BOLO BRIGADE [Mass Market Paperback]

Bolo brigade is a well crafted, actioned packed story in the universe of Keith Laumer's Bolos, giant sentient tanks that are humanity's most stalwart defenders.

In Bolo Brigade, a bolo officer with a dead end career winds up posted to a backwater planet that is about to become a raging battleground. The Malach, a race of reptile-like aliens appears from the depths of space and invades the planet. The only force that can stop them are two old bolos and whatever forces the planetary government can muster.

Bolo Brigade thunders to a crescendo of action that is glittering in in its intensity and at one point seems to literally roar with the fury of battle. The bolos display courage and humanity that goes far beyond the call of duty, and the ending may even leave you with tears in your eyes.

Sometimes authors just nail it right on the head and William Keith excels with Bolo Brigade.

This is one of those books you can read again and agian. Entertaining to the last. Believable characters and an extrodinary setting. I really wish (hint HINT) that a followup would come along one day.

William H Keith, JR's book, "Bolo Brigade" (ISBN 0-671-87781-X), is his second contribution to Keith Laumer's Bolo story line. On the edge of the galactic arm and human occupied space, known as the Concordiat, lays the Strathan Cluster Confederation. The Confederation consists of thirty-six human inhabited worlds that gained their freedom from the direct control of the Concordiat, but still maintain an alliance with that larger human political body. Part of the alliance between the two governments is the deployment of sixteen very old, but still powerful ground based war machines, fourteen Mark XVIII and two Mark XXIV Bolos. The Mark XVIII Bolo , was almost the last design to be equipped with only the most advanced super computers of their day, while the two Mark XXIX Bolos, named Freddy and Ferdy, were fourth generation designs using a self-direct and self-aware computer. Lieutenant Donal Ragnor, a Bolo Tactical Officer of the Concordiat, has been transferred to the Confederation as liaison officer as punishment for bucking the Concordiat military chain of command. Soon after Donal's arrival on Muir, the capital world of the Confederation, he discovers the Mark XVIII Bolos have been deployed to fourteen different worlds and that he will be the commanding officer for both Mark XXIV Bolos stationed at the capital. Further, prior to Donal's arrival two member worlds have fallen silent and several starships have disappeared from the space lanes within the Cluster. The Cluster's central government assumes that the loss of communications is due to equipment malfunctions and that the some of the lost ships have been captured by pirates, while others are being reported means of committing insurance fraud. However, the government does not send out investigation teams to verify their theories. After Donal's arrival, Muir receives a garbled message from the world of Wide Sky, near to the edge of the cluster, about an invasion, before communications abruptly cease. Lieutenant Ragnor, Freddy, Ferdy, and Alexie Turner, Wide Sky's Deputy Director General, have to fight off the invasion of an unknown intelligent species on Muir. William H. Keith, JR brings the reader another well-balanced story in Keith Laumer's Bolo saga. This book is another gem for the reader who likes the writings of William H. Keith, JR and Keith Laumer.