Book Review: Honor of the Legion

Good morning, gentle readers. Today I am guesting over at Sarah Hoyt’s blog, talking about the meanings of words and one in particular. While I am there, one of my fans and friends, Doug Irvin, is here. He agreed to read and review a couple of books for me and this is the first of them. There are times I’m too close to a book to review it fairly, through association with the writer, or in this case, that and being the cover artist. So Doug agreed to take on the honest review of those (and not incidentally, help me when I’m too busy to do a blog post justice. Thanks especially, Doug, for that.) 

Written by Doug Irvin

Honor of the Legion

by Leo Champion

The scum of the Earth. That’s how Lord Wellington described his men before the battle of Waterloo. Mere scum of the Earth others reported he said.

He would have known the type of men who joined the American Foreign Legion.

Made of up the dregs from a handful of planets and every area of the United States. Murderers joining under assumed names to beat a death sentence. Rapists who chose enlistment over imprisonment. Washouts from regular military units. Criminals just finishing their sentences. Even a few regular officers who chose – for whatever reason – to transfer from the regular Army to the Legion.

And then sent on peacekeeping missions to a dozen planets needing wolf dogs to quiet restive natives and rebellious colonists.

Such were the men in the 1/4/4 Battalion.

Scum.

But even scum can develop allegiances, even the dregs of the Earth could believe in something more than themselves.

The honor of thieves and malingerers and screwups.

But honor still

This is the story of one such group, fighting for their lives amidst murderous aliens. Because when trouble starts, you’d better be able to count on the man next to you. Even if they are scum.