![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Aug. 4th, 2013
I'm trying to get round to a number of books that have been sitting on my bookshelf for years making me feel guilty. This is one such. I read one or two of Hill's Last Legionary Quartet many years ago and enjoyed them. This is a 1982 prequel collection of stories about the training of the legionary who was to become the last of his kind, published by Piccolo, a junior imprint of Gollancz..
There are four stories, each taking a snapshot of Keill Randor's life, one age 12 as he takes the dangerous right-of-passage test that shunts him into the Young Legionary Programme. The second is Keill at the age of 14 trapped with his fellow trainees in a dangerous desert situation with deadly spine-eels swarming. The third is Keill aged 16, assigned to give a trio of potentially hostile customers a tour of the Legion's mercenary facility, and dealing with things when the situation goes pear-shaped. And lastly there's Keill aged 18, facing his last test before being assigned to adult responsibilities as a full legionary.
The stories are slight and as a prequel you know that Keill is going to survive whatever the book throws at him (always the problem with prequels) and you know that all the other characters are eventually going to be killed off between the end of this book and the beginning of Galactic Warlord, the first of the Last Legionary books, so it's difficult to get invested in characters such as Oni, Keill's longtime (girl) friend, though she's well written.
If anything Keill and Oni are a little too perfect and competent, but each story develops the characters a little further. I found this fairly bland by today's standards and probably for completists only, though as the intended audience is a young readership (and bearing in mind the time it was written) it stands up quite well to other SF children's books of the period.
There are four stories, each taking a snapshot of Keill Randor's life, one age 12 as he takes the dangerous right-of-passage test that shunts him into the Young Legionary Programme. The second is Keill at the age of 14 trapped with his fellow trainees in a dangerous desert situation with deadly spine-eels swarming. The third is Keill aged 16, assigned to give a trio of potentially hostile customers a tour of the Legion's mercenary facility, and dealing with things when the situation goes pear-shaped. And lastly there's Keill aged 18, facing his last test before being assigned to adult responsibilities as a full legionary.
The stories are slight and as a prequel you know that Keill is going to survive whatever the book throws at him (always the problem with prequels) and you know that all the other characters are eventually going to be killed off between the end of this book and the beginning of Galactic Warlord, the first of the Last Legionary books, so it's difficult to get invested in characters such as Oni, Keill's longtime (girl) friend, though she's well written.
If anything Keill and Oni are a little too perfect and competent, but each story develops the characters a little further. I found this fairly bland by today's standards and probably for completists only, though as the intended audience is a young readership (and bearing in mind the time it was written) it stands up quite well to other SF children's books of the period.
Another weighty tome from George R R Martin and well worth reading. I'm having the rather strange experience of having seen Season Two and Season Three of Game of Thrones before reading the book, so my reading of it is coloured by the characters on TV. Some things have changed, some things have not. It's also confusing that the TV version takes events in a slightly different order to the book, so some things from the second book are in the third season and vice versa. I'm losing track of whether an event is book or telly. That doesn't spoil the enjoyment, though.
So this is the book in which Tyrion shows his mettle as Hand of the King (acting), saves Kings Landing and gets no credit for it. It's the book in which Sansa is tormented by Joffrey. It's the book in which Arya journeys with Gendry and Hot Pie, in which Jon Snow goes north of the wall, in which Danni wanders with dragons, in which Theon Greyjoy shows his true colours, in which Jaime Lannister spends a lot of time imprisoned by Rob Stark, The King of the North, and in which Joffrey Baratheon shows why it's a bad idea for brothers and sisters to have children together. New viewpoint characters are introduced, such as Davos, the Onion Knight. It's a book of kings and battles, of treachery, bravery and cowardice and the occasional good deed, which rarely goes unpunished.
I'm enjoying both book and telly immensely. GRRM picks you up by the scruff of the neck and doesn't let you go until the last page. Even then you want to move straight on to the next book. Which I have already... watch this space.
Highly recommended.
So this is the book in which Tyrion shows his mettle as Hand of the King (acting), saves Kings Landing and gets no credit for it. It's the book in which Sansa is tormented by Joffrey. It's the book in which Arya journeys with Gendry and Hot Pie, in which Jon Snow goes north of the wall, in which Danni wanders with dragons, in which Theon Greyjoy shows his true colours, in which Jaime Lannister spends a lot of time imprisoned by Rob Stark, The King of the North, and in which Joffrey Baratheon shows why it's a bad idea for brothers and sisters to have children together. New viewpoint characters are introduced, such as Davos, the Onion Knight. It's a book of kings and battles, of treachery, bravery and cowardice and the occasional good deed, which rarely goes unpunished.
I'm enjoying both book and telly immensely. GRRM picks you up by the scruff of the neck and doesn't let you go until the last page. Even then you want to move straight on to the next book. Which I have already... watch this space.
Highly recommended.