Friday, April 26, 2013

Review - Hell's Legionnaire

Hell's Legionnaire
By L. Ron Hubbard
Director: Jim Meskimen
Starring: Phil Proctor, Brooke Bloom, R.F. Daley, Jim Meskimen, Gino Montesinos, Enn Reitel and Michael Yurchak
Studio: Galaxy Press
ISBN-13: 978-1592122622
Release Date: March 21, 2011
Running Time: 2 hours 18 minutes

Review:

Before eReaders, cable TV, cell phones, and computers, people during the 30s and 40s (known as the golden age) spent their time going to the picture shows, listening to the serials on the radio, and reading pulp fiction magazines. Galaxy Press has been releasing the late L. Ron Hubbard's short stories onto audiobooks featuring an outstanding voice casts and amazing sound effects. Galaxy press sent me a complimentary copy of Hell's Legionnaire in exchange for my honest review. The story first appeared in the July 1935 issue of Mystery Adventures. There are two other adventure tales called The Barbarians and The Squad That Never Came Back.

In Hell's Legionnaire, an American, Dusty Colton, voluntarily joins the French Foreign Legion, but soon abandons his duties and quickly finds himself in confrontation with the Berber tribal in North Africa. He witnesses the tribal slaughtering of a geological survey team. He starts to question whether he was better off with the Legion. The lone survivor of the massacre is a woman. Dusty can't stand by and watch her be killed. He must come up with a solid plan to save the woman from the tribal and escape the Legion at the same time.

The Berber tribal returns for The Barbarians, which finds Captain Jack Harvey of the French Foreign Legion going on a one man mission to scout the enemy lines, possibly rescue a prisoner, and report back to the Legion. Sounds easy for the ace pilot, but things get dangerous when Jack is captured by the tribal.

The longest of the three is The Squad That Never Came Back, where a commander of the French Foreign Legion sends his eight man squad into the Berber region to find an ancient Roman City that is suppose to have gold and jewels, but standing in their way of become rich is the deadly Berber tribal.

I'm the not the biggest fan of war tales, but these three tales are cleverly written with a great voice cast and sound effects to match. My favorite is the The Squad That Never Came Back, which somewhat reminds of the Clint Eastwood movie Kelly's Heroes where a squad leaves their command to search for riches beyond their wildest dreams. The Barbarians is an intense and is the most graphic of the three. Hell's Legionnaire has some romance thrown into the story, though it is my least favorite, it is still entertaining. Overall, I enjoyed listening to the audiobook and I recommend it others.


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