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It's a decent space fighting series. Never get's too heavy and always moves along at a brisk pace. While I enjoy the long epic stories, sometimes it is nice to pick up something a little different.My only problem is that the books were so short, that I caught up to the current published books very quickly.
Great space opera -- Jack Geary, thought dead, was rescued and then finds himself in command of an armada seemingly trapped in enemy territory. I read a positive review of the Lost Fleet series (five books) and bought them all at once (they are not very expensive). I started reading and was HOOKED. But he is a battle field genius and we follow his attempt to get the fleet to safety. Good human interactions and great battles.I hope Jack Campbell writes more of this stuff.
The Lost Fleet: Valiant (Unabridged) A great book to read just not long enough.
Book four takes off where book three left the reader. Also, Victoria Rione rears her ugly head again in these pages and continues to reinforce my hate for her. As Rione ends her emotional and physical relationship with Geary, we get to see a rise in personal communication between Geary and Desjani, much as the circulating rumors have already implied. More than half the novel is dedicated to the battle and aftermath in the Lakota system. With all that could be said about Valiant, in the end you can stay it's a continuation of a steady and successful plot. Thence on, the Fleet passes through the pirate mining system Branwyn, then to the supposedly abandoned system of Wendig and finally the Fleet ends up in the Cavalos system, all of which are still in Syndic territory. The Lost Fleet had just left a tolling battle in the Lakota system through a jump to the Ixion system, only to decide to surprise the Syndic battle group as they pull a u-turn and return to the Lakota system. She's a `button-bushing pitch (read into that).' Why is it that every conversation Rione and Geary have together, I feel like tearing out my own hair.
With only two battles taking up the pages within, a large amount of the time to spent trying to find who is undermining Geary's leading position and hypothesizing about the nasty little hate triangle between the Syndic, Alliance and alien persuasions. Much like the previous three books of the series, Campbell repeats many of the things we already know (difficult communication through ship distances, the grayness of jumping, the ultimate goal for the fleet and difficulties of battle faster than point one light speed). The over all pace has been steady since book one and continues to be brisk through book four. Little surprises around some corners, deaths and destruction sprinkled here and there along with some personal tension will meet the reader in these easy 284 pages.
I never bought, or read, more than the first one-third of the books in that series. It appears obvious to me that with little surety about where it will go, he is just pumping out 'filler'; just enough for one more volume.Quite a lot of years ago another writer used a similar scheme writing about people who rode flying dragons to save their world from a menace from another planet. This writer has milked all the 'hot-button' issues that could possibly be raised within this plot. It appears that Mr. If any who read those are still with us, the parallels are easy to spot. Rehashing the same gimmicks over and over just to be able to create and SELL another book. Campbell has helped keep me from spending more money on a series that is also definitely floundering in it's own prose.If you've read the first three in this series, you have read them all. Don't waste time, or money on the rest.
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