Death's Head - Hardcover

Gunn, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0345498275 ISBN 13: 9780345498274

Publisher: Del Rey, 2007

Synopsis

At the top of the galactic pecking order is the United Free, a civilization of awe-inspiring technological prowess so far in advance of other space-faring powers as to be untouchable gods. Most of the known universe has fallen under their inscrutable sway. The rest is squabbled over by two empires: one ruled with an iron fist by OctoV, a tyrant who appears to his followers as a teenage boy but is in reality something very different, the other administered by the Uplifted, bizarre machine-like intelligences, and their no-lonqer-quite-human servants, cyborgs known as the Enlightened.
Sven Tveskoeg, an ex-sergeant demoted for insubordination and sentenced to death, is a vicious killer with a stubborn streak of loyalty. Sven possesses a fierce if untutored intelligence and a genetic makeup that is 98.2 percent human and 1.8 percent ... something else. Perhaps that "something else" explains how quickly he heals from even the worst injuries or how he can communicate telepathically with the ferox, fearsome alien savages whose natural fighting abilities regularly outperform the advanced technology of their human enemies. Perhaps it is these unique abilities that bring Sven to the attention of OctoV.
Drafted into the Death's Head, the elite enforcers of OctoV's imperial will, Sven is given a new lease on life. Armed with a SIG diabolo - an intelligent gun and an illegal symbiont called a kyp, Sven is sent to a faraway planet, the latest battleground between the Uplifted and OctoV. There he finds himself in the midst of military disaster, one that will take all his courage - and all his firepower - to survive.
But an even deadlier struggle is taking place, a struggle that will draw the attention of the United Free. Sven knows he is a pawn, and pawns have a bad habit of being sacrificed.
But Sven is nobody's sacrifice. And even a pawn can checkmate a king.

About this title

Review:

"I was hooked...took me right back to the fun I had reading Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter on Mars or the old Robert E Howard Conan books!...Yeah! 'Starship Troopers' meets Schwarzenegger's 'Commando'." (NEAL ASHER)

"The plot kicks off at an absurd speed and never really lets up...an outrageous read: violent, witty and immense fun" (DEATHRAY)

"Powerful and explosive...Tveskoeg is one of the classiest fictional hard men I've come across in a long time" (John Berlyne SF REVU)

"Unashamed, balls-to-the-wall science fiction...violent, graphic and at times a little crazy...A fun ride" (SFFWORLD)

"Crunchingly hard...shocking, exciting, murderous fun with more than little intrigue to keep you guessing. This is how cults are born" (DAILY SPORT)

Book Description:

A hugely entertaining, action-packed, testosterone-fuelled, bone-crunchingly violent SF adventure...

About this edition

• Publisher: Del Rey
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0345498275
• ISBN 13: 9780345498274
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 345