Science fiction fans have always had a respect and understanding for the history of the genre. Unfortunately, science fiction has achieved such an age that each year sees our ranks diminished. Deaths in 2015 included Alice K. Turner, Leonard Nimoy, Tanith Lee, Jon Arfstrom, George Clayton Johnson, Suzette Haden Elgin, Sir Terry Pratchett, Christopher Lee and Peter Dickinson.
This is the second novel in the author's Never War sequence, and as might be expected, picks up almost where the first book ended. Ambitiously, the action aliens and Nazis sprawl across the USA, Germany, the Greek island of Crete, occupied France, Stalin's Russia, and good old Blighty. Once again it's a hell-for-leather scramble between those loyal to the Third Reich or the Allies, with the alien Vril following their own agenda and playing both sides against the middle.
In the latest volume in the Legion of the Damned series, Booly comes back from the brink of what could have been disgrace as a hero to his men who risked their lives for freedom. Now Naa Commandos are set to protect him, yet assassins come to try and take over their encampment. The author fleshes out the characters and their lives, their doubts, loves and hopes. Booly's rescue mission to get back Maylo gives us an idea of what kind of man he is, and what others think about him.
This story is separated into two parts with several smaller chapters that create an epic feel about it. These vampires seem more sophisticated than, say, the ones from a Stephen King novel. Their settings are bourgeois in their development and the characters never lose their edge. While the previous three novels have set the scene and developed the characters, this, the latest in the series, has a twist in the tale of which Sandra is very fond ever since reading Roald Dahl's deliciously disturbing stories.
Every day the men of Red Shield have to face the Collective as they need to keep the Kingdom enemy free in Luitox. Here while they play the waiting game for their enemy to approach, we hear the war from several viewpoints during the story and many of the accounts aren't what the Kingdom's rulers might expect. The men are tired, hurt, stressed-out and at times bored out of their brains, and who can blame them? Their enemy is sneaky, dangerous and worthy of being feared as they never show themselves if they can help it, and they aren't the sort of enemy who fights en masse.
