Just Finished Reading: Foreign Legions created by David Drake

A ‘lost’ Legion of Rome fighting on alien worlds, an armada of 14^th century knights and men at arms snatched from a deadly storm to do likewise…. Alien abductions are real and have been occurring throughout our history – just not for the reasons usually mentioned (just what is it with those anal probes?). The truth is that factions within an intergalactic trading empire are fighting for supremacy amongst the stars. The only rule is that they cannot use superior technology to conquer primitive species. Enter the Roman Legion apparently destroyed in Partia. Fielded on alien worlds they become an invincible fighting force with hundreds of years of combat experience. Controlled by fear and ignorance the ‘commanders’ singularly underestimate their native cunning until the moment comes when they strike back. Once in control of an alien ship the Romans quickly realise that they have a far greater empire to carve out than any Emperor ever dreamt of.

Starting with the classic Ranks of Bronze by David Drake this was a collection of short stories and novellas based in the universe Drake created. Almost uniformly entertaining this was a good collection of slightly odd combat SF stories by David Weber, S M Stirling, Eric Flint and others. It was actually a nice change of pace from ‘death rays’ and orbital bombardments to read about aliens being sliced & diced by Roman swords and English longbows. The final story was rather silly but had some nice touches – such as retro-fitted battleships taking part in space battles against an alien invasion fleet. But if you can get past things like this I’m sure you’d enjoy this bit of light reading. Enjoyable if not exactly mind bending stuff.