Upon reaching adulthood, Jil returns to her beloved nebula, in time to find the sector in chaos.

A lonely child growing up in the backwater Hawkshead Nebula, Jil's life takes a decided turn for the worse at age 7, when her starship-pilot father disappears on a mission, her mother remarries, and the family moves to a more 'civilized' region of the galaxy. Taking place several generations later than the earlier books, 'Queen' tells the story of Jil Gyrel, the only woman to take center stage in a Legion epic. It would be a full 28 years before a short story featuring any of the Legion characters came forth, 1967's 'Nowhere Near,' and it was not until 1983, almost 50 years after part 1 of the series ('The Legion of Space') was released, that the final novel of the tetralogy, 'Queen of the Legion,' was delivered. The book itself was published in 1983, but definitely has the feel of an older work.Īll in all, I liked this book quite a bit and certainly recommend Williamson's stories to other readers.įans of Jack Williamson's Legion of Space series would have a long time to wait after part 3 of the saga, 'One Against the Legion,' appeared in 1939. Of course, Williamson certainly came of age during an older era so I can see where he was deriving the character from. Also, though I liked the main character, Jil Gyrel, I was sometimes irritated by stereotyped feminine weaknesses that she showed, such as falling in love with just about every man she met. It didn't feel padded but I thought certain scenes could have been moved along faster and would have benefited from that. I felt the book was somewhat longer than it needed to be.

The plot had a number of high points and kept me interested and wanting to know more. I had a great deal of sympathy with the main hero, Jil Gyrel, who becomes the 'Queen of the Legion.' 3. All characters were memorable, both villains and heroes, as well as aliens and robots. The descriptions of space and planetary landscapes are poetic and memorable.

It is chronologically 4th in the Legion of Space series by Williamson, and I have the others as well. I've had this one for a while and am glad I finally got around to reading it. Despite this, I've not read much by him myself, although I've read a lot of SF over the years. He was named a grandmaster by the Science Fiction Writers of America, the second one to be so named after Robert Heinlein. Jack Williamson (1908 - 2006) wrote a lot of books and was quite popular and respected in his time.

The Legion of Space by Jack Williamson