(For the few folks who read this previously, thanks for rating it and sincere apologies--I spaced briefly when posting and placed it under the wrong title. Arrghh.)

Fisherman's Hope by David Feintuch is part of a space navy SF series akin to C.S. Forester's classic "Hornblower" books about the British navy or David Weber's "Honor Harrington" SF novels. The basic plot of each of these series is that it follows the career of a particularly courageous and outstanding officer as he or she progresses from the lowest rank of a military service to higher and higher positions of responsibility.

Fisherman's Hope ranks with the best of the Harrington books, mostly on the strength of an extraordinarily powerful last 100 or so pages. The protagonist, Commandant Nicholas Seafort of the United Nations Naval Academy, sets out to save the Earth from being overrun by aliens, accompanied only by cadet volunteers from the Academy, most of whom are doomed. Seafort knows the mission is suicidal, but believes he dares not tell the cadets, for fear they will be overwhelmed by cowardice even though humanity's fate hangs in the balance. Feintuch makes the most of this episode--I found myself moved to tears more than once.

Seafort is an odd duck--gifted with an unerring sense of what must be done in a combat situation, cursed with a remarkably annoying conscience that makes him rue his every move, no matter how justifiable. The book runs to nearly 500 pages, and for about the first 300, the reader wants to whack Seafort alongside the head and tell him to quit wallowing in his imagined sins, large and small. But then things gradually turn more and more serious, and the moral dilemmas more convincing.

The narrative in general is the story of Seafort's term as Commandant of the Academy, where he has been appointed after a series of heroic exploits in ships of the line battling against the "fish," spacegoing critters equipped with internal faster-than-light drives and able to attack spaceships by hurling acid blobs that eat through hulls. Seafort is famous and, of course, loathes his celebrity. His encounters with the cadets, midshipmen, and drill sergeants at the Academy are interspersed with flashbacks from his own time as a cadet, with a number of coming-of-age anecdotes of the sort that are found in Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers and other military fiction. While Fisherman's Hope is mostly fairly routine, it's always readable.

Writing: 7
Characterization: 8
Big Issues/Ideas: 8

Recommended reading: On Basilisk Station is the first and best of the Harrington series. Starship Troopers* is polished, professional young-adult military SF. For more grown-up fare in the same subgenre, I'd recommend Joe Haldeman's Forever Peace* or Patricia Anthony's Cold Allies.*

*I've also reviewed this book for Epinions.com. Review locations:

Cold Allies: http://www.epinions.com/book-review-70C9-10E5F701-38361E57-bd1
Forever Peace: http://www.epinions.com/book-review-4CD7-E2EE920-382F2379-bd3
Starship Troopers: http://www.epinions.com/book-review-34CD-FBBEE2B-3800E8F1-bd3



Recommended: Yes