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tenthrow's review against another edition
4.0
An excellent installment in the story. The ending felt a little rushed to me but otherwise good military sci-fi
shonari's review
3.0
As a reviewer pointed out, there were way too many nameless/faceless enemies. It didn't add to the suspense, it was more annoying that anything else.
righteousridel's review against another edition
2.0
Fool Me Twice, Shame on Me
Formulatic and unsurprising, Destroyer is an entertaining novel that feels very familiar. Joshua Dalzelle excels at focusing on a single spaceship and her captain, telling a well-paced tale that goes by so quickly that one can ignore its faults. Nothing is outright bad, but the low page count means that everything aside from the tituar destroyer is little more than a name. A case of bark being worse than its bite, big claims like a Darkshik ‘war machine’ and ‘future of two species hanging in the balance’ never live up to the story that’s actually told.
The Black Fleet Saga has always been about a single spaceship facing the enemy on its own, and Destroyer does not deviate from this formula. Wolfe returns once more, completely unsupported and facing uncharacterized alien antagonists who threaten humanity. If this sounds like Warship, Counterstrike and Iron & Blood, that’s because it is. Once again surrounded by bigotry, held back from doing the right thing by political circumstance, Wolfe channels the rebel within all of us and comes out decorated with honours. It’s an invigorating combination, but leaves you feeling empty of substance.
The worldbuilding is a total mess. The Darshik overall strategy is non-existent when analyzed across the entire trilogy, and has never lived up to the title of Expansion Wars. Alien motivations were analyzed to great fanfare in Iron & Blood, yet was an unsolved mystery that was entirely forgotten in this concluding chapter. The human political situation only exists to setup speed bumps for Wolfe. Everything about the worldbuilding feels ad-hoc — written on the fly in order to prop up a plot twist — instead of being something imagined since the beginning.
This leaves me with my primary complaint with the series: a mismatch between the claimed stakes and the actual story being told. The author wants to write about a vendetta between two ship captains, but resorts to threats to society or humanity in order to build tension. Such galactic perils require a much larger solution, and I find myself rolling my eyes when inevitably, some ill-foreshadowed plot twist will result in Wolfe once again facing the enemy on his own. It’s predictable, entertaining, but in retrospect, terribly written.
For fans that have made it through five previous novels, Destroyer is a fine entertainment. For those on the cusp like me, you’ll tire of the superficial universe, cardboard characters, and worse, the realization that the author shows no signs of being interested in improving his craft. He’s found a formula and will execute on that for all its worth.
Not recommended with reservations.
With the fast-paced writing, you’d expect that the author would stick with the same supporting cast. Instead, he offs Wellington off-screen (in what appears to be entirely natural circumstances), introduces a new leader of the UTF whose name I’ve forgotten, much less care about. Markham is written out of the story for no reason, despite introducing his daughter in a hamfisted cold-open that seemed to suggest a Wolfe-Markham subplot that never materialized.
Then comes the treatment of poor Celestia Wright, the only woman of note, who is given a promotion to cardboard cutout. From a reasonably conflicted captain with a hero worship problem but struggling to juggle her career ambitions, to just Wolfe’s enabler. She no longer even has a B-plot to advance.
And of course, the Darshik menance ultimately comes across as cheap and nonsensical. A single ship blessed with plot armor to magically kill whatever it wants in Terran space, the antagonist wasn’t even named by the end of the series. The first novel’s “trap” makes no sense now (tossing away hundreds of ‘drone ships’) given their small economic base, and the second’s terraforming mystery is out of place since the Darshik are just terrorists. None of these things had anything to do with their Master Strategy of reviving the Phage menance.
Honestly, this last novel was a mess. Killing off the Cube was absurd, it didn’t even follow logically and was ultimately irrelevant since Wolfe killed the enemy without losing his ship. Since it’s the end of a trilogy, the author started killing off crew members left-right-and-center, but since the Nemesis was only around for a single novel, I built up zero emotional baggage for those losses.
Vapid recycled tropes. I’m out.
Series Overall Spoiler-Free Thoughts
★★★★☆ New Frontiers (Expansion Wars Trilogy, #1)
★★★☆☆ Iron & Blood (Expansion Wars Trilogy, #2)
★★☆☆☆ Destroyer (Expansion Wars Trilogy, #3)
The is the second trilogy that started off well but ran out of steam. I find myself always wishing there was more: more substance, more consequences, more variety. While Joshua Dalzelle is excellent at setting things up, he’s just unable to deliver.
★★☆☆☆ - Not Recommended with reservations. This is more re-make than it is a sequel, and only true fans will stick with it.
Formulatic and unsurprising, Destroyer is an entertaining novel that feels very familiar. Joshua Dalzelle excels at focusing on a single spaceship and her captain, telling a well-paced tale that goes by so quickly that one can ignore its faults. Nothing is outright bad, but the low page count means that everything aside from the tituar destroyer is little more than a name. A case of bark being worse than its bite, big claims like a Darkshik ‘war machine’ and ‘future of two species hanging in the balance’ never live up to the story that’s actually told.
The Black Fleet Saga has always been about a single spaceship facing the enemy on its own, and Destroyer does not deviate from this formula. Wolfe returns once more, completely unsupported and facing uncharacterized alien antagonists who threaten humanity. If this sounds like Warship, Counterstrike and Iron & Blood, that’s because it is. Once again surrounded by bigotry, held back from doing the right thing by political circumstance, Wolfe channels the rebel within all of us and comes out decorated with honours. It’s an invigorating combination, but leaves you feeling empty of substance.
The worldbuilding is a total mess. The Darshik overall strategy is non-existent when analyzed across the entire trilogy, and has never lived up to the title of Expansion Wars. Alien motivations were analyzed to great fanfare in Iron & Blood, yet was an unsolved mystery that was entirely forgotten in this concluding chapter. The human political situation only exists to setup speed bumps for Wolfe. Everything about the worldbuilding feels ad-hoc — written on the fly in order to prop up a plot twist — instead of being something imagined since the beginning.
This leaves me with my primary complaint with the series: a mismatch between the claimed stakes and the actual story being told. The author wants to write about a vendetta between two ship captains, but resorts to threats to society or humanity in order to build tension. Such galactic perils require a much larger solution, and I find myself rolling my eyes when inevitably, some ill-foreshadowed plot twist will result in Wolfe once again facing the enemy on his own. It’s predictable, entertaining, but in retrospect, terribly written.
For fans that have made it through five previous novels, Destroyer is a fine entertainment. For those on the cusp like me, you’ll tire of the superficial universe, cardboard characters, and worse, the realization that the author shows no signs of being interested in improving his craft. He’s found a formula and will execute on that for all its worth.
Not recommended with reservations.
Spoiler
The following is in spoiler tags, and I say so since some Goodreads clients may not respect it. You’ve been warned:With the fast-paced writing, you’d expect that the author would stick with the same supporting cast. Instead, he offs Wellington off-screen (in what appears to be entirely natural circumstances), introduces a new leader of the UTF whose name I’ve forgotten, much less care about. Markham is written out of the story for no reason, despite introducing his daughter in a hamfisted cold-open that seemed to suggest a Wolfe-Markham subplot that never materialized.
Then comes the treatment of poor Celestia Wright, the only woman of note, who is given a promotion to cardboard cutout. From a reasonably conflicted captain with a hero worship problem but struggling to juggle her career ambitions, to just Wolfe’s enabler. She no longer even has a B-plot to advance.
And of course, the Darshik menance ultimately comes across as cheap and nonsensical. A single ship blessed with plot armor to magically kill whatever it wants in Terran space, the antagonist wasn’t even named by the end of the series. The first novel’s “trap” makes no sense now (tossing away hundreds of ‘drone ships’) given their small economic base, and the second’s terraforming mystery is out of place since the Darshik are just terrorists. None of these things had anything to do with their Master Strategy of reviving the Phage menance.
Honestly, this last novel was a mess. Killing off the Cube was absurd, it didn’t even follow logically and was ultimately irrelevant since Wolfe killed the enemy without losing his ship. Since it’s the end of a trilogy, the author started killing off crew members left-right-and-center, but since the Nemesis was only around for a single novel, I built up zero emotional baggage for those losses.
Vapid recycled tropes. I’m out.
Series Overall Spoiler-Free Thoughts
★★★★☆ New Frontiers (Expansion Wars Trilogy, #1)
★★★☆☆ Iron & Blood (Expansion Wars Trilogy, #2)
★★☆☆☆ Destroyer (Expansion Wars Trilogy, #3)
The is the second trilogy that started off well but ran out of steam. I find myself always wishing there was more: more substance, more consequences, more variety. While Joshua Dalzelle is excellent at setting things up, he’s just unable to deliver.
★★☆☆☆ - Not Recommended with reservations. This is more re-make than it is a sequel, and only true fans will stick with it.
vailynst's review
3.0
Notes:
Narrator was great. I'll definitely try out his other work. This trilogy felt like a transition piece to setup the next big stage for the story world. Fun but not as engaging as Black Fleet Trilogy.
Narrator was great. I'll definitely try out his other work. This trilogy felt like a transition piece to setup the next big stage for the story world. Fun but not as engaging as Black Fleet Trilogy.
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