, it disturbs and disorients. Then it all comes back together with some prescient commentary on the state of current affairs in reality. I also loved the gender dynamics and how you don't learn the protagonists first name until the end. What's more, there are some monologues I need to revisit because they are worth absorbing multiple times.
Highly recommend!
Had some Starship Troopers vibes at the beginning, but luckily diverged from that similarity pretty quickly. You could even say this book refutes the macho nationalistic exceptionalism vibe of ST. Definitely has a far more evolved treatment than Heinlein's coed shower fantasy.
The plot twists, it slaps, it disturbs and disorients. Then it all comes back together with some prescient commentary on the state of current affairs in reality. I also loved the gender dynamics and how you don't learn the protagonists first name until the end. What's more, there are some monologues I need to revisit because they are worth absorbing multiple times.
Highly recommend!
Skeptical until the end and then so pleased that I should have seen the lovely twists coming but didn’t.
This was definitely interesting, and different from anything else I've read. I don't know if audio was the best way to read it, because it was hard to remember all the characters. This made it harder to really care about anyone, because it was all just a bunch of names passing through. I don't know if I would ever try to re-read it in print form, because I didn't really love it all that much, but I don't regret reading it.
The Light Brigade is definitely a book that I'm going to think about a long time. It's combination of military sci-fi with political philosophy really reminds me of Ender's Game but written for an adult audience. This book is gruesome -- not in a gory sense (though there is a fair amount of that) but in the way that it constantly tears down its characters and shows they are nothing more than fleshy, replaceable cogs in the machine of war. There are a number of elements of this book that made it stand out for me including: (1) Hurley plays around with gender in some really interesting ways. The gender of the MC is not revealed until the very end, and the other characters all feel very androgynous in the sense that their gender could change and it wouldn't impact their characterization. This really heightens the dehumanizing aspects of the military. (2) Time travel. This whole plot-line had my head spinning in the best way possible, and I NEED to read this book again to piece it all together. (3) Anti-capitalist // anti-war discourse. Hurley isn't shy about her dislike of capitalism and war, but she critiques it in a way that isn't heavy-handed but rather poetic and impactful. She really demonstrated a masterful balance of incorporating charged social themes into an action-heavy narrative. (4) Great pacing. Hurley is very intentional about using chapter length to impact the pacing and her book. Overall, the The Light Brigade was a fantastic read that I'd recommend to any sci-fi fan.
So, I finished The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley. It's the first book I've actively disliked in about 40 books. It is the epitome of muddled sci-fi. There sure are sci-fi things going on and there sure are sci-fi action scenes straight from Starship Troopers taking place but everything feels fumbled in the worst possible way. There is actually no explanation of the sci-fi concepts in it, the worldbuilding feels like an Ayn Rand parody of corporate freedom, and the character work is so terse and scattered that it is really hard to connect to anything. I'm not sure I even really understand the implications of the ending and I don't think I want to think about it any more than I have.
Dietz, the main character, is a soldier in a world that has developed the ability to break people apart into photons of light and re-assemble them allowing for near-instant transport. Dietz has the unique defect of essentially being unstuck in time (for reasons unexplained), she starts with a confusing series of jumps where she is not experiencing time linearly. She gains control of this power via breaking a torture module (again, unclear why this would affect her ability to control her time traveling). Then by the end, she can suddenly disappear a population of 2 million people off the face of the Earth (again, for unexplained reasons). It was an ambiguous ending, which can be fine, but it was also very unsatisfactory.
I went into this before but I would have been fine with all of the unexplained facets of the sci-fi because there are great, even foundational pieces of sci-fi that glaze over concepts. They tend to keep an emotional core or hold as great introspection on society's ills. The Light Brigade doesn't have that emotional core and the world developed didn't feel unique or particularly well fleshed out. Just look at what Neal Stephenson did with Snow Crash for a better version of the corporate-controlled world.
There are better thrillers out there, there are better sci-fi novels out there. I don't see a need for ever thinking about this book again unless someone asks me what books to avoid.
Dietz, the main character, is a soldier in a world that has developed the ability to break people apart into photons of light and re-assemble them allowing for near-instant transport. Dietz has the unique defect of essentially being unstuck in time (for reasons unexplained), she starts with a confusing series of jumps where she is not experiencing time linearly. She gains control of this power via breaking a torture module (again, unclear why this would affect her ability to control her time traveling). Then by the end, she can suddenly disappear a population of 2 million people off the face of the Earth (again, for unexplained reasons). It was an ambiguous ending, which can be fine, but it was also very unsatisfactory.
I went into this before but I would have been fine with all of the unexplained facets of the sci-fi because there are great, even foundational pieces of sci-fi that glaze over concepts. They tend to keep an emotional core or hold as great introspection on society's ills. The Light Brigade doesn't have that emotional core and the world developed didn't feel unique or particularly well fleshed out. Just look at what Neal Stephenson did with Snow Crash for a better version of the corporate-controlled world.
There are better thrillers out there, there are better sci-fi novels out there. I don't see a need for ever thinking about this book again unless someone asks me what books to avoid.