A LEGION'S LEGEND
Andromeda's Fall
Legend of the Damned Series
By William C. Dietz
Military
Science Fiction
New College
Kickin' Female Lead
Cat Carletto was the daughter of a wealthy and powerful business man who specialised in cybernetic technology. She had no problem spending her daddy's money on the next shopping spree or the next major party. But when the new Empress Ophelia murders her whole family and everyone she could run to for help, Cat has nowhere to run and hide. So she does the next best thing and enlists with the Legion and their cyborg fighting space force and changes her name to Andromeda McKee.
Trying to keep her head down and her life intact, she finds a new place in life with the Legion of the Damned as she trains on one planet in the system and is shipped out to another to fight a war against a ruthless enemy who are interested in only one thing – the total annihilation of the human species.
With nothing left of her old life and former self, Andromeda throws herself into being the best legion soldier she can be and she finds herself in more than one war front. Her gut, cunning and brass balls get her through more than one hot skirmish. It doesn't take long for her to rise through the ranks as a soldier who is bloody good at what she does. But through it all she has her own private mission – take out the Empress who took out her family, at any cost.
I loved reading as Cat Carletto transformed into Andromeda with the initial life threats and conflict and I was really pleased to see where the author took her and her story. There was loads of action, battles and fight scenes which at the time I read the story, was exactly what I was interested in. It had heaps of ups and downs with friendships formed and lives lost and I felt like I was truly taken on Cat's journey. Andromeda became a Mary-sue by the end of the first book, but I think the story was so well written that I felt it was genuinely accepted that that is where she would go and what she would do. Her can-do attitude was just one facet of her character development that came about through her tragic loss and personal mission.
I enjoyed the book and the rest of the series, but I have to admit that when I went back to the start of the series with 'Legion of the Damned' I couldn't get into it. It had all the same type of characters with their own tragic back stories, but the violence and sex was a bit too much and I was disappointed.
5 stars out of 5 for this kickarse heroine's story.
