Reviews with content warning for Body horror - The Light Brigade

Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley

9 reviews

caseythereader's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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tsunni's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

This is like a mix of Cyberpunk, Full Metal Jacket, Old Man's War, and time travel; a deliberately confusing mix of the horrors of war and jumping through time and obedience to too-powerful all-surveilling corporations manufacturing reality for their own gain. Expertly written in easy to read prose and bluntly disturbing imagery, the story viewpoint follows the main character Dietz, a poor nobody subcitizen who enlists in a corporate army for a chance to be a privileged member of society in some impossibly distant timeframe, and we watch her go completely mad (or go completely sane) over the course of the book as it jumps between a discordant number of timeframes, scifi tech horrors, and brutal scenes of war.

I didn't find the jumping and out of order timeframes too confusing to follow, but I also think we're not entirely meant to be able to keep up with it; it's not what the book is about. Instead I was hit harder by how much Dietz's world was an extension of our own, how reality was whatever the powerful wanted it to be, how dehumanized and mindless she was deliberately trained to become, how class warfare and misinformation was weaponized, how people are broken down and seen as disposable by the powerful. I think this story emotionally resounded with me because I see so many parallels with the directions the US and other parts of the western world has been going lately (especially today, a day after the US Supreme Court struck down the Chevron Doctrine).

Unlike Starship Troopers, which is the obvious direct novel comparison and a book I'd never liked, the clear message here in The Light Brigade -- one given in an almost direct author-to-reader plea in a forgivable deus ex machina ending -- is that the power to change all this for the better resides in the people, and reality is what we can make it; if we could scrape together the willpower to do it. Whether that's the right answer or not to our societal woes (and I don't expect Hurley or anyone else to have a simple answer, because there isn't one), I really enjoyed this novel and what it tried to do, and I think it's one I'd reread at some point.

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jclymer's review against another edition

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challenging fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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shellbellbell's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Update: Listened to this on audiobook for a reread and it was even better the second time. Cara Gee (actress who played Camina Drummer on The Expanse) does an amazing job as the narrator. There's so much I love about this book: the thrilling pacing, the first person POV, the character stuff, the desperation and trauma and intensity. It is an intense book - I'd put major TWs on it for war violence, death, body horror. But it was thrilling to read the first time and to read again.

Great military sci fi read. Has a thriller mystery vibe with a harsh critique of fascist capitalism along the way. I can't describe it too much more without giving away the plot, but I really liked the ending. Looking forward to exploring more of Kameron Hurley's works.

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