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Death's Head (2007)

Death's Head (2007)

Book Info

Author
Genre
Series
Rating
4.02 of 5 Votes: 3
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ISBN
0345498275 (ISBN13: 9780345498274)
Language
English
Publisher
del rey

About book Death's Head (2007)

I picked up this book on a whim and I'm mighty glad I did! David Gunn writes fast and furious military sci-fi. Death's Head is the first novel in a series of books featuring the anti-hero Sven Tveskoeg, an ex-sergeant of a sci-fi version of the Légion étrangère. The book is narrated in the first person by Sven, who upon examination is revealed to be 98.2% human and 1.8% "something else" and is able to tolerate, and quickly recovers from major physical stress and damage. Add the fact that he is ultra-violent, extremely efficient in killing ( especially decapitating his enemies) but has an unlikely adherence to loyalty and you have a clear picture of who our anti-hero is. Circumstances lead to him being recruited into the ranks of the Deaths Head, the elite military arm of the emperor Octo V who may or may not be human at all but is definitely pure malevolence.Gunn writes fast action. And he makes no pretenses to using the story as a social commentary. This is not Heinlein's Starship Troopers. But take the action and violence of that novel and ditch the political baggage and add equal doses of sex and wry humor and this is the result. Sven also manages to own a sentient gun that revs up the humor levels a notch as well as adopts a motley group of naive militia men he commandeers as his own and dubs "The Aux" or the auxiliaries. Historically, Roman legions recruited aux from occupied territories to serve alongside the regular legionnaires. Sven does the same when he draws these men and women under his wing. Sven, his fully AI side arm, SIG-37, and The Aux go on several missions to fight their emperor's enemies -- the Uplifted, a biomechanical hive mind wrestling with Octo V for control of the galaxy.Death's Head is followed by Deaths Head: Maximum Offence and Death's Head: Day of the Damned. This is easily one of my best reads of 2010.

Well, I know I’m enjoying a book when everything else stops until I’ve completed it. This had its faults, but probably the same faults as mine in that the reader is too hooked into the action to take in all the detail. I was confused about the political set-up here until the end, and the snake heads were right out of Stargate Atlantis, but none of this was enough to distract me for long.David Gunn’s Death’s Head started off loaded with violent action and horror and continued in that vein, so I was hooked from about page two, then hooked landed gutted and fried in batter as soon as the talking gun put in an appearance. Yeah! Fuck the literarty-farty crap in the SFF world that has the self-proclaimed arbiters of taste creaming their panties. Take those oh-so-worthy tomes and shove ‘em where the sun don’t shine. This took me right back to the fun I had reading E. C. Tubb’s Dumarest saga, Edgar Rice Burroughs John Carter on Mars or the old Robert E Howard Conan books!Only those were books I enjoyed as a teenager … um, perhaps I haven’t grown up … do I want to? Nah.Nice to read unpretentious solid cover-to-cover entertainment without any concessions to the pc-focus-group-bullshit age we live in. Nice to read something that isn’t a dreadfully sincere allegory on our times, or a sophomore comment on this that or the other political, social, racial, religious or environmental situation by some prick having an attack of literature.It's often the way when describing books to compare them to other books, or films - whatever. This I would call Starship Troopers meets Commando.Great fun.

Do You like book Death's Head (2007)?

I never picked up a book that falls in the action sci-fi genre before, and wasn't really sure what to expect. Would I be reading about never ending battles between mercenaries? How much of that can you read before it starts to get tiring?Well, if all books of similar genre are anything like this book, then it never gets tiring. But I doubt other books are anything like this author's style; told in the first person of a human killing machine who's inner thoughts, dry humor and brutal tactics are one of the most fun characters I've ever had the pleasure of reading about. Or in this case, the pleasure of being carried along for the ride as if I were a silent participant.There's so many great words I can use to describe Death's Head. But that's too easy. The story was flying off the pages, never a dull moment, the character barely getting enough time to relax and catch a breath before being thrust into yet more violent craziness.It's what a Rambo of the future might be like. On steroids. But cooler. With just the right sense of humor. It's guaranteed entertainment (if you're into that sort of thing).It's also the first in a series, which makes me immensely happy, for it means that my times spent with Sven the protagonist, are just beginning...
—Alex Sheldon Savva

You know what really impressed me about this book? How STUPID the main character is. Sven, Space Barbarian, is a man who doesn't know much about technology. He's a practical man, for whom book-learnin' isn't on the agenda, and the kind of guy who doesn't deal much with explanations.This is a shame, since the book is from his perspective.I'm left looking at this interesting post-human universe through the goggles of a moron who doesn't understand the significance of an AI-powered gun, or the biological modem that's stuck in his throat. Here's a guy who would probably assume a transhumanist is a breakfast food, dropped into a transhuman world. Sometimes, this gives us brief flashes of interesting character drama. Most of the time, it's just aggravating as I, as a reader, had to puzzle through annoyingly stupid semi-explanations of established sci-fi concepts.The plot? Yeah, I guess there's one of those. It involves bullets, as you may be surprised to learn. Also some betrayal, I guess? But the whole setting kind of feels Warhammer 40K-ish, so betrayal was kind of just on the agenda in my mind.7 AM : Wake up7:10 AM : War9 AM : Breakfast10 AM : More War11 AM : Light Lunch, Talk to Squad11:02 AM : Betrayal11:03 AM : WarNoon : WartrayalRest of the day allocated for whoringOverall, I cannot recommended this. In fact, I think it's kind of awful. It's still readable, though, and while its theme of brutal violence as a serviceable solution to every problem is unsettling, it's not so bad that I'll give it a perilous 1-star. There are some tiny sparkles of good ideas in here, and I hope the author can switch gears in future books and let them show a bit more.
—Argus

I really enjoyed this book. It's hard-core, action packed and full of some great action. I originally saw the second book in an airport bookseller and thought it looked interesting (the title caught my eye) and it took me a while to locate the first one. I always like to read them in sequence. I'm glad I took the time as I was not disappointed. If you like your sci-fi down n' dirty and you heros more anti' than hero then this one is definitely for you.As soon as I read it I knew my brother would like it too, he's the one who introduced me to Fantasy and Sci Fi. I bought him a copy for Christmas and he was hooked too, he kept bugging me to find the next one and then the third one after that.
—Kiwigirlreads

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