Kameron Hurley is the Hugo Award-winning author of science fiction and fantasy novels such as The Stars Are Legion. The Light Brigade draws on the classics of military science fiction, though its antiwar themes position it much closer to Haldeman's The Forever War than Heinlein's Starship Troopers. In Hurley's version of the future, Earth is ruled by ruthless corporations who have banded together to wage war against Mars. Hurley's protagonist, Dietz, doesn't enter the war as a clueless naïf. After experiencing the worst of life outside the corporations, she signs up with simple goals: "Be a hero, I thought. Get revenge. End of story."
Dietz seeks revenge for an event called the Blink, when São Paulo was supposedly zapped out of existence by an unknown Martian weapon. After a brutal training, Dietz prepares to be sent to Mars via a technology that allows the "corps" to break the soldiers down into light and almost instantly transport them to the front lines. The process is nowhere near as anodyne as Star Trek's transporter beams: "It's breaking you up like in those old sci-fi shows, but it's not quick, it's not painless, and you're aware of every minute of it." And when Dietz is transported, she doesn't end up where--or when--she's meant to be. The Light Brigade is an overtly political work, critiquing the convergence of capitalism and war, but it works just as well as a timeless depiction of the boring, confusing, terrifying life of a soldier. --Hank Stephenson, bookseller, Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, N.C.