The Light Brigade

By: Kameron Hurley, Jackie Sanders

Narrated by: Cara Gee

NAMED BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY AS A BEST BOOK OF 2019

“Passionately brutal, fierce, and furious in voice and pace. It’s a particularly cinematic experience of war, Full Metal Jacket meets Edge of Tomorrow.” —The New York Times

From the Hugo Award­­–winning author of The Stars Are Legion comes a science fiction thriller about a futuristic war during which soldiers are broken down into light in order to get them to the front lines on Mars.

They said the war would turn us into light.
I wanted to be counted among the heroes who gave us this better world.

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 busted down into light to travel to and from interplanetary battlefronts. Everyone is changed by what the corps must do in order to break them down into light. Those who survive learn to stick to the mission brief—no matter what actually happens during combat.

Dietz, a fresh recruit in the infantry, begins to experience combat drops that don’t sync up with the platoon’s. And Dietz’s bad drops tell a story of the war that’s not at all what the corporate brass want the soldiers to think is going on.

Is Dietz really experiencing the war differently, or is it combat madness? Trying to untangle memory from mission brief and survive with sanity intact, Dietz is ready to become a hero—or maybe a villain; in war it’s hard to tell the difference.

Critic reviews

"Narrator Cara Gee perfectly evokes the weary drawl of a battle-hardened soldier in this intricately constructed science fiction audiobook. The listener follows Dietz (first name unknown) through her mandatory training in the Corporate Corps. She learns to follow orders, to kill, and to cross the galaxy as a beam of light in order to fight the enemy that attacked her planet and destroyed her family. Gee's surface-level portrayal of Dietz seems flat and unemotional—but in a nuanced way that hints at deep anger and confusion. Gee gets more to chew on as the war progresses and Dietz becomes frightened about what's really going on. Jackie Sanders aces her small role as a corporate interrogator who tries to break Dietz."

wow!

just finished listening and find it hard to come up with words to describe the impact. here's some: thought provoking, visceral, funny, enthralling. this is a time travel story that totally hangs together. it's devastating at times in its critique of end-stage capitalism and the politics of fear. a scary story but ultimately an optimistic one.

as an added bonus, the audio performances are top notch, especially the interview interludes.

Really. After all that?

From the beginning of listening to this one I wondered why I was bothering.But like a lot of books I figured it might get better as the story progressed. This one really didn't. And I have never seen any story take so long to get to such an uneventful and rewardless ending.

Fascinating and thought-provoking.

Like any good time travel story, this is equal parts exhilarating and confusing. Put your thinking caps on, folks, because you'll need them to keep up with the order of events and the events and faces that flash in out of time. Not to mention that the big resolution happens at breakneck speed. I wish it had slowed just a bit, but it is what it is.

Ultimately the whole book asks you to look at something philosophical and nearly tangible and try to understand. For the most part it succeeds.

Brilliant! Compelling story. Amazing narration!

Absolutely loved it. Had me in a thought provoking emotional vice that thrilled, excited, and brought me great joy. Cara Gee's narration is flawless, and truly put me in touch with the character. Thank you.

Amazing Military Sci-Fi

An amazing modern Military sci-fi. A beautiful spiritual follow-up to Heinlein's 'Staship Troopers' but elevated to the next level. Wrapping a similar story in a time travel mystery. I strongly recommend to fans of military sci-fi, time travel stories and a dozen other subgenres.