 | |
| Author | Kameron Hurley |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Genre | Science fiction, Time travel |
| Publisher | Saga Press |
Publication date | March 19, 2019 |
The Light Brigade is a 2019 science fiction novel by Kameron Hurley, in which brutal descriptions of war and economic exploitation in a dystopian future are used to provide strongly critical commentary on the nature of warfare and capitalism. It was nominated for both Hugo and Locus awards for 2020.
In a dystopian and post-apocalyptic future, the world is ruled by six mega-corporations. [1] Members of society are either corporate citizens bound to serve corporate goals, or "ghouls" who are dispossessed and lack status. The corporate private armies are at war with the separatists of Mars, who allegedly disappeared the entire population of São Paulo using unknown technology, in an offensive called "the Blink". [2] [3] Soldiers, better known as "grunts", are broken down into light and sent to distant battlefronts. Some of them come back different, but are punished if they try to talk about what they experienced, so everyone learns that it's better to remain silent. [4]
Dietz is newly enlisted to the infantry of Tene-Silvia, one of the Big Six corporations fighting Mars. [1] Dietz joined to get revenge, having lost home, friends, lover, and family in the Blink, [5] but begins to experience combat drops that don't sync up with the rest of the platoon's. Dietz encounters events that seem out of sequence, lands in unfamiliar missions, and fights alongside grunts that know Dietz but whom Dietz has never met. [2] Along the way, Dietz learns things that contradict what the corporate brass claims is real. [4]
Dietz struggles to determine whether there is a real difference or if the perceptions is caused by combat madness. [4] Parsing what is real, understanding when and where events occurred, and surviving the brutal, violent war become Dietz's main challenges. [1]
In a starred review, Kirkus Reviews posits that The Light Brigade is a "fascinating and brilliantly confusing journey that ultimately ends, as is appropriate, in illumination. Rereads will be both necessary and desirable." [6] In its verdict, Library Journal concludes that The Light Brigade is an "absorbing and gritty story" by an "accomplished author". [5] Booklist 's starred review compares the novel to Philip K. Dick’s Now Wait for Last Year , and calls it "an enthralling portrait of a devastated near future" that is "highly recommended for not only SF fans but anyone interested in a thrilling and troubling vision of the future". [2]
In its "PW Picks" starred review, Publishers Weekly calls The Light Brigade a "smart, brutal, and structurally sophisticated military science fiction tale with a time travel twist". [7] The review compares the book to Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War as a "gripping story of future warfare and an incisive antiwar fable", while promising that readers will "savor this striking novel’s ambitious structure and critique of rapacious, militarized capitalism". [7] Andrew Liptak, in The Verge , also compares The Light Brigade to a classic its review, this time to Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers , calling it "a worthy successor" and "one of the rare ones that equals" the book that "struck the mold for military science fiction". [1] Liptak calls Hurley's commentary on capitalism and war "scathing", noting the future described in which corporations "control all aspects of the lives of the citizens, from the information they have access to, to how they’re educated and where they live, their lives given up to supporting whatever unknowable corporate goals their overlords have planned". [1]
Gene Rodman Wolfe was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He was noted for his dense, allusive prose as well as the strong influence of his Catholic faith. He was a prolific short story writer and novelist, and won many literary awards. Wolfe has been called "the Melville of science fiction", and was honored as a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
The Hugo Award for Best Novel is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published in, or translated to, English during the previous calendar year. The novel award is available for works of fiction of 40,000 words or more; awards are also given out in the short story, novelette, and novella categories. The Hugo Awards have been described as "a fine showcase for speculative fiction", and "the best known literary award for science fiction writing".
Ian McDonald is a British science fiction novelist, living in Belfast. His themes include nanotechnology, postcyberpunk settings, and the impact of rapid social and technological change on non-Western societies.
John Michael Scalzi II is an American science fiction author and former president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He is best known for his Old Man's War series, three novels of which have been nominated for the Hugo Award, and for his blog Whatever, where he has written on a number of topics since 1998. He won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer in 2008 based predominantly on that blog, which he has also used for several charity drives. His novel Redshirts won the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel. He has written non-fiction books and columns on diverse topics such as finance, video games, films, astronomy, writing and politics, and served as a creative consultant for the TV series Stargate Universe.
Annalee Newitz is an American journalist, editor, and author of both fiction and nonfiction, who has written for the periodicals Popular Science and Wired. From 1999 to 2008, Newitz wrote a syndicated weekly column called Techsploitation, and from 2000 to 2004 was the culture editor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian. In 2004, Newitz became a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. With Charlie Jane Anders, they also co-founded Other magazine, a periodical that ran from 2002 to 2007. From 2008 to 2015, Newitz was editor-in-chief of Gawker-owned media venture io9, and subsequently its direct descendant Gizmodo, Gawker's design and technology blog. As of 2019, Newitz is a contributing opinion writer at The New York Times.
Martha Wells is an American writer of speculative fiction. She has published a number of fantasy novels, young adult novels, media tie-ins, short stories, and nonfiction essays on fantasy and science fiction subjects. Her novels have been translated into twelve languages. Wells has won four Hugo Awards, two Nebula Awards and three Locus Awards for her science fiction series The Murderbot Diaries. She is also known for her fantasy series Ile-Rien and The Books of the Raksura. Wells is praised for the complex, realistically detailed societies she creates; this is often credited to her academic background in anthropology.
"Oceanic" is a science fiction novella by Australian writer Greg Egan, published in 1998. It won the 1999 Hugo Award for Best Novella.
Seanan McGuire is an American author and filker. McGuire is known for her urban fantasy novels. She uses the pseudonym Mira Grant to write science fiction/horror and the pseudonym A. Deborah Baker to write the "Up-and-Under" children's portal fantasy series.
The Hugo Award is an annual literary award for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year, given at the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) and chosen by its members. The award is administered by the World Science Fiction Society. The Hugo is widely considered the premier award in the science fiction genre, and winners are often noted on book covers. It is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories. Hugos were first given in 1953, at the 11th World Science Fiction Convention, and have been awarded every year since 1955.
Liu Cixin is a Chinese computer engineer and science fiction writer. He is a nine-time winner of China's Galaxy Award and has also received the 2015 Hugo Award for his novel The Three-Body Problem as well as the 2017 Locus Award for Death's End. He is also a winner of the Chinese Nebula Award. In English translations of his works, his name is given as Cixin Liu. He is a member of China Science Writers Association and the vice president of Shanxi Writers Association. He is sometimes called "Da Liu" by his fellow science fiction writers in China.
Ken Liu is an American author of science fiction and fantasy. Liu has won multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards for his novel translations and original short fiction, which has appeared in F&SF, Asimov's, Analog, Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, and multiple "Year's Best" anthologies.
Kameron Hurley is an American science fiction and fantasy writer.
Robert Jackson Bennett is an American writer of speculative fiction.
Marko Kloos is a German author of military science fiction and high fantasy. Born in Germany, Kloos lives and works in the United States.
Amal El-Mohtar is a Canadian poet and writer of speculative fiction. She has published short fiction, poetry, essays and reviews, and has edited the fantastic poetry quarterly magazine Goblin Fruit since 2006.
The Geek Feminist Revolution is a collection of essays by the American science fiction writer Kameron Hurley, published by Tor Books on 31 May 2016.
Becky Chambers is an American science fiction writer. She is the author of the Hugo Award-winning Wayfarers series as well as novellas including To Be Taught, if Fortunate (2019) and the Monk & Robot series, which begins with the Hugo Award-winning A Psalm for the Wild-Built (2021). She is known for her innovative world-building and character-driven stories, and is a pioneer of the hopepunk genre.
The Dragon Awards are a set of literary and media awards voted on by fandom and presented annually since 2016 by Dragon Con for excellence in various categories of science fiction, fantasy, and horror in various media — novels, movies, television, and games.
The Poppy War is a 2018 novel by R. F. Kuang, published by Harper Voyager. The Poppy War, a grimdark fantasy, draws its plot and politics from mid-20th-century China, with the conflict in the novel based on the Second Sino-Japanese War, and an atmosphere inspired by the Song dynasty. A sequel, The Dragon Republic, was released in August 2019, and a third book, The Burning God was released November 2020.
AnnaLinden Weller, better known under her pen name Arkady Martine, is an American author of science fiction literature. Her first novels A Memory Called Empire (2019) and A Desolation Called Peace (2021), which form the Teixcalaan series, each won the Hugo Award for Best Novel.