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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
I enjoyed the characters and the premise. I plan to continue reading the series.
I listened to this as an audiobook.
This was a really fun read. It's a pleasant mix of space opera and milSF, loosely inspired by (but not adapted in detail from) Anabasis, Xenophon's autobiography chronicling a long retreat from deep inside enemy territory. In this work, instead of a company of Greek mercenaries, we have a fleet of space-going warships.
The characters are not deeply developed, but there's a lot of attention paid to group psychology and morale. The fleet commander has to do as much tactical thinking regarding own captains' faith in him (or lack thereof) as he does the enemy's disposition.
The author pays really impressive attention to space physics. Oh, he occasionally violates them - there's FTL travel - but he pays damn close attention to the fact that information can only propagate at the speed of light. Communication between ships often has latency of seconds or even minutes, it takes hours for actions at one end of a solar system to be seen at the other, and you often have a couple of days to think about that enemy fleet that's bearing down on you.
Good read, fun read; I plan on reading the rest of the series.
This was a really fun read. It's a pleasant mix of space opera and milSF, loosely inspired by (but not adapted in detail from) Anabasis, Xenophon's autobiography chronicling a long retreat from deep inside enemy territory. In this work, instead of a company of Greek mercenaries, we have a fleet of space-going warships.
The characters are not deeply developed, but there's a lot of attention paid to group psychology and morale. The fleet commander has to do as much tactical thinking regarding own captains' faith in him (or lack thereof) as he does the enemy's disposition.
The author pays really impressive attention to space physics. Oh, he occasionally violates them - there's FTL travel - but he pays damn close attention to the fact that information can only propagate at the speed of light. Communication between ships often has latency of seconds or even minutes, it takes hours for actions at one end of a solar system to be seen at the other, and you often have a couple of days to think about that enemy fleet that's bearing down on you.
Good read, fun read; I plan on reading the rest of the series.
I think I like military science fiction. But it's so hard to tell, because a lot of it isn't very good.
What I mean here is that The Lost Fleet isn't very good. It's not awful, it's all-round better than [b:Into the Black|12971820|Into the Black (Odyssey One, #1)|Evan Currie|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1334235177l/12971820._SY75_.jpg|16237035] (by Evan Currie, and which I reviewed before) for example, and yet in individual ways its so much worse.
The characters are all the same. The bad apples are cardboard cut-out people with no personality apart from the will to be the villains.
It needs an editor to point out the language problems. Phrases with annoying repetition, like
"He could see that the ship had once been a good-looking ship, but..." just set my teeth on edge.
People glower and scowl a lot, which is apparently the MSF way of showing emotion.
The protagonist is constantly exhausted, which has an in-universe explanation, but is really a lazy way of replacing conflict with an inner struggle. In one paragraph, his effective second-in-command goes from "glowering" to "glowing" because he compliments her. It's like people are really primitive state machines or something.
The premise is interesting: it's an interstellar case of impostor syndrome. I mean, it's definitely explored, I'm just not sure that repeating thoughts about how he can't live up to people's expectations is a fulfilling exploration.
Then there are Big Space Battles and I have a problem with them.
I mentioned [b:Into the Black|12971820|Into the Black (Odyssey One, #1)|Evan Currie|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1334235177l/12971820._SY75_.jpg|16237035] earlier because I see a lot of similarities between the books, but what Currie does well is his presentation of the mechanics of warfare over large distances. Campbell tries to make things trickier by factoring in light-speed delays where one side can't tell what the other is doing for minutes at a time, and that's... reasonable. It's actually pretty smart.
It would work if his premise - that both sides have no concept of formations or tactics whatsoever - wasn't so preposterous. It would work if his strategy wasn't "attack from the sides rather than head-on". It would work, but it doesn't, because everything feels like a muddle stretched over several pages.
There are a couple of fairly clumsy hints that we're going to be seeing Mysterious Aliens in the sequels. A bit of conclusion-jumping by an otherwise unseen team of engineers gets revisited near the end with the protagonist musing to himself over whether aliens could be real. Hmm.
What I mean here is that The Lost Fleet isn't very good. It's not awful, it's all-round better than [b:Into the Black|12971820|Into the Black (Odyssey One, #1)|Evan Currie|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1334235177l/12971820._SY75_.jpg|16237035] (by Evan Currie, and which I reviewed before) for example, and yet in individual ways its so much worse.
The characters are all the same. The bad apples are cardboard cut-out people with no personality apart from the will to be the villains.
It needs an editor to point out the language problems. Phrases with annoying repetition, like
"He could see that the ship had once been a good-looking ship, but..." just set my teeth on edge.
People glower and scowl a lot, which is apparently the MSF way of showing emotion.
The protagonist is constantly exhausted, which has an in-universe explanation, but is really a lazy way of replacing conflict with an inner struggle. In one paragraph, his effective second-in-command goes from "glowering" to "glowing" because he compliments her. It's like people are really primitive state machines or something.
The premise is interesting: it's an interstellar case of impostor syndrome. I mean, it's definitely explored, I'm just not sure that repeating thoughts about how he can't live up to people's expectations is a fulfilling exploration.
Then there are Big Space Battles and I have a problem with them.
I mentioned [b:Into the Black|12971820|Into the Black (Odyssey One, #1)|Evan Currie|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1334235177l/12971820._SY75_.jpg|16237035] earlier because I see a lot of similarities between the books, but what Currie does well is his presentation of the mechanics of warfare over large distances. Campbell tries to make things trickier by factoring in light-speed delays where one side can't tell what the other is doing for minutes at a time, and that's... reasonable. It's actually pretty smart.
It would work if his premise - that both sides have no concept of formations or tactics whatsoever - wasn't so preposterous. It would work if his strategy wasn't "attack from the sides rather than head-on". It would work, but it doesn't, because everything feels like a muddle stretched over several pages.
Spoiler
There are a couple of fairly clumsy hints that we're going to be seeing Mysterious Aliens in the sequels. A bit of conclusion-jumping by an otherwise unseen team of engineers gets revisited near the end with the protagonist musing to himself over whether aliens could be real. Hmm.
Can we just give a little bit of side-eye to an author named Jack who writes about a noble, heroic, legendary, humble, level-headed, brave, wise, straight-shooter character referred to, in hushed tones, as "Captain Black Jack?"
Now that we've gotten that over with, there's not much wrong with this book, except that, for a book about space battles and star flight it's pretty darn ordinary and, one might almost say, boring.
It's workman-like, decent, and respectable, like Black Jack himself. There are moments that transcend that ordinary-ness, but other than that it fails to live up to its own hype.
Now that we've gotten that over with, there's not much wrong with this book, except that, for a book about space battles and star flight it's pretty darn ordinary and, one might almost say, boring.
It's workman-like, decent, and respectable, like Black Jack himself. There are moments that transcend that ordinary-ness, but other than that it fails to live up to its own hype.
Books I read during lockdown that I have absolutely no memory of now...
I was quite impressed with Dauntless, and I'm looking forward to more. I was a big fan of the "space warfare" books that I read from the publisher Baen, but I got burned out quickly. I spent a lot of time poring over descriptions of stern commanders and complex space battles, and after a while, I just got tired of it all.
I came back to this book with the idea that it was going to be more of the same, and while there was a lot of description about the space battles and formations, it was balanced by a few things.
First, the book is short. Well, it felt short, compared to the books I normally read, but it really forced the action (and everything else) to become part of the story. When the battle is a larger percentage of the overall book, you have a tendency to pay more attention to it.
Second, I really liked the way the author handled the reality of relativity. It's an important that space is HUGE and human perception really isn't cut out for the tasks that would be required.
Third, I really loved the characters. I liked the insight into Black Jack's feelings and thoughts, as they were ones that I think many people have struggled with before. I thought he was very well written and while he did have a bit of the "always says exactly the right thing" syndrome, the feel of his humanity came through.
I came back to this book with the idea that it was going to be more of the same, and while there was a lot of description about the space battles and formations, it was balanced by a few things.
First, the book is short. Well, it felt short, compared to the books I normally read, but it really forced the action (and everything else) to become part of the story. When the battle is a larger percentage of the overall book, you have a tendency to pay more attention to it.
Second, I really liked the way the author handled the reality of relativity. It's an important that space is HUGE and human perception really isn't cut out for the tasks that would be required.
Third, I really loved the characters. I liked the insight into Black Jack's feelings and thoughts, as they were ones that I think many people have struggled with before. I thought he was very well written and while he did have a bit of the "always says exactly the right thing" syndrome, the feel of his humanity came through.
A fun and quick read.
A bit light on characterisation and detail, and it seems like all the characters are idiot except for the protagonist, whose sole character trait is that he's moderately competent. But it's fast paced enough and action packed enough that that's all pretty easy to forgive.
A bit light on characterisation and detail, and it seems like all the characters are idiot except for the protagonist, whose sole character trait is that he's moderately competent. But it's fast paced enough and action packed enough that that's all pretty easy to forgive.
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
A very interesting concept. Interested to see where the series goes
An interesting concept - John Geary dies at the start of what becomes an interstellar war, and is idolized by the Alliance. He is THE big hero of the navy. A hundred years later, an Alliance fleet stumbles across a lifepod containing John Geary himself! Events thrust him to assume command of the fleet. 100 years of war has reshaped both sides, pumping out ship after ship, crew after crew to run off and fight. The old ways of fighting naval engagements is lost, and John trains the fleet.
So - fair story, fair characters. I've been finding the books entertaining.
I much prefer his Pillars of Reality series, and the Legacy of Dragons books.
So - fair story, fair characters. I've been finding the books entertaining.
I much prefer his Pillars of Reality series, and the Legacy of Dragons books.