Chris Bunch (1943–2005)

Somewhere between David Drake and John Ringo (oh, John Ringo, no!) on the scale of mediocre mil-SF writers lies Chris Bunch. The Last Legion is an eminently forgettable book about two to five (see, I've forgotten already) young men and women who join up with a military unit that is pretty much exactly like an American Air Cavalry Division, circa Vietnam, except that they're stuck at the ass end of the galaxy defending an exploitative and racist plutocracy. That, and the collapse of the show more galactic empire, and immanent invasion by hostile aliens and expansionist warlords doesn't seem to matter much, as our protagonists gripe their way through bootcamp, beat up armed muggers, take on 10 times their number in firefights, and sleep with improbably well-endowed young women. I'd call the combat sequences awkward and incoherent, but then I wouldn't know how to describe the sex scenes. The whole book reads like a pastiche of Starship Trooper pastiches. It's not even so bad it's good, just thoroughly dull. At least I don't get the sense that the author was typing one-handed at any point. show less

Homefall was a great book and I am sad to have finished it because, since it was the fourth and final book in the Last Legion series, and a really great series that I have seriously enjoyed is now over. It’s a real pity. This book was quite different from the three preceding it in that the Legion is no longer having to defend Cumbre from attackers and rebels. Instead, Garvin and Njangu and the rest decide to finally go looking for the Confederation, the giant mystery hanging around the show more neck of each book. They’re part of the Confederation’s military machine, sent to Cumbre for duty, when all contact with the Confederation ended and no one has heard from or of it for a decade. No one knows what has happened. It seems to have literally disintegrated. Garvin decides to get a group together and disguise themselves as a circus troop going from system to system until they finally reach the home system of Centrum, hoping to find out the cause of the mystery and, if the Confederation is indeed dead, perhaps to jump start it back to life. Why a circus? Garvin comes from a long line of circus performers and in a dangerous universe, what better way to travel than as nonthreatening entertainers?

They get a massive ship, load it with a zillion weapons and a number of specialized fighters, about 150 soldiers, and then they go to a real circus planet to hire real circus people and animals. Which they do. And they practice. And then they hit the road, er skies. And the shit hits the fan. Every world the come to is freaking insane! Everyone tries to kill each other and kill them. There are insane plots, treacheries, dictators, paramilitary groups and private armies, with everyone enjoying watching the circus perform until they realize they can either make use of them and their equipment, etc., or until they realize they just want to kill them. In either case, the Legion comes under attack, has to fight back, and escapes, usually just barely. There’s one system that’s particularly evil and insane and I wasn’t sure at all how they were going to escape that particular trap. But they did. And found the home system. And what they found was not what they hoped for.

Since the first three books were about their wars with the rebels, the aliens, and their planetary neighbors and since they no longer had any enemies nearby, I thought this would be more of a political book, but I was wrong. This book was about the journey and it was all intrigue and action. Serious tension too. Very well written, great plot. My only complaint is the ending. The final chapter is a mere two pages, with them arriving back home and splitting up, going their separate ways. I was a little shocked, because there had been romances and relationships, bonds that were established, futures to be groomed, and it was all shot to hell in two pages. No one rode off into the sunset with the girl. Hell, the two best buds didn’t even end up going off together to do their own thing. Even they split up and went their separate ways, in the space of a few paragraphs, and that seemed really unlike their characters. Really unbelievable. I found the final chapter really hard to swallow and thought about downgrading the rating a star, but I enjoyed the book and the series so much overall, that I’m still giving it five stars. This book, unlike the previous two, could possibly be read as a stand alone book, but I would start with the first one and read the series in order. I think readers would get much more out of that. Best series ever? No. Really damn good? Damn straight! Definitely recommended. show less

The mercenary team from Star Risk, Ltd are back for their second book/mission and for some reason, the publisher's marketing flunky who came up with the book's back cover synopsis blurb apparently didn't even bother reading the book, because even though it begins with security for a major sporting event, that's not at all what the book is about, nor what the vast majority of the book is about, so for the synopsis of the book to describe it in that way is to do a gross disservice.

Anyway, show more M'Chel, Freidrich, Grok, Jasmine, and Chas are back and this time they are hired by Premier Reynard of Dampier, who has recently been dethroned and wants his power back. But that's not his primary reason for hiring them. He wants one of his friends and colleagues who has been framed for treason, tried and found guilty by a kangaroo court, sentenced to death, and is in a heavily guarded prison on death row, freed and the "real" traitor found to replace the innocent man. Dampier has a nearby star system it has gone to war with three times over yet a third star system that they both claim for themselves and each is saber rattling again. Star Risk agrees to take the job and soon appears on Dampier, where they find a lot of lawlessness and violence awaits them. And a lot of people are anticipating their arrival and are none too happy about it, including the police, the intelligence service, the secret police, etc. Soon, they, and the mercenary sub-contractors they hire, are under assault from all sides and they have to go into ultra violence mode to teach some people a few lessons about who's the damn boss. It doesn't help that the big boys on the mercenary block, Cerberus Systems, is also in the picture, mysteriously working for the other side. There's also a mysterious religious cult and a group of armed revolutionaries and it's a complete mess.

While everyone is off doing their own thing, Freidrich decides to visit this other planet, Torguth, to see how much truth there is to the Dampierian rumors of their military buildup. Turns out they're fairly accurate. He also goes to establish contact with and extract information from two sources the revolutionaries have on planet. Torguth is a dictatorial, heavily militarized planet where pretty much everyone wears a uniform of some sort. It's a very dangerous place to be. He meets both people and agrees to meet them again in a day or so. And he's sold out. Fortunately, he's ex-military and in good shape and he's hidden small weapons around the city in anticipation of just such an event, so he escapes, barely, and is glad to do so.

At the same time, there's a group of thugs called The Masked Ones going around beating up and even killing groups of demonstrators and protesters with the approval of the police who do nothing to stop them. Star Risk doesn't approve of their actions, tries to find their identities, finds some success, finds some of them tied in with the secret police (shockingly), and slaughters a number of them to teach them a lesson. This doesn't sit well with the chief of the secret police, but he does nothing to them -- for the time being.

Meanwhile, they've been visiting the prisoner in the off-planet prison, softening things and people up, making plans to spring him. Their plan is ingenious.

One cool thing about this book is the role ex-Marine M'Chel Riss plays. She plays a much bigger role than in the previous book, I believe, and is a major, major bad ass. I like it. She plays for keeps and kicks ass. I like her character a lot. Another cool thing about the book is the plot is so convoluted and complex and everything is such a mystery that it's almost impossible to unweave until the end. The downside is, the ending is actually so incredibly obvious that I thought it was far too obvious and thought there was no way it could actually be THAT and assumed it would have to be someone else (the traitor), someone no one had considered before, but I was wrong. It was one of the two most completely obvious suspects and that was really disappointing. I think Bunch did his readers a disservice here and should have worked harder as an author to make things more complicated than that. He took the easy way out and if I hadn't have enjoyed the book so much, I'd consider knocking the rating down by a star, but I'm not going to because it's still a very good book.

So, if you like a good sci fi mystery with ultra violence, conspiracies, assassinations, poisonings, military assaults, etc, this is the book for you. And even though it's the second book of a series, it's really a stand alone book. You don't need to have read the first one to enjoy this one. It's not the best book I've ever read and I'm not completely convinced it's worth five stars, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and can't think of any real good reason not to give it five stars, so I'm going to go ahead and do so. I just think it's a really good book. Definitely recommended, as is the series. show less

I thoroughly enjoyed this third book in the Last Legion series and feel like it's good enough to give it five stars generally, but I'm not. Because it's military sci fi and I feel like David Weber is the gold standard by which all military sci fi is weighed against and virtually no one can come close to his standards, so even though Chris Bunch is good, even very good, he's not Weber good, so it's four stars. Perhaps 4.5 stars.

In the last book, Cumbre's neighboring system's leader, Protector show more Redruth of Larix and Kura, had shown up in force to offer his "protection" as some sort of scam in an obvious effort to ultimately take over the Cumbre system, only to be driven off by the alien Musth in their war with the human Legion in the Cumbre system. Now that the Legion has won and driven the Musth off, Redruth is determined to add Cumbre to his empire.

The book opens with a Larissan spy on Cumbre who is captured and who, in the most unlikely and hard to believe fashion, commits suicide by chewing his tongue in half and bleeding to death overnight in his cell. Is that even possible? Whatever the case, Last Legion hero Njangu Yoshitaro becomes a double agent, posing as the spy, as Redruth and his minions have never seen him, and obtaining extract from Cumbre, fleeing to Larix where he is set up with a sweet deal as a senior officer and adviser with major plans for his future in the invasion of Cumbre. Of course his mission is to get intel back to other Last Legion hero Garvin Jaansma and others, so they may prepare for the war and even prepare to go on the offensive.

There are two new and pretty cool things about this installment of the series. First, there are a lot of space battles. With the Legion having saved Cumbre's ass and taking so many casualties and with more war on the horizon, the government has provided for some pro-military taxes and conscription, so that the force is being rebuilt and it ultimately reaches twice its original size, 20,000 troops. Ships are also being built, a number of them based on the superior Musth technology, and there are a number of Musth mercenaries who have come to pilot them, which is good because they are superior fighter pilots. Unfortunately, Larix and Kura have a greater population and larger infrastructure and can build more ships faster and start building much bigger cruisers later into the book that the Legion has to work hard to devise ways to defend themselves against and later attack. Nonetheless, great space warfare action. Second, for the first time in this series, the Legion generally goes on the offensive in a major way. Larix and Kura attempt to invade Cumbre and are annihilated. Cumbre bides its time, develops a strategy, and sends its own invasion force, foolishly thinking it'll be a piece of cake, and they take heavy casualties while trying to defeat Redruth and win the war.

So Bunch really expands in this novel. Before it was small scale offensive operations, going after rebel forces here and there, as well as defensive fighting and guerrilla warfare. Now it's space combat and invasion of other planets in other systems. That's big. And Yoshitaro and Jaansma are still at their bad ass, sassy best in this book. They really make a great team, even if they are separated by Yoshitaro's double agent role for a good part of the book. I really enjoy their characters. There's one more book in the series and I'm going to miss them when I finish this series.

So, I really enjoyed this book. I'd normally be inclined to give this five stars. I think it's really good. But the space battles aren't as good as Weber's naval battles and the land battles come nowhere close to Weber's land battles, so I don't see how I could possibly give this book five stars when comparing the two. There is no comparison. That said, Bunch is my second favorite military sci fi author and he's no slouch. If you like decent military sci fi action mixed in with some crass humor as well, this is probably a series you would enjoy. Although this is probably not a stand alone book; you'd want to start with the first one and read the series through. Whatever the case, recommended. show less