The Bug Wars

by Robert Lynn Asprin

In a galaxy-spanning struggle of epic proportion, the L'vrai, a race of highly evolved lizards, clash with a formidable coalition of brutal insect tribes in a battle to the death

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, War, Military Science Fiction, Adult, Science Fiction Fantasy

217 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Robert (Lynn) Asprin was born in 1946. While he wrote some stand alone novels such as The Cold Cash War, Tambu, and The Bug Wars and also the Duncan & Mallory Illustrated stories, Bob is best known for his series fantasy, such as the Myth Adventures of Aahz and Skeeve, the Phule's Company novels, and the Time Scout novels written with Linda Evans. He also edited the groundbreaking Thieves' World anthology series with Lynn Abbey. Other collaborations include License Invoked (set in the French Quarter of New Orleans) and several Myth Adventures novels, all written with Jody Lynn Nye.

Bob's final solo work was a contemporary fantasy series called Dragons, again set in New Orleans.

Bob passed away suddenly on May 22, 2008. He is survived by his daughter and son, his mother and his sister.

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very clever book written from an alien POV. well thought alien races and attitudes.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

One might expect a humorous novel with such a title and from such an author, but The Bug Wars is a good old-fashioned space opera battle book. (Except there aren't any humans.... it's lizards vs. bugs.) It gets a little too philosophic at times and a little too under-actiony, but it's a very good outer-space military sf novel, with all-alien viewpoints that are quite convincing. The characters are well-developed, and their societies are logically constructed. It's hard to decide who will win... and who you want to win. (You think mammals will ever develop enough to get involved? Nah, they're too short-lived.) The book is dedicated to a very good guy, Robert "Buck" Coulson, and his song "Reminder," which Asprin says inspired the story, is reprinted in the front.

[Adam Duclos · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book back when I was in junior high, and it has always been in the back of my mind as one of the books I compare new books to. It has a great feel to it, of nostalgia and progress.

The book is about a long standing war between a reptilian race of noble warriors and a implacable insectoid enemy... but although that does play out throughout the book, what I remember most is following the main character throughout his military career as he is repeatedly put into and taken out of a deep, stasis-like sleep (which is fairly common for his cold-blooded race), and promoted over and over due to his many successes.

In that way it is sort of a cross between two other book's I've read... the Star Trek novel The Final Reflection (where one character is frozen and unfrozen, although he loses his memories each time) and Piers Anthony's 'Bio of a Space Tyrant' series.

Throughout the book, the commander, a thoughtful and insightful type, battles the bugs along with his trusty companions, also frozen with him and promoted alongside him. As he faces each obstacle, he uses hard won first hand knowledge of the enemy and proven tactics that he has but the increasing number of younger subordinates are surprised by. By the same token, each time he wakes up he is confronted with strange new technology that he has a hard time assimilating, but is completely natural to the younger ones.

One of my favorite parts is when they discover 'color vision'. They had gone through the trouble of making a super tech camouflaged base using memory metal that could perfectly mimic the shapes of nearby forest down to perfect individual leaves, but were confused why the bugs could see right through it! Once they had figured it out, they realized that a few of the youngsters could see the difference, and those genes were incorporated into all future generations, driving a further wedge into the generation gap.

As the book ends, we find that his scientists are considering that perhaps even mammals might one day attain sentience, as astounding as that might sound considering their terribly short lifespans...

I remember this as being a great book...

[Nick Sheridan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Bug Wars follows Commander Rahm of the lizard Tzen across several campaigns against various insect enemies. Silly name, big premise, and evocative cover art… how could I not read it?

What I found in this little pulp science fiction novella (that retailed for just £1/$1.50 in 1979!) was a series of apparent failings that steadily revealed themselves as effective devices.

Predictably, the “galactic death struggle” comes with multiple surprises, defeats, and failed initiatives, and it is in these that the narrative voice shines. It isn't explaining Tzen culture to an imaginary reading audience, but justifying Rahm's actions to some imagined military debriefing drawing on Tzen culture for excuses.

Often I felt as though I was reading the second book in a series, initially a disappointment given that the book that explains so much else in so much detail. A past campaign against “The Aquatics” is revealed only when necessary for the plot, and there is a breadth of missing information regarding The Coalition of Insects, how they formed, and how long the Tzen have been fighting them.

However, since the narrative voice belongs solely to Commander Rahm, it makes sense that concepts and activities are only explained if he deems them important. Rahm doesn’t care how many colony ships his people have left, or how far their genocide has advanced, he only cares to follow orders.

When multiple members of Rahm’s squad die, he lists their passing with limited emotion or detail. While at first this might feel like laziness in storytelling, it has an element of realism. Not every death we face is a dramatic, drawn-out cinematic experience that happens in front of us. More often than not, people just die “off-page” and we hear of their passing through the reports of someone else.

As Rahm rises through the ranks with each campaign, the equipment and troops he takes with him increase exponentially. Each assault on the insect homeworld brings with it more complex and powerful weaponry, while stronger insect species only make their presence known after successful offensive against their allies. The Tzen push them, and they push back harder.

This escalation of events was mirrored by an escalation in my enjoyment. The Bug Wars is a silly looking book with a silly sounding concept, and it could easily have been ridiculous, camp, or badly written, but it is none of those things. It makes excellent points about accountability, mortality and the inconstant state of large scale conflict, and it does so in a way that is both smartly crafted and enjoyable.

Nick
xx

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have sat on this book for probably almost 10 years before picking it up. I figured I'm in the middle of a lot of series right now, so a one-off space-battle novel sounded like a fun, light read.
I don't know if I've ever been so pissed off that a book didn't have a sequel.
I get it, we did it. The title of the book passed, Bug Wars over. But what about Rahm? Is he ever gonna wake up again? What about Zur? Is he gonna be okay?
I've never been so "maybe I've just gotta sit down and write the sequel myself" before, but do I just sit down and write the sequel? People might not be as into it, cuz I'd definitely make those two lizards kiss, but c'mon they shoulda. They didn't even finish their last conversation. How sad. Zur gifted Rahm a sound machine to calm his best buddy down, they're so in lizard-love.

Sigh, anyway, enough post book trauma. This was a lot of fun. I expected some trashy sci-fi pulp, but to me this felt like a very well thought out dive into the mindset of another species. Their reasonings made sense, and their tragedies were effective, especially in the way their lizard brains coldly reacted to them. I would have loved more time to play with each of the characters, I especially thought Ssah would have stuck around as antagonist longer, but that's just not how the Tzen operate, and Robert Asprin fleshed the race out very well in my opinion.

If you're interested in starkly written characters and fast action (without humans characters), definitely check this out. And apologies to my sister who gifted me this book a decade ago. It was a good pick after all

[Nadienne Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was...okay. Not awful, not bad...just okay.

It's a classic science fiction war story that's light on a lot of details, such as when it takes place, where it takes place, and how it is possibly involved in our own universe.

Told in the first person perspective, which I hate (just personally), we follow a lizard person from a race of lizard people as they fight a war against space insects (wasps, ants, spiders, and grasshoppers). Both apparently learned their technology from the mythical "First ones" but we don't know who/what they were. One could figure that they might be Humans, but it's never elaborated upon - and I highly doubt Humans would teach the "Coalition of Insects" how to travel through space to colonize new worlds.

There's really no resolution nor a hint as to how the war may end...or why we should side with the lizards and hate the insects (as the lizards are clearly the aggressors).

I'd probably give it a pass unless you are a must-read-every-book-in-existence-sadist like myself.

[Bob Hodges · Rating 5 out of 5]

How anyone can give this book less than five stars is beyond me. An original science fiction storyline is rare in this day and age, but this book is original through and through. If you read it once, you'll read it again and again ever couple of years and enjoy it each time.

[Stanky Leg II · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the best book I’ve ever read about lizard people waging war on giant bugs. There was no romance, and very little plot other than lizard battles and war strategy. My favorite part was when Ssah and Rahm had an epic lizard duel. All in all it was a great humanoid space lizard book.

[Richard Seltzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this aloud to my son Tim.

[AoC · Rating 3 out of 5]

As the book itself points out in the opening song lyrics following events are set at some point in time before humanity was a thing, era when species of insects and lizards were vying for dominance of the stars. We follow the lizard race, so-called Tzen empire, as they embark on another phase of their seemingly long spanning war against the insect coalition comprised of wasps, leapers and ants. Compared to them Tzen are a monolithic and warlike race with their people bred for cast role and our protagonist Rahm is one of the warriors who puts together an unlikely team, because it's not all-warriors the way they're expected to be when headed by a warrior leader, and leads them out into various dangers as they get stranded, play a pivotal role in uncovering enemy intelligence and resolve their own tensions.

Short novel covers what he and his team were doing during multiple offensives made on the coalition, but I honestly think events themselves take a backseat compared to inner group dynamics we become witness to as we get a window into Tzen society. Because of the nature of the book and seeing that I consider this to be the main draw over story, characters and all else I really won't go into detail, but I'll just touch on some things like how warriors, technicians and scientists have mutual distaste for others' caste yet clearly need each other, how given that you can change your cast based on talents can lead to some interesting skillsets that come useful in the wilderness and how familial ties in Tzen can become a tremendous liability because they cannot stand in the way of doing your duty.

Sadly this also brings me to the main problem of the novel – it's incredibly dry in its writing style. What I mean by this is little effort is made for scenes to really flow into each other and god help you with the dialog because it's utilitarian to the extreme and Rahm in particular often resorts to simple “Explain” which is then followed by a paragraph long literal explanation from other characters that doubles up as in-character lecture and conveying the message to us, the readers. I wouldn't even pick up on this if it wasn't so pervasive and ever-present in the book. Events are also clearly disjointed in flow of time, but that could be well explained because Tzen soldiers go to stasis between operations and it's never established how much time has, in fact, passed between major events. One small touch I like is how we're talking generations here and old cast comments how these newfangled Tzen can actually tell colors apart and are brasher with more self-initiative, but also less stoic and not as zealously willing to throw their life away.

In the end it's a pretty good read hampered by Asprin's writing style. I went in expecting action, and you will get some of it alongside exploration of lizard technology and military tactics, but the main appeal is most definitely the social angle. Ending probably left a much larger impact on me than I expected as certain someone wonders what will become of Tzen society now that it has to change.

[Jennifer Margulis · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I'm not sure this is the book I would have picked out for you," my husband said when he saw me reading it.

The Bug War, written in 1979, is a very strange book. My husband read it when he was eleven years old and I've seen his beat-up paperback on our bookshelves for years. I was looking for something to read last week and wondered if Ender's Game (about the wars with the Buggers) had been partially inspired by Robert L. Asprin's first novel. So I decided to read it.

The story is told from the point of view of a cold blooded sentient creature, Rahm, a commander fighting for The Empire. A member of a race called the Tzen, Rahm leads his warriors on three missions in the course of the novel. Their objective is to destroy sentient insects: Wasps, Leapers, Ants, in order to inhabitant their planets as they expand their own colonies.

What's interesting about the book is the way Aspirin tries to relate the thought process of a creature who is decidedly not human. When anyone under his command disobeys him, the commander does not hesitate to kill them. He has no connection to his own offspring. And though he strives to understand other castes (the Technicians, the Scientists), he has little natural curiosity or concern for anything outside his narrow scope.

The book is a little disjointed. For a story about reptiles in flying machines and interspace domination, surprisingly little actually happens in the plot. There are long periods of waiting for the commander and for the reader. There is also a little too much weapon cataloging and a little too little character development for my taste. Still, I enjoyed the book. And I understand that Asprin went on to write dozens more highly acclaimed science fiction books, which makes me glad to have read one of his first novels.

[Mark Isaak · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is rare that I encounter a book where humans make no appearance at all, nor even anthropomorphisms of other beings. This book tells of an interstellar war between a reptile race and an insect race, both intelligent and formidable. The reptile race is different enough from human to seem distinctly alien; the bugs are more alien still, deliberately left largely as unknowns. Asprin succeeds completely at making these races consistent and believable. The reptiles are close enough to humans that the narrator, in facing his problems, gives an extended and relevant perspective on leadership. Unfortunately, the alienness of the reptiles takes the form of them being largely personally detached from each other and always ready to die for their cause. As a result, it was impossible for me to have much sympathy for any character. For the intellectual aspects, this book easily ranks as four-stars, but the weak emotional content brings my rating down.

[Darnoc Leadburger · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's been a few weeks since I read this book, which makes this book a bit hard to review because it's not that memorable. It does explore some interesting concepts about alien races and specialization within species, but it's not too concept-dense and lacks the "fun" aspect I've come to expect from Robert Lynn Asprin, who usually writes more light-hearted and even comedic SF; it's an okay military science fiction novel that barely gets over the three-star line. Even so, it is worth recapping what this book is about and how it splits its main character Rham's story into three separate parts, which each representing a new level that he reaches in the Tzen military...

This book opens with our main character, Rham, awakening right before the first battle in a war between his people (the reptilian Tzen) and the Coalition of Insects, an alliance of different insectoid species. The Tzen forces plan to strike the Wasps' queens and nests on one of their planets, and Rham's part is to lead about half-a-dozen soldiers in jet-like vehicles in the offensive. They do a pretty good job of things, but when the battle has been won, their starship leaves without them - this is because Tzen high command predicts how many soldiers will survive any given battle and only stock the starships with enough provisions to get that number of troops back. So when there's a big success, like this battle, some people get left behind. Rham orders his squad to lie low in a cave and orders them into hibernation until the next season, where they start investigating a different insectoid species, the Leapers, so they can inform the Tzen Empire about them when a ship returns to the planet. Rham's second-in-command, Zur - who was going to be part of the Scientist caste instead of the Warrior one until he asked to join Rham's team directly - leads the research effort. Kor, a female Warrior, is also a big help to their efforts. There is some infighting, though, including one Warrior who doesn't see the value in her teammates... the surviving members of the squad do get picked up, and then we shift to Part Two, where Rham is leading an expedition to the homeworld of the Coalition of Insects to find a natural enemy to the Leapers. This involves a team containing not just Warriors but also Scientists and Technicians - now Rham has to manage personality conflicts and different goals between the three groups and, somehow, keep them on a congruent track...

I'm not going to go through all the nitty-gritty details of Rham's newfound challenges, but some highlights included several younger Tzen having a rare "color vision," which the insects are presumed to have; Zur and Kor's continued involvement, even though Kor ends up giving her life; dealing with Ants, who perform a full attack on the Tzen base at the end of Part 2; and a junior Scientist's discovery of the Leapers' natural enemy, a species of "warmbloods" (mammal-esque at the least) who eat Leaper eggs and might've wiped out the Leapers if it wasn't for their natural enemy, carnivorous plants. The Tzen round them up and start breeding and distributing them, but there's one more problem to take care of, which is covered in Part Three: a final Planetary assault to wipe out all of the anthills. Rham is assigned as a Planetary commander, and picks Zur as his second-in-command. They pick four other commanders to lead assaults on one of the four anthills a piece, and their different outlooks give weight to Rham's introspective theories that the "Bug War" has changed Rham society by giving youth certainty in their species' continued existence. Rham oversees and coordinates the final battle, which is ultimately a success thanks to Thumpers and both hot- and cold- weapons (the Ants like to adapt, so they can't depends on just one of them), but toward the end of the battle the Ants launch a spaceship and Rham sends Zur's backup team to destroy it, which he realizes might end in Zur's team not making their cruiser's pickup cutoff, But Rham soon realizes that those kinds of questions don't matter now; it's over...

The more I think about this book, the harder to classify it is. At first it just looks like a military SF novel, but then you realize that the book is completely devoid of human characters, which is a great thing that I'd love to see more science fiction works tackle, but it's not a typical choice for a pulpy science fiction novel. That's the thing, though - *The Bug Wars* isn't really *pulpy*. It's more introspective than that. But it's not introspective in the way that introspective *military* novels are - this isn't about the rights or wrong of doing armed business. This is about the different castes in Tzen society, and how Rham starts thinking more like a Scientist or a Technician than most Warriors ever do, especially thanks to Zur, who spent some time in the Scientist caste before becoming a Warrior. It's actually a pretty interesting way of looking at these things, but it's not particularly intelligent or thought-provoking or paradigm-shifting. There's some basic paradigm manipulation at play, such as the Tzen being shocked once a few of them start seeing life *in color*, but it's all kind of... I dunno, basic. The Tzen might seem kind of cold and alien at first glance, but really, there's not a whole lot setting them apart from humans beyond the caste structure, which is painted in words that are very easy for humans to understand and relate to, and when you're writing all about aliens, humans shouldn't shouldn't be able to relate to your work all that well. I know that writing a completely alienating book would be much harder than writing *The Bug Wars* and would probably sell significantly less well, but it almost feels like that's what Asprin would've had to do to sell this concept to the science fiction snob inside of me.

It doesn't help that Asprin's prose is kind of blocky. It does feel like military SF prose, even if there are less battle sequences than one would think. It's just... average writing, and even though I enjoyed the parts of the book dedicated to tactics and birds' eyes' views of the later battles, it never felt like I was witnessing any military geniuses like the book kind of tries to imply with Rham's linear progression through the military ranks. Still, I enjoyed that three-part progression. Sadly, I didn't enjoy the worldbuilding as much - as much as we did have members of the three Tzen castes in front of us the whole time, it felt like there should've been more castes and more to the Tzen culture. Like... what's it like for Tzen on the homefront? Are there civilians? Is every member of the species one of these castes? What did life look like before the discovery of the Coalition of Insects and what will it look like after? None of this is given any page space, and while you could argue that's because Rham's first-person perspective doesn't care about any of this, if he's this introspective, why wouldn't he think about those things? And the framing of the Coalition as this force that wiped out some "First Ones" that existed before the Tzen after the First Ones had given them technology and then the Tzen use this technology and improve upon it to fight the Coalition... it was given two pages of explanation and dropped for the rest of the book, and those two pages didn't even make complete sense. It was just poorly thought out and/or improperly telegraphed. The more I write about this book, the less amount of thought that seems to have gone into it...

One last negative note before I turn things around - one final reason why reading *The Bug Wars* felt weird was because it felt like a sequel. The world wasn't completely fleshed out and there were a bunch of characters with deceptively simple names and a lot of battles happened off-screen and it just didn't feel complete; it felt like one part of a larger story. And sometimes, that larger story was more interesting than Rham's. But at the end of the day, for all the problems with this book, I really didn't mind reading it. And it did do a good number of things that military science fiction doesn't often do. Saying that it's a good book is a bit of a stretch, but it's not poor either; even though a lot of the details will fade because of the blocky, unconvincing prose, my general feeling of estrangement while reading this book will remain, and I'd love to see some other books focus only on aliens and/or about strict castes and different ways of thinking applied to them, albeit with less of the *Star Trek: The Original Series* naivety. Still, if you like 60s/70s science fiction TV (notice how I didn't say "books" or "sf in general"), you could do a lot worse than checking out this book.

As for me, I'm not pleased but I'm not upset, and I'm thankful for getting this as part of a Christmas book haul last year - I am a sucker for mass market paperbacks with stained edges. Nonetheless, next time I read Robert L. Asprin again, I'll be sure to hit something more squarely on the goofy and comedic side. This book gets a 6/10 from me - sitting on the edge between two and three stars - and a hesitant recommendation to those who like the concept, because there does seem to be a fair part of the Internet that doesn't mind seeing all the things I spent the last half-hour criticizing. Make use of my half-hour however you will, and here's hoping you some happy reading, whether you're reading about humans, sentient lizards, fairies, fungi, firefighters, or whatever other caste you'd like to belong to...

[Trevor Vallender · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a difficult thing to write from the point of view of an alien; either you end up with characters entirely impossible to empathise with, or characters too similar to seem anything but human. Asprin does an admirable job of walking the line, writing of an alien race with absolute dedication to their Empire, and few human concerns. As the book progresses, Asprin seems to use this to examine exactly what does make us human, by looking at the changes the characters go through as their society evolves. It would have been nice if he had taken these thoughts a bit further and deeper, but The Bug Wars is still an enjoyable - if disposable - take on military SF.

[Ringman Roth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Totally awesome book! I picked it up for the shear cheese factor, but in reality its a very deep science fiction that goes into political, racial, and philosophical issues. I think some politicians should read this, but they'd probably take one look at the cover and laugh. A must read for all science fiction fans looking for something different.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

a book that only take a day to read. A wonderful story with intersting look at a culture coming to grips with change. An interesting side note is that no humans are mentioned or ever scene in this book.

[Isanox · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my top ten books.

Image if the 1950 movie THEM! was crossed with Dark Age of Camelot.

[Andrew Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possibly the only book I would need if stranded on a desert island. Not sure why but this tome has infinite re-readability for me. Give it a try it is a ripping-yarn.

[sj · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this book at a secondhand shop because the cover made me giggle, but ended up loving it. I like when my science-fiction is mixed with politics, and the xenophobia was an added bonus.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a gem.

[Mars · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's very light fare, filled with obviousness and a bit of inconsistency, but might prove very enlightening for kids, since it investigates how leadership works (know your people! duh) and the like.

[Tina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is basically about a bunch of lizards fighting giant bugs, and it's freaking awesome.

The novel is told in first person from one of the lizards, named Rahm. He’s a warrior and has to lead a team on an attack against the bugs. He and his small team get stranded on the bug planet for a year, which gives him experience to lead more expeditions against the bugs. There are four types of bugs: Wasps, which we never really see, Leapers, which are grasshoppers (I think), Ants, and Spiders (yuck).

Both the bugs and the lizards have been elevated before their time by a peaceful society that shared space tech with them. The bugs, due to their inherent goals of mass reproduction, decided to destroy these forerunners and anyone else who served to threaten their spread into the galaxy. The lizards, generally only engaging in honorable combat, have made it their mission to wipe out the bugs to save the galaxy.

Rahm is an interesting character because while he’s wooden, stoic, and all-business, it’s clear those are personality traits grafted onto him from birth. He doesn’t resist it or lose the stick up his ass, but he does grow - he becomes more tolerant of the other castes (at least that we know of), the Scientists and the Technicians, and moves from an involved leader of a small team to a strategic general.

Aside from a few passing mentions of breeding, we don’t see anything of the lizard society outside these 3 castes, let alone how the kids are raised (it seems communal or by assignment, as Rahm runs into a kid of his that he never knew existed, but feels nothing paternal towards when he killed Ssah in battle that took me by surprise - I thought he'd back out at the end but nope!). We do learn they are true lizards and lay eggs, but not what their cities look like, what type of entertainment they have (if anything), and if there is a working-class, royalty, or how their society functions economically.

While we could have learned a whole lot more about the lizards in this regard, they do feel alien. They don’t have concepts of love or even friendship, so we don’t really understand what drives them (which adds to the alien nature of them). What are they living for? It’s possible Rahm just efuses to ponder on this, but as we don’t get any other perspectives, but it’s hard to know for sure.

The other characters are pretty much a revolving door, except for Zur, Rahm’s Scientist turned Warrior and second in command, but they are distinctive. I loved the gender parity in the novel. Sexism doesn’t exist in the Tzen society, at all, even a hint of it, which was awesome to see in a book from 1979. I was expecting maybe one female warrior and the rest of them to be at home, but nope. Honestly, the 60s and 70s were sometimes better for women in classic sci-fi than the late 80s and 90s. I have theories on why.

But today we’re talking bugs and lizards, not gender politics. Overall, the plot was a little thin, the writing was nothing to write home about, and there was no romance or even comedy, but I still loved reading this thing. I devoured it. It was fascinating and fun!

[Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun and fast paced space opera; chronicling the war between a race of mission oriented lizard warriors, and a coalition of relentlessly expansionist insect races.
The whole narrative follows a single lizard warrior through each phase of the war, and each phase of his career as a military leader.
Overall a quick and satisfying read that seeks only to entertain, and requires no deep examination or careful thought to appreciate.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Old school sci-fi. I first read this probably 45 years ago and felt it aged well. It incorporates ideas on duty and honor, and the positive and negative aspects of what a species singularly devoted to a single cause might look like: devotion to duty and the society as a whole, but little mirth or alternative ideas, or even mild disagreement.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

I randomly found this book in the library and was intrigued the by the cover. I don't remember much of the story now, as I read it back in the late 90's, but I do recall enjoying it immensely, and wolfing it down in just a couple of days.

[Derelict Space Sheep · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beneath the horribly pulpy title lies a well-measured, almost cerebral piece of military SF. All the characters are insectoid, yet they engage the reader every bit as much as Earthly protagonists would, their committed hive mentality evoking western perceptions of Asian soldiers.

[Kevin Downer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun book found at the Book Mine in Jacksonville, FL. Lizards vs. Insects for galactic supremacy.

[Brad Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic view of existential questions from the point of view of a warrior reptile race with advanced technology attempting to maintain an empire. What is not to like?

[Dean Komene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read the book when I was in college. Liked the style of the author and the story line which really created an interesting story.

[Rioden · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am Tzen and I approve this message.