Book 29

"Phule's Company" by Robert Asprin

This was a slight, easy-reading, fast-moving science fiction yarn. The Phule of the title is a Captain in the Space Legion, a sort of "buy a commission, serve out some trouble back home" amalgam of the Foreign Legion and the household cavalry. He's also massively wealthy, and very unpopular with the brass, so they put him in charge of Omega Company, a sort of garbage dump for all the Legion's worst troops. Of course, he rallies them into an effective, cohesive unit and instils in them a sense of esprit de corps. The story is told as a series of recollections by Phule's batman, covering the first few months of his command of Omega Company.

The writing is, as I said, smooth and funny. Asprin has an almost Pratchett-like gift for understatement, if not Pratchett's ability with language. I can't exactly rave about this book but that doesn't mean it was crap either. It was, a bit like the second M*A*S*H book, a well-written, smoothly executed book, but it wasn't exactly a jump up and down, churn the butter discovery of a new author. I would be interested in grabbing the rest of the books in the series, but I'm sure that there will be other books I'll be after more.

Three mega-rich commanding officers out of five.