About the book: 2010 / Drake's personal contribution to the space genre can be called his novel "Ranks of Bronze", 1986. Based on the 1976 short story of the same name, it depicts warfare among the stars waged in the distant future by the lost Roman legions of Cross. The Legion has been transported from Earth to space - the soldiers are used as mercenaries, owned and controlled by some aliens who only want profit. and which force the Romans to wage cheap, low-tech wars with the inhabitants of the planets they are interested in, although the legionnaires have no personal enmity towards the local inhabitants and generally vaguely understand what is happening. None of the legion stands a chance. The soldiers behave convincingly, as befits Roman soldiers. They are a very effective fighting force, capable of winning. Without noticing it, they move from planet to planet and fight, and sometimes die. They are unhappy. There is a biographical information.