Book Notes: The Light Brigade

The Light Brigade was a fast read, and a fun one. The dystopia it presents – one where murderous megacorps have taken the place of repressive governments – feels plausible, maybe even likely if something doesn’t change soon.

But somehow this book didn’t touch me much. There wasn’t much attention on the characters and their development. The story was the story of a war, and wars aren’t really all that fun, not even in a good retelling.

As often with sci-fi that involves time-travel, it felt like the focus was more on the puzzle presented by the dis-order of events, and less on the characters, their relationships or motivations. All in all, it is a fun read set in a grim future, with plenty of action and some headache-inducing time-looping.

Book Highlights

Even bleeding-heart socialist drones who play paladin can take an oath of vengeance to justify violence. I did.

I didn’t believe we were all bags of meat propelled by emotion, but I was wrong.

Once you begin to drop, time becomes a luxury, an outdated thing, like the idea of voting or equality or freedom that meant anything but freedom for the rich from the burdens they force the poor to carry for them.

They say you have freedoms, choices. When your choice is to work or to die, that is not a choice.

War was all about the annihilation of truth. Every good dictator and CEO knows that.