april_does_feral_sometimes 's review for:

Dauntless by Jack Campbell

2.0

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Written well as far as characterization. But the original premise of a key given by an "enemy traitor" for a special faster than light travel hypernet is spurious and ridiculous, since after receiving this technological gift, the "good" side simply says "wow, thanks, let's plug this in and use it without any questions or planning." Since I've never been in a military force of any kind perhaps my assumption that the military would be suspicious of secret back doors intentionally put into any weapon handed over to the other side or a secret exposed by a traitor might be part of an enemy strategic plan to win the war, buy maybe the military ARE that stupid. I hope, for instance, that the real military of the world are not taking Chinese made computers at face value when making such computerized purchases, but go through the hardware and programming with a fine tooth comb. The idea that any military that is falling apart in training, tactics, morale and strategy would still fight on offensively for centuries against an obvious technologically superior force is also hard to swallow. Anyway, the big picture was too simple and stupid. I couldn't finish this.