By Blood Alone

by William C. Dietz

Book Overview

It takes more than guts to win a war...In a Legion gone lax, Colonel Bill Booly, with his mixed-blood and by-the-book attitude, is a misfit. So when he steps on some important toes, his punishment is assignment to the worst post in the galaxy: Earth.But Booly and his troops will turn out to be Earth's best line of defense, when a Legion-led military coup topples the government.It's Legionnaire against Legionnaire in a struggle that will be won by...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0441006310
• ISBN13: 9780441006311
• Release Date: July 1999
• Publisher: Ace Books
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 4.2" x 6.8"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Mutiny in the Legion ranks gives peace a bad name

Another generation, another galactic crisis. By Blood Alone follows in the chronological footsteps of William C. Dietz's Legion of the Damned and The Final Battle, each of which is focused (to a lessening degree) on a futuristic Legion and its army of once-human cyborgs. The action here takes place a generation after the end of the second war against the Hudathans, an alien enemy who seeks to destroy all life it comes into contact with. As is so often the case, an extended period of peace does more harm than good. On Earth, military cutbacks have dumped many Legionnaires out onto the streets, inspiring dissent and dissatisfaction among the ancestors of the great defenders of Earth and the Confederacy of Sentient Beings as a whole. This sets the stage for a mutiny that gives birth to a new and quite rotten form of imperialism on earth. Worst of all, the conflict pits legionnaire against legionnaire. Bill Booley III, whose grandfather and father played pivotal roles in defeating the Hudathan menace, finds himself smack dab in the middle of a mess. For starters, his honorable refusal to fudge the facts in a military trial of a prominent governor's son lands him a new assignment at the worst and most undisciplined Legion post in the galaxy: Djibouti in Africa. When the mutiny takes place and all legionnaires must take sides, Booley must organize his much-berated men and women (and cyborgs) into a respectable fighting force capable of at least defending their position from inevitable attack.The novel is not without several strengths. The author's deft use of the conquered Hudathans in an unexpected manner definitely scores points in my book. His utilization of "geekheads" and hackers to get the word out on the true realities of earth's new government also plays well in the context of the story. However, while By Blood Alone actually ended up being a better novel than I expected early on, it is plagued with several problems. The characterization is somewhat weak over all, as these characters never come vividly to life; a number of actions are frankly hard to buy into; and too much happens outside the scope of the pages themselves. The actions of earth's new rulers border on the ludicrous, the reluctance of the Confederacy of Sentient Beings to react in any way to the dire events taking place on the planet of its most erstwhile defenders seems contrived, and - perhaps most of all - the elaborate plot involving several planetary leaders is not easy to embrace or give credence to. Several turning points in the drama come about outside the scope of the pages, and that is truly bothersome. You spend a number of chapters wondering how the author is going to deal with a certain issue, and then you are told the issue has been dealt with and the story quickly moves along to something else. Then there are the characters; several are strong and heroic, but few stand out. My biggest complaint concerns the women of this futuristic universe. All o

This is a great book.....

By blood Alone is a very intresting addidtion to the "legion" seris of books. Its about honor, glory and all those great military ideals that are sometimes lacking in todays world powers. If you liked legion of the damned you will most probably like this book also... I can't see why you wouldn't. I can't wait for the next...

Military sci-fi at its best

I have been a big fan of Dietz for along time ( my first sci-fi was a Dietz) and this book did not dissapoint me. The Book takes place some years after the end of the the final battle and his about how the legion has gone bad from lack of activity. Its well balanced and is extremly fast to read and I cant wait for By force Alone to arrive. So if you are a Dietz fan then u should bau this book right now but if you have never read his other Legion books I would recomment that you read them first but it is not nessecery to enjoy this book cause it takes place 30 some years later

Interesting extension of some older sf ideas

This is something of a bridge between the old sf and the new. Many of the concepts have been done before as well as the cast of characters. But this is done well enough that it keeps interest. The end also definitely leaves you ready to buy the next.

By Blood Alone is a clever metaphor in its own right alone!

If you want to know the future of NATO and how the military forces can rot itself into complete inertness and stuporific uselessness in times of peace and plenty then this is the novel for the ages! Mr. Dietz expertly commands his field of fire by easily demonstrating how compromise and political in-fighting among normally venal people can blossom into several nests of fully evil characters along with the resultant emerging popular societal customs that steadily weaken our moral fiber as humans. This novel is right-up-there with Koontz's seminal "Dark Rivers of the Heart." See how an otherwise free and enlightened government/league of nations can quickly curdle into a stinking facist regime in our modern world, and easily within one solar year. Horrid, yet instructively fascinating! Read all about it, indeed, before "they" take it off the shelves!