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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
adventurous
informative
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Another book recommended by a friend which didn't really work for me. This time it was my sister who told me about the series, which I checked out from the library. Dauntless is the first book of the "Lost Fleet" series, about a man who is rescued from cryogenic suspension after a hundred years, to discover that his military exploits have become legendary, only to find his work cut out from him when circumstances place him in charge of a badly outnumbered fleet of ships well behind enemy lines.
I got maybe half way through this one before bailing. I could find very little sympathy for any of the characters, and the situation seemed just too contrived to feel credible. I mean, if military training and discipline were really so bad as what the protagonist found them to be, surely they would all have been defeat long since.
That said, the bones of the story seemed sound enough. If you want a somewhat wooden and slightly Mary Sue-ish hero bringing discipline and hope where there is none and snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, then this is the book for you. If I were in the right mood, perhaps for me also. Just not this time.
I got maybe half way through this one before bailing. I could find very little sympathy for any of the characters, and the situation seemed just too contrived to feel credible. I mean, if military training and discipline were really so bad as what the protagonist found them to be, surely they would all have been defeat long since.
That said, the bones of the story seemed sound enough. If you want a somewhat wooden and slightly Mary Sue-ish hero bringing discipline and hope where there is none and snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, then this is the book for you. If I were in the right mood, perhaps for me also. Just not this time.
I no longer care if a book is part of a series or not and don't feel bad if I don't finish the story. In this case, I want to know what happens next, I want to know if there is non human intelligence or not and if they are the ones guilty for the war. I can't wait to continue!
Not bad, but more military than sci fi than I prefer. But then ending was interesting so I may have to read the next one.
Really fun read, if a little simple. I like the idea and would probably keep reading the series.
If you enjoy reading military sci fi and you’re not yet reading Jack Campbell then I have some good news for you! Particularly good on the impact of fighting at such distances that the speed of light causes comms delays and a master class in starting a story in the middle of the action, rather than having a long preamble to start. A great read.
The Lost Fleet is an fresh, intelligent take on sci-fi space warfare that brings it to a new and interesting place. The books are about a somewhat ordinary, albeit talented, ship's commander who wakes up after 100 years in cryo-sleep only to learn that his deeds have been exaggerated in the century of war that he slept, and he's been granted legendary hero status. Now he must guide a wounded and dysfunctional fleet home through light-years of enemy space.
This review is aimed more towards the entire series, since the story doesn't really end between books. Each one takes off exactly where the last one left off, and there really isn't any resolution until the end of the series.
The space battles were exciting, and engaging, and true to the rules that the author puts in place. "Black Jack" Geary wins battles because he deserves to win battles by being smarter, tougher, and more daring than the enemy. There is never some magical McGuffin that swoops in to save the hero for no reason, as is the case in too many sci-fi stories.
Geary must face internal enemies as well, as many of his subordinates believe that he is not qualified to command the fleet. I quite enjoyed the intrigue and political struggles that Geary wades through to get his fleet home.
So why only three stars? Frankly the characters were bland, and the story lacks variety. Geary is conflicted because he doesn't believe himself to be the hero that everyone thinks he is, but after that his personality is pretty much empty. You don't know anything about his interests or passions. You don't even really know his past except that he had a brother, and there was a girl he kinda liked once. He is a blank slate "Joe Everyman"; the type of character who doesn't have a personality of his own because the reader is expected to imprint his/her personality onto him. In my opinion that type of protagonist belongs in YA fiction, or better yet, nowhere at all. The other characters are blank slate military people. I listened to the audio version of this book, and that helped because the narrator gave them all different accents, but without that they are interchangeable nobodies. Geary is extremely professional, as the author will point out over and over, so all his conversations are straightforward and mission relevant. There is never any kind of physical descriptions of any of the characters, even his love interests, so it's hard to visualize any of them. The author says that Geary talks to everyone on his ship, and has a great time getting to know the crew, none of that is conveyed to the reader. Despite the entire series taking place on one ship, we only ever learn the names of two of his shipmates, the politician and the captain. The rest of the crew exists mostly to reflect Geary's personality. They are nervous when he's angry. They are happy when he's calm and confident-looking. The most interesting character in the books, Co-President Rionne, is also the most annoying character in the books. She and Captain Desjani both mostly exist as people for Geary to lecture to, but at least she argues back.
There is very little fun in these books. Everything takes place on the same ship, and it always frustrates me what the author chooses to spend word describing. He will tell you 100 times that the conference room expands or shrinks to fit who's in it, but he never thinks to mention what the bridge looks like, or what any of the ships look like, or even what the main love interest's hair color is. The fleet is supposedly made up of people from many different worlds, but they all have the same religion, apparently, and since he never mentions race, it's hard for me to not picture them as anything other than cookie cutter white guys. The space battles are excellent, but they do tend to get repetitive. When the story finally switches things up by watching the marines on the ground attacking an enemy facility, he always switches away just when things get good, because it's unprofessional for Geary to be watching that. One time Desjani got a ton of medals when her ship was boarded and she did ... something heroic ... but let's not tell that story. Let's go back to talking about logistics.
In the end, the suspense of the fleet fighting to stay alive and make it home kept me engaged enough to keep going, but there are some serious flaws that make me hesitant to recommend it.
This review is aimed more towards the entire series, since the story doesn't really end between books. Each one takes off exactly where the last one left off, and there really isn't any resolution until the end of the series.
The space battles were exciting, and engaging, and true to the rules that the author puts in place. "Black Jack" Geary wins battles because he deserves to win battles by being smarter, tougher, and more daring than the enemy. There is never some magical McGuffin that swoops in to save the hero for no reason, as is the case in too many sci-fi stories.
Geary must face internal enemies as well, as many of his subordinates believe that he is not qualified to command the fleet. I quite enjoyed the intrigue and political struggles that Geary wades through to get his fleet home.
So why only three stars? Frankly the characters were bland, and the story lacks variety. Geary is conflicted because he doesn't believe himself to be the hero that everyone thinks he is, but after that his personality is pretty much empty. You don't know anything about his interests or passions. You don't even really know his past except that he had a brother, and there was a girl he kinda liked once. He is a blank slate "Joe Everyman"; the type of character who doesn't have a personality of his own because the reader is expected to imprint his/her personality onto him. In my opinion that type of protagonist belongs in YA fiction, or better yet, nowhere at all. The other characters are blank slate military people. I listened to the audio version of this book, and that helped because the narrator gave them all different accents, but without that they are interchangeable nobodies. Geary is extremely professional, as the author will point out over and over, so all his conversations are straightforward and mission relevant. There is never any kind of physical descriptions of any of the characters, even his love interests, so it's hard to visualize any of them. The author says that Geary talks to everyone on his ship, and has a great time getting to know the crew, none of that is conveyed to the reader. Despite the entire series taking place on one ship, we only ever learn the names of two of his shipmates, the politician and the captain. The rest of the crew exists mostly to reflect Geary's personality. They are nervous when he's angry. They are happy when he's calm and confident-looking. The most interesting character in the books, Co-President Rionne, is also the most annoying character in the books. She and Captain Desjani both mostly exist as people for Geary to lecture to, but at least she argues back.
There is very little fun in these books. Everything takes place on the same ship, and it always frustrates me what the author chooses to spend word describing. He will tell you 100 times that the conference room expands or shrinks to fit who's in it, but he never thinks to mention what the bridge looks like, or what any of the ships look like, or even what the main love interest's hair color is. The fleet is supposedly made up of people from many different worlds, but they all have the same religion, apparently, and since he never mentions race, it's hard for me to not picture them as anything other than cookie cutter white guys. The space battles are excellent, but they do tend to get repetitive. When the story finally switches things up by watching the marines on the ground attacking an enemy facility, he always switches away just when things get good, because it's unprofessional for Geary to be watching that. One time Desjani got a ton of medals when her ship was boarded and she did ... something heroic ... but let's not tell that story. Let's go back to talking about logistics.
In the end, the suspense of the fleet fighting to stay alive and make it home kept me engaged enough to keep going, but there are some serious flaws that make me hesitant to recommend it.
Not the worst book I've read, but I'm definitely skipping the rest of the series.
Here’s a military SF series that we’re just catching up with in the UK. As I’m sure some are aware, the US is up to Book 6 (Victorious.) and Book 7 (Dreadnaught) due any time soon. So well done to Titan Books for these releases: the first three books are out now, with the rest due for publication soon.
As you might expect then, this first book sets up events for the rest of the series. The tale begins with the ongoing war (for the last one hundred years or so) between The Alliance and the Syndicate Worlds (Syndic). The Alliance are losing and so are meeting their enemy in a peace negotiation to hopefully bring the war to a close.
We see things from the start from the viewpoint of Alliance Captain John ‘Black Jack’ Geary, a recently re-discovered war hero. Following a major space battle one hundred years ago, Geary was left frozen after helping the rest of the Fleet to escape. As the tale starts, Geary is emotionally unstable and feeling a bit of a fraud, yet one who is clearly revered as a hero by the Alliance crews.
Unfortunately, the peace negotiations are nothing more than an attempt to destroy the Alliance’s fragile state by killing all of their Fleet leaders. Geary reluctantly finds that he has to take charge of the fleet as the highest ranking remaining officer. He also is the only person with access to the novel’s major macguffin: the Syndic’s Hypernet key, retrieved by the Alliance and the object that allows the Syndic (and now therefore the Alliance) to travel through FTL gates around the galaxy.
What Geary finds is that during the time of his enforced hibernation the Fleet have forgotten most of the old ways of battle, and that he must train them again in order to survive against the Alliance. This puts him at loggerheads with some of the other remaining Fleet officers.
Working independently in different factions Geary realises that in order to survive he must unify the Fleet and run from the Syndic until they get back to their homeworld.
So what we have here is good old traditional mil-space SF, with ships and fleets sailing and battling between worlds, like the old sea vessels of Earth. We have a military power structure based on Navy protocols and no doubt a universe that runs like the Star Trek Federation, albeit split between the two opposing ideologies of Capitalism and Communism through The Alliance and the Syndic.
Nothing too original there, then. What makes this a little different is that we have here an old-timer who finds that he has to break the rules, the status-quo, in order to ensure continued survival. The war depicted here has become formularised and stale, conforming to outdated and outmoded rules of combat that need something new to change it. The irony here is that it is the older rules, now seemingly forgotten, that come to their aid. It is, in the end, not the battles that are important here, but the people who lead them.
The strengths of the book are that there is a military feel to them. It is also a book that tries to show how battle would be when dealing with near-FTL speeds – often it is predicting where things will be, the ‘real’ version not being seen for seconds or minutes later. On the scale we look at here battles are lost and won before people actually see the results with their own eyes. This is all done cleverly and logically, giving a realistic feel to otherwise difficult to visualise events.
On the downside, Geary at first comes across as too much of a martyr, with guilt the size of a planet that makes David Feintuch’s Captain Seafort, not usually known for his optimism, a positive ray of sunshine by comparison. ‘I am not worthy’ seems to be almost tattooed on Geary’s forehead. This rather repetitive self-doubt did make the book a bit of a slog for me at first. I am pleased to say that this got a little less wearing as the book continued.
Secondly, the other characterisations, at first, are rather simple, yet functional. Alongside Geary we have increasingly trusty side-kick, and Captain of the Dauntless, Tanya Desjani, who stands by him as he grapples with coming to terms with a world one hundred years older than he expects.
We also have, by the mid-point through the novel, the arrival of Co-President Victoria Rione of the Callas Republic, who competes with Geary’s self-doubt to become the seemingly ever-nagging Conscience of the novel. Bit wearing this, but understandable. Geary not only has to deal with his own issues but also the politics of a seemingly uncomfortable Alliance between the military and the people.
Most of the characters do their duty, yet rarely more than that. I suspect more will develop as the series progresses. There’s also some nice little glimpses of areas of tension in Geary’s future world. For example, a nice little banter developed between Rione and Desjani, when the differences of opinion on AI spaceships show how apart these two groups are. Keeping it simple, the military think it’s possible, the Republic does not, creating an interesting stress between the two that Geary stands in the middle of.
As this book advances, we start to see more of what Geary was perhaps like in the past: committed, determined, able to make decisions. Things become a little more relaxed as the book progresses, and a hint of possible romance that will, no doubt, be played out in future tales.
Similarly, as the series continues, I hope that some of the rather contrived plot points will smooth out: what Fleet in its right mind, other than those in Battlestar Galactica, would allow all their key leaders to be shepherded into one place at one time? Or indeed entrust a battle-scarred veteran with the secret advantage to the Fleet, and no one else?
By the end of the book I don’t think I’m giving away much when I say that the superior manoeuvring of Geary and the Fleet lead to a rather expected ending. They survive, admittedly at a cost, yet live to fight another day, whilst also working their way back to their home worlds.
There’s some nice little touches with this edition at the end: an interview with the author, his ten favourite SF books (annoyingly referred to as ‘sci-fi’) and an extract from the next in the series. (It also explains that the similarities between this series and Battlestar Galactica is coincidental.)
In conclusion, there are some books that don’t really stand up to much analysis. They are there to entertain, without too much thought or depth. The reader knows this and is usually happy to accept the weaker areas for the sake of fast action and plot resolution. This is unabashedly one of those novels.
However, if you can accept this, this is also solid military SF, in the mould of David Weber’s Honor series or the aforementioned David Feintuch’s Seafort Saga series. After a bit of a wobbly premise, the energy of the narrative and the broad sweep of the battles keep the reader engaged. It’s not (yet) Honor Harrington; yet I can see that the series has potential.
As you might expect then, this first book sets up events for the rest of the series. The tale begins with the ongoing war (for the last one hundred years or so) between The Alliance and the Syndicate Worlds (Syndic). The Alliance are losing and so are meeting their enemy in a peace negotiation to hopefully bring the war to a close.
We see things from the start from the viewpoint of Alliance Captain John ‘Black Jack’ Geary, a recently re-discovered war hero. Following a major space battle one hundred years ago, Geary was left frozen after helping the rest of the Fleet to escape. As the tale starts, Geary is emotionally unstable and feeling a bit of a fraud, yet one who is clearly revered as a hero by the Alliance crews.
Unfortunately, the peace negotiations are nothing more than an attempt to destroy the Alliance’s fragile state by killing all of their Fleet leaders. Geary reluctantly finds that he has to take charge of the fleet as the highest ranking remaining officer. He also is the only person with access to the novel’s major macguffin: the Syndic’s Hypernet key, retrieved by the Alliance and the object that allows the Syndic (and now therefore the Alliance) to travel through FTL gates around the galaxy.
What Geary finds is that during the time of his enforced hibernation the Fleet have forgotten most of the old ways of battle, and that he must train them again in order to survive against the Alliance. This puts him at loggerheads with some of the other remaining Fleet officers.
Working independently in different factions Geary realises that in order to survive he must unify the Fleet and run from the Syndic until they get back to their homeworld.
So what we have here is good old traditional mil-space SF, with ships and fleets sailing and battling between worlds, like the old sea vessels of Earth. We have a military power structure based on Navy protocols and no doubt a universe that runs like the Star Trek Federation, albeit split between the two opposing ideologies of Capitalism and Communism through The Alliance and the Syndic.
Nothing too original there, then. What makes this a little different is that we have here an old-timer who finds that he has to break the rules, the status-quo, in order to ensure continued survival. The war depicted here has become formularised and stale, conforming to outdated and outmoded rules of combat that need something new to change it. The irony here is that it is the older rules, now seemingly forgotten, that come to their aid. It is, in the end, not the battles that are important here, but the people who lead them.
The strengths of the book are that there is a military feel to them. It is also a book that tries to show how battle would be when dealing with near-FTL speeds – often it is predicting where things will be, the ‘real’ version not being seen for seconds or minutes later. On the scale we look at here battles are lost and won before people actually see the results with their own eyes. This is all done cleverly and logically, giving a realistic feel to otherwise difficult to visualise events.
On the downside, Geary at first comes across as too much of a martyr, with guilt the size of a planet that makes David Feintuch’s Captain Seafort, not usually known for his optimism, a positive ray of sunshine by comparison. ‘I am not worthy’ seems to be almost tattooed on Geary’s forehead. This rather repetitive self-doubt did make the book a bit of a slog for me at first. I am pleased to say that this got a little less wearing as the book continued.
Secondly, the other characterisations, at first, are rather simple, yet functional. Alongside Geary we have increasingly trusty side-kick, and Captain of the Dauntless, Tanya Desjani, who stands by him as he grapples with coming to terms with a world one hundred years older than he expects.
We also have, by the mid-point through the novel, the arrival of Co-President Victoria Rione of the Callas Republic, who competes with Geary’s self-doubt to become the seemingly ever-nagging Conscience of the novel. Bit wearing this, but understandable. Geary not only has to deal with his own issues but also the politics of a seemingly uncomfortable Alliance between the military and the people.
Most of the characters do their duty, yet rarely more than that. I suspect more will develop as the series progresses. There’s also some nice little glimpses of areas of tension in Geary’s future world. For example, a nice little banter developed between Rione and Desjani, when the differences of opinion on AI spaceships show how apart these two groups are. Keeping it simple, the military think it’s possible, the Republic does not, creating an interesting stress between the two that Geary stands in the middle of.
As this book advances, we start to see more of what Geary was perhaps like in the past: committed, determined, able to make decisions. Things become a little more relaxed as the book progresses, and a hint of possible romance that will, no doubt, be played out in future tales.
Similarly, as the series continues, I hope that some of the rather contrived plot points will smooth out: what Fleet in its right mind, other than those in Battlestar Galactica, would allow all their key leaders to be shepherded into one place at one time? Or indeed entrust a battle-scarred veteran with the secret advantage to the Fleet, and no one else?
By the end of the book I don’t think I’m giving away much when I say that the superior manoeuvring of Geary and the Fleet lead to a rather expected ending. They survive, admittedly at a cost, yet live to fight another day, whilst also working their way back to their home worlds.
There’s some nice little touches with this edition at the end: an interview with the author, his ten favourite SF books (annoyingly referred to as ‘sci-fi’) and an extract from the next in the series. (It also explains that the similarities between this series and Battlestar Galactica is coincidental.)
In conclusion, there are some books that don’t really stand up to much analysis. They are there to entertain, without too much thought or depth. The reader knows this and is usually happy to accept the weaker areas for the sake of fast action and plot resolution. This is unabashedly one of those novels.
However, if you can accept this, this is also solid military SF, in the mould of David Weber’s Honor series or the aforementioned David Feintuch’s Seafort Saga series. After a bit of a wobbly premise, the energy of the narrative and the broad sweep of the battles keep the reader engaged. It’s not (yet) Honor Harrington; yet I can see that the series has potential.
Solid naval science fiction. Strategy & tactics well-thought, good battle drama. Dialogue a bit clunky at times. Recommended for military SF fans.