This is Drake's latest Hammer's Slammers book. He does a pretty good job with it. Like many of his Slammer's books it seems to be composed of novellas. In this case it almost seems like three separate short stories that he either wrote as one larger story or wove together after the fact. He even repeats things in the second 'chapter' that seems to assume you didn't read the first. Overall it is an interesting story if not particularly deep. The focus is definitely on the action and not the politics in this one. The ending was a tad cheesy. If you like the Slammers you'll like this one as well.

David Drake's Paying The Piper presents a new 'Hammer's Slammers' novel centered around mercenaries and war. A young lieutenant finds himself in the middle of a hot war on an alien world in this story of war for pay.