The Empire’s Corps (The Empire’s Corps, #1) by Christopher Nuttall
My rating: 8 out of 10 stars
You Should Never Speak Truth To Power…
The Galactic Empire is dying and chaos and anarchy are breaking out everywhere. After a disastrous mission against terrorists on Earth itself, Captain Edward Stalker of the Terran Marine Corps makes the mistake of speaking truth to power, telling one of the most powerful men in the Empire a few home truths. As a result, Captain Stalker and his men are unceremoniously exiled to Avalon, a world right on the
Well, apart from the bandits infesting the countryside, an insurgency that threatens to topple the Empire’s loose control over Avalon, and a corrupt civil government more interested in what it can extort from the population than fighting a war. The Marines rapidly find themselves caught up in a whirlwind of political and economic chaos, fighting to preserve Avalon before the competing factions tear the world apart. They’re Marines; if anyone can do it, they can.
The battle to save the Empire starts here.
As usual a book from Christopher Nuttall does not disappoint. At least not for me but then tastes are different of course. I have read several books from Mr. Nuttall now and I thought that I should finally dig into this series which, with 8 book at the writing of this, is the longest series yet by this author.
Normally I am a wee bit hesitant when it comes to these marine focused stories. They are not my favorite genre. I prefer science fiction that focuses on starships and combat between ships. However, since I have liked so many other books from Mr. Nuttall I decided to have a go at this one anyway.
It is a good book and I liked it better than I thought I would do. The background story is a rather depressing one with the empire dying due to political shortsightedness, incompetence and rampaging corruption. As the blurb states our heroes made the mistake of speaking the truth and quickly got exiled to a world on the rim of the empire.
As far as I am concerned this is a good thing. It allows Captain Stalker and his men to escape the worst of the corruption. Not only that but on the world of Avalon him and his men can actually make a difference. The characters are as well done and enjoyable to read about as usual by Mr. Nuttall. There are of course plenty of marine action in the book. Given the name of the book this should not come as a surprise.
As usual the first book in a series is a bit of a stage setter but although the book does indeed set the stage for future books it holds it own as a free-standing book. It does not take forever to get into the story and the book have a good ending without an annoying cliffhanger.
This is definitely yet another series that I will continue to read.
PG's Ramblings 
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