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BooksaliensThe Light Brigade
Cover of The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley

The Light Brigade,

by Kameron Hurley

Ask AI
Rating3.9/ 5
Ratings170
Pages396
Reading Hours8h
Published2019
LanguageEnglish

§Synopsis

01

From the Hugo Award­­–winning author of The Stars Are Legion comes a brand-new science fiction thriller about a futuristic war during which soldiers are broken down into light in order to get them to the front lines on Mars.

They said the war would turn us into light. I wanted to be counted among the heroes who gave us this better world.

The Light Brigade: it’s what soldiers fighting the war against Mars call the ones who come back…different. Grunts in the corporate corps get busted down into light to travel to and from interplanetary battlefronts. Everyone is changed by what the corps must do in order to break them down into light. Those who survive learn to stick to the mission brief—no matter what actually happens during combat.

Dietz, a fresh recruit in the infantry, begins to experience combat drops that don’t sync up with the platoon’s. And Dietz’s bad drops tell a story of the war that’s not at all what the corporate brass want the soldiers to think is going on.

Is Dietz really experiencing the war differently, or is it combat madness? Trying to untangle memory from mission brief and survive with sanity intact, Dietz is ready to become a hero—or maybe a villain; in war it’s hard to tell the difference.

A worthy successor to classic stories like Downbelow Station, Starship Troopers, and The Forever War, The Light Brigade is award-winning author Kameron Hurley’s gritty time-bending take on the future of war.

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§Genres
aliens1dystopian1fantasy1fiction1lgbtq1military1queer1
§Moods
adventurous2challenging2fast-paced2reflective2emotional1
§Tags
#body horror1#diverse characters1#not diverse characters1

§About the Author

Kameron Hurley
Kameron Hurley

1 books in catalog

High-concept military science fiction and visceral insect-punk fantasy have been reshaped by dark speculative narratives that probe the destructive realities of war, ideology, and body horror. Kameron Hurley gained widespread critical recognition with her time-bending military science fiction novel The Light Brigade and her bug-driven debut novel God's War. Her work interrogates institutional power structures, gender, and violence through relentless, immersive worldbuilding.

Career & Background

Born in Battle Ground, Washington, on January 12, 1980, Hurley earned a Bachelor of Arts in historical studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and a Master's degree from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa, where she specialized in the history of South African resistance movements. After living in Chicago for four years, she moved to Dayton, Ohio, working as an advertising copywriter, marketing consultant, and senior software copywriter alongside her fiction career. She began publishing genre short stories in the early 2000s, debuting with 'Holding Onto Ghosts' in 2003. Her debut novel God's War (2011) initiated the Bel Dame Apocrypha sequence and earned her the Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer and the Kitschies Golden Tentacle for Best Debut Novel. In 2014, Hurley received two Hugo Awards for Best Related Work and Best Fan Writer.

Writing Style & Themes

Hurley's fiction is recognized for its uncompromising realism, organic technology, and intricate worldbuilding. Her narrative settings range from desert planets powered by insect-controlling bio-magicians to decaying organic generation ships in deep space. She centers deeply flawed, morally complex protagonists navigating corporate dystopias, religious warfare, and systemic oppression. Rather than glorifying combat, her books focus on the human cost of violence, propaganda, trauma, and the mechanisms of control within entrenched power structures.

Major Works

  • The Light Brigade — A standalone military science fiction novel following a soldier in a corporate war against Mars who experiences disorienting temporal jumps every time she is beamed to the front line.
  • God's War — The first novel in the Bel Dame Apocrypha trilogy, set on a desert planet where government-sanctioned assassins and bug-controlling bio-magicians operate against the backdrop of a perpetual holy war.
  • The Stars Are Legion — A standalone space opera taking place inside a decaying swarm of living, biological world-ships, following two women caught in a war for control of the fleet.
  • The Mirror Empire — The opening volume of the Worldbreaker Saga, an epic fantasy featuring parallel worlds, omnipotent blood mages, and catastrophic environmental shifts.

§Editions

Cover of The Light Brigade

The Light Brigade

engHardcover396 pgs
Angry Robot20199781481447966
§Genres
aliens1dystopian1fantasy1fiction1lgbtq1military1queer1
§Moods
adventurous2challenging2fast-paced2reflective2emotional1
§Tags
#body horror1#diverse characters1#not diverse characters1

Metadata

ISBN-139781481447966
ISBN-101481447963

Editions and availability

Find The Light Brigade Kameron Hurley in PDF, EPUB, ebook, audiobook, print, or library editions.

Bookshop.orgGoogle Play BooksBarnes & NobleOpen Library

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