Wednesday 6 May 2009

SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW: Death's Head Maximum Offence - David Gunn


BOOK BLURB:

The Aux have been dropped on a far-flung planet called Hekati, only it's in Uplift space and not really a planet at all. As for their mission, it seems it's so damn secret that General Jaxx hasn't even told Lieutenant Sven Tveskoeg what it's about. It seems a citizen of the United Free, an empire not only more vast than OctoV's but far more technologically advanced, has gone missing on this artificial world and it's up to Sven and the Aux to find the poor soul. But Hekati is a realm where nothing and no one can be trusted. Smelling a rat, Sven is so not happy - and when he's not happy is when bad things start to happen and the body count starts to rise...The devil-may-care not-quite 100 per cent human mercenary soldier-cum-killing machine Tveskoeg and the Death's Head squad are back: cue more extreme violence, a mega death toll, dirty sex, fiendish plot twists and explosive, non-stop action!


REVIEW:

OK, you read the first book, were grabbed by the character of Sven and loved the sci-fi combative nature of the worlds and were wondering where to go next. Well no surprise that with the second tale being unveiled it was either going to be a big hit or a huge miss. Fortunately for us this tale falls into the first category as the characters are just as violent as ever with the old style of Sven Hassel brought to the future as each character fights for survival on near suicidal missions reminiscent of many of the books released back in the 70's.

Addictive, humorous in places and with a story that keeps the reader going it's with exhaustion that you complete the last part of the tale after the ups and downs of the adventures of Sven's unit take you through a rollercoaster of emotion as well as bloody combat. Not something to enjoy if you're fairly sensitive to the high levels of violence or swearing but the fact that it comes from a man with combat experience as a Merc and you can pretty much understand where a lot of Sven comes from.

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