More great military science fiction
Written: Jul 06 '08
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Product Rating:
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Pros: The characters, the writing; the power of last third of the book.
Cons: At first, it looks too much like the predecessors.
The Bottom Line: After starting a bit slow and looking a bit like the earlier books, it really picks up!
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| dolphinboy's Full Review: Jack Campbell - The Lost Fleet: Courageous |
Background to this book: John Hemry, writing under the pen-name Jack Campbell, began the series by introducing readers to a universe, far into our future, where humanity has spread out into space, colonizing many planets, and eventually separating into two main camps, The Alliance and the Syndicate. Competition and contrasting political structures result in conflict. In the first book, The Lost Fleet: Dauntless, the Alliance fleet is lured into an ambush, where it suffers great loss, especially in the upper military echelons. The command of the fleet falls to its most senior surviving office, John “Black Jack” Geary, who had long been thought to be dead, but who had just been rescued from an escape pod, where he had spent a century in cryogenic sleep. Black Jack Geary had become legend, for sacrificing himself to save his ship during the first outbreak of hostilities involving the Syndicate, and now he was seen as a hero, returned from the dead, to rescue the Alliance from a near-total massacre and a seemingly-endless war.
In this third book of the Lost Fleet series, Black Jack Geary faces the choice of either continuing to try to fool the Syndics, as the Syndicate fleet is called by Alliance military people, or making a quicker dash back to Alliance space, that could easily lead to another disastrous ambush. Through the first two books, Geary has successfully outguessed the Syndics, and has inflicted heavy losses on the enemy. This as caused further belief in the idea that John Geary is a resurrected hero, sent by the ancestors of the Alliance, to save the fleet. Geary has tried to avoid embracing the mythical hero role, that brings the impression of infallibility with it.
While trying to damage the Syndics and bring the fleet back to Alliance space, Geary also has to deftly deal with a subtly growing contingent, in his own fleet, of those who fear Geary and want him deposed as Fleet Commander. Another contingent idolizes Geary, almost fanatically, and want him to seize the mythos of Black Jack Geary and be much more than Fleet Commander.
For the first two-thirds of this book, it strongly resembled its predecessors, to the point that I was beginning to fear that the author had exhausted his supply of originality and creativity. The only real differences between the predecessors and the earlier parts of this book, was that the Alliance fleet was experiencing more resource shortages, and they were starting to get outmaneuvered at times, as the Syndics seemed to have caught on to some of Geary’s tactics, and were becoming better at anticipating the next move and countering it.
Then, as Geary began to despair, he got what he needed, from two of his internal allies and, surprisingly, from an old internal opponent. In a thrumming crescendo, the last third of the book builds tension, then moves to rapid-fire action, complex military strategy and maneuvering, and shocking brilliance and boldness that will make John Geary the man into a legend, separate from the century-old Black Jack legend. Geary’s last decision in this book is stunning, and creates an incredible cliffhanger that makes it impossible for me to not read the next book in the series.
Jack Campbell’s writing is crisp, even when the story begins to feel repetitive, early in the book. It feels almost like John Geary’s funk, and the advice that helped him pull out of it, also helped the author remember what made the first two books excellent reading, and writing those pep-talk passages had the same effect on Campbell that it had on Geary. The characters in this book, as in its predecessors, were varied, credible, and three-dimensional. The brilliant ending certainly ensured by continued interest in the series.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
dolphinboy
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Member: Chris McCallister
Location: Southeastern Michigan
Reviews written: 384
Trusted by: 155 members
About Me:
I am a psychologist, new author, and a reviewer on several sites.
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