Legionnaire (Galaxy's Edge #1) ★★★☆½

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Title: Legionnaire
Series: Galaxy's Edge #1
Author: Jason Anspach & Nick Cole
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 308
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Sergeant Chunn, along with his fellow Legionnaires (elite soldiers of the Republic), are on a planet running a political mission, ie, support the natives who want to join the Republic. They're supported by Repub-Army and are led by a political appointed “Legionnaire”, Lt Devers.

Things go sidewise when the orbiting support ship is destroyed, their base on the planet is over run and their supposed native allies turn on them with help from an alliance that is opposed to the Republic. The Legionnaire's commander, Pappy, is out of commission and Devers takes over. To disastrously bumble everything, to the point that the soldiers attack a village of natives that are hosting some Republic scientists.

Pappy wakes up long enough to make Chunn a brevet Lt and the current Lt Ford, a brevet Captain. One of the Legionnaire grunts, Exo, tries to kill Devers for all his mistakes but is pulled back by his buddies.

Everybody holes up and makes a last stand, only to have the MCR (Mid Core Rebels) show up with an old star ship and fighters. Only to have the Republic's Big Guns show up and rescue them.

The book ends with Devers getting all sorts of awards and Exo drinking himself into a stupor wondering why he's even in the legion. He runs across an old legionnaire who tells him a story to hopefully inspire him to get back in the fight.

My Thoughts:

I thoroughly enjoyed this Military SF story. It was all about the ground pounders and that is what I like.

I think the authors did a good job with the characters, as I was cheering for the Legionnaires and absolutely hating Devers the political appointee. When you can feel that much distaste for a character you know the authors did their job correctly!

There are no real surprises, which I was perfectly ok with. When it comes to Mil-SF, I prefer the tried and true formula of SNAFU, Fight, Good Guys Win, Bad Guys Lose. It is very comforting. It is like eating mashed potatoes. Good, warm and filling.

This is a longer series, currently running around 9 books. I have no idea if the series goes into a longer story arc or if each book is a standalone'ish story. Personally, I'm hoping for standalone story time but we'll see. We shall also have to see if the authors do the whole “token SJW wokeness” thing. I'd like to think not, but considering how I've seen it in other indie books, I'm not holding my breath.

To wrap up, a thoroughly fun book that hit all the right buttons for me and the start of a series. I hope the series continues as well as this book.

★★★☆½