The Light Brigade

By Kameron Hurley

Soldiers are broken into light and sent to the frontline of a brutal interplanetary war, in this brilliant military SF from the Hugo Award­­-winning author of The Stars Are Legion.

The Light Brigade: it's what soldiers fighting the war against Mars call the ones who come back...different. Grunts in the corporate corps get broken into light, travelling from interplanetary battlefronts. Everyone is changed by what the corps must do. Those who survive learn to stick to the mission brief -- no matter what happens during combat.

Dietz, a fresh recruit in the infantry, begins to experience combat drops which don't sync up with the platoon's. And the bad drops tell a story of war that's not what the corporate brass want the soldiers to think it is. Is Dietz really experiencing the war differently, or is it combat madness? Trying to survive with sanity intact, Dietz is ready to become a hero -- or maybe even a villain. In war it's hard to tell the difference.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Apr 2, 2019
• ISBN: 9780857668240

Kameron Hurley

Kameron Hurley is the acclaimed author of the novels God’s War, The Mirror Empire, and The Light Brigade. Hurley has been awarded two Hugo Awards, the Kitschies Award for Best Debut Novel, and has also been a finalist for the Nebula Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the British Science Fiction and Fantasy Award, and the Locus Award. Visit the author online at KameronHurley.com or on Twitter at @KameronHurley.

Reviews for The Light Brigade

[renbedell · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A military science fiction story about a war between Earth and Mars. The story follows a soldier who gets sent into battles through breaking into light particles to be sent instantly, but each time this person gets sent to a different part of their life. It is an amazing idea that is executing very well. The war plot line is great, with its own mysteries. The writing and main character are fantastically written. The story is gripping and enjoyable the whole way through.

[noeshia · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This one was a bit confusing to me because of the time distortions, but I enjoyed what I understood. Grim but optimistic would be how I characterize this one. I want to give it more stars but I was confused in a lot of places, so yeah.

[quondame · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

If the book weren't so utterly dystopian and relentlessly grim and grimy, if the main character had even a furlough in a garden, then maybe all the elaborate and gut-felt effort of this thing might have made some sense. The few glimpses of beauty always come before it's destruction, so what is there to support the hope that drives Dietz?

[luminous4path · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I really liked it but ultimately the plot and mechanics were unsatisfying. However, I would still like to read more by this author.

[macha_4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

it's about a brutal endless war waged by corporate entities obsessed with taking over an earth already half destroyed. relentless environmental disasters had caused the massive displacement of peoples and the end of governments. as everyone became expendable refugees, corporations abandoned any responsibility as unacceptable 'socialism' in favour of a new set of class lines: there were citizens and then there were 'ghouls', displaced refugees and their descendents who had no rights at all. not that joining the military automatically conferred rights either, but to the soldiers it demonstrated their patriotism, in the hope that it might be rewarded over time. except that time itself, for some, became a problem: some were transported into the field of war into different times resulting, if their minds and bodies survived the shock of it, in an awareness of a state of forever war, a war that could not be won, and a foreknowledge of other details that nobody fighting on the ground was meant to know. i like Hurley a lot, both for her imagination and for her sharp and brutal writing style; this is a bit of a departure for her, and she doesn't always seem comfortable with her own work here, but it's an intricate and important sf novel well worth the read.

[texascheeseman · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Light BrigadeAuthor: Kameron HurleyPublisher: Saga PressPublishing Date: 2019Pgs: 356Dewey: F HURDisposition: Irving Public Library - South Campus - Irving, TX_________________________________________________REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERSSummary:The Light Brigade. They dissemble soldiers into light and flash them to battlefields from Earth to Mars and the Asteroids. Grunts in the corporation armies. The Light Brigade are those who come back...different. They seem to have seen things that other soldiers don’t. Everyone is changed by being broken down. But the Light Brigade...are more different. The soldiers who survive learn to stick to the mission brief. If you come back too different, the corporation will disappear you...for special assignment. But no one ever comes back from special assignment. Memory, mission brief, flash into light and back. Who are you? Who are they? Why do you remember things differently? Light._________________________________________________Genre:Space OperaScience FictionMilitariaTime TravelWhy this book:Corporate citizenship, the Moon, a city in South America...I wonder how deeply we’re gonna get in Frank Herbert’s pocket. Don’t get me wrong. I love Herbert. Hence, me picking up this book._________________________________________________Favorite Scene / Quote/Concept:“They’re making us into superheroes.” Since Deadpool, that line is trucked with foreboding.Paragraph/Line of the Year Nominee:Hmm Moments:After a firm grounding in Herbert for worldbuilding, the story leaps. Is he an experimental subject? Is that happening to everyone? Is he falling between membranes of the multiverse when he transitions into light? So, when a book takes a classic as a referent, and is both self-referential and directly referential to how like the other author’s work it is...which wall does that break?WTF Moments:This has crossed out of time travel paradox and into time travel clusterfuck. Not saying it’s a bad story, but it’s a 3 Tylenol Gordian Knot.Wisdom:War is about the annihillation of the truth. Juxtaposition:The Light Brigade is a commentary on the relationship between the working class and the ruling class. The Unexpected:Time travel...how could Tanaka be there with the original squad and, then, introduced to Dietz at a later date? This left me thinking of the Lathe of Heaven from Le Guin._________________________________________________Last Page Sound:So...either the goal wasn’t the goal...or??? Lotta pages for an ending that isn’t. Not in the “oh wait for the sequel” sense, more in the Stargate: Universe sense.Author Assessment:I loved God of War so much that this author is getting read more[period]._________________________________________________

[gypsysmom_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is one of those books that I read about on John Scalzi's blog. Every month Scalzi opens up his blog to several writers so they can talk about their Big Idea; I've found quite a few good and new to me writers this way. Kameron Hurley's Big Idea about this book started with stories her family told about war. She had also done research on the African National Congress's recruitment of women fighters using propaganda. Then she took an idea about teleportation using light to convey soldiers to far away (sometimes even off Earth) battlefield's. It's a complex story but pretty fascinating.The protagonist is known as Bad Luck Dietz from the first teleportation event that went badly. Not all the teleportations are problematic but enough are that Dietz is perpetually confused about what is happening. Sometimes Dietz can't remember the mission and sometimes the mission is different from the one other soldiers experienced. Eventually Dietz realizes that sometimes the teleportation acts as an agent for time travel. As time goes along Dietz starts to want to change the outcome of the war by making use of this time travel. Because one thing Dietz knows is that the soldiers are pawns of the corporations in charge and the corporations do not really care about the ordinary citizen.It's a well told story although it was pretty disjointed at first; but that's what Dietz was experiencing as well so that's valid. There is also a great message about the futility of war. However, there is an optimist message as well. This is what Hurley said in her Big Idea post "In truth this book is less about predicting the future because so many aspects of this future are already here. Instead, it challenges us to rethink our present, and everything that comes after it. What is the future we want to build? How are we going to get there? Because everything is constructed. We can teach ourselves to create any type of future we want. But first we need to understand how much of the present is simply social conditioning. "

[shrike58 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

At a certain point I'm going to have to try Hurley's fantasy because, so far, her SF hasn't really moved me. This is considering that her essay on why she felt the need to write this novel impressed me rather more than the novel actually did. Perhaps it simply boils down to corporate armies in a dystopian scenario mixed with time displacement being a combination that simply didn't agree with me.

[strider66_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Pros: brilliant world-building, interesting characters, challenging plot, thought provoking Cons: Dietz joins the Tene-Silvia Corporate Corps after the Blink wanting to be a hero, wanting to make the Martians pay. But military life is hard and the combat drops that break soldiers down into light molecules to transport them to mission locations… change some of them. Dietz doesn’t always land at the right location, or with the right people. Dietz’s jumps also reveal that the war isn’t what they’ve been told. Can one be a hero if no one knows what’s right anymore? This is an absolutely brilliant novel and I can understand why Hurley had such trouble writing it. There were times as a reader that I got confused as to when Dietz was in the timeline, I can only imagine how difficult it was as the author keeping who knew what, when, straight. The world-building it top notch. This is a future where mega corporations rule and there are layers of citizenship. Dietz began life as a ghoul, living outside the corporation, living off of refuse, and gained residency status through their parents. But full citizenship requires service. Throughout the book you see how ingrained the idea of earning citizenship is held by full citizens, even those born into it who did nothing to earn their place. There’s a lot of thought provoking commentary here. The characters are great. I loved that the first person perspective cloaked Dietz’s gender (until the end, when you learn their first name), and that the protagonists all seem to be fairly fluid in their sexualities (or at least, fairly open about their partners). Dietz starts off as hot-headed, stubborn, and not the smartest in the group, but is forced to learn - and learn fast - when things get tough. It’s a brilliant fast paced novel that will keep you on your toes.