The Light Brigade

There is no meaningful science fiction being written today not taking on the issues and anxieties of our contemporary culture. Perhaps one of the best writers out there able to capture not just the political but personal tensions is Kameron Hurley, who continues to give readers stunning work with her latest The Light Brigade. In it, readers are confronted with the psychological effects of war, politics of citizenship, the cruelty of capitalism, and the stubborn will of the individual to survive and be free.

In a future both distant but eerily familiar, Earth and its colonies are controlled by six corporations vying for more share of the populace. Readers are thrown into a war between Mars revolutionaries and Earth’s corporations. After a catastrophic attack, our hero Dietz decides they must join the fray against the Martians. Dietz is a ‘ghoul,’ the lowest caste in this ultra-capitalist society, someone who exists only as labor fodder. They are a nonresident, a noncitizen with no rights, but rights can be earned…through military service.

Dietz joins new soldiers deployed through new technology, one that breaks up bodies into light particles, beams them to a location, and reassembles them to fight. However, there are hidden consequences as Dietz discovers their mind isn’t quite what it was after each jump.

Hurley’s action sequences are numerous and intense possessing a realism grounding her fantastic narrative. She is also able to capture the essence of PTSD inhabiting and invoking its terrors and psychology. Readers will find the story and its mystery obsessive and compelling.