author: Jack Campbell

This is the second book in the Lost Fleet series that I’ve read, and in some ways, it’s indistinguishable from the first. The story has much the same steps- the fleet jumps into various enemy occupied systems on the way back to their home space, there are a couple of massed space battles where Captain John Geary’s old-fashioned tactics prove superior, the fleet loses a few ships, but destroys far more, someone in the fleet puts the mission in danger because they don’t agree with Geary’s command and the captain (who was recently defrosted after a hundred years in a life pod) discovers more differences from the old days.

It’s entertaining enough, and it hasn’t put me off reading the last one in the series (there’s another book between this one and the finale, but I haven’t got it on my bookshelf). The soap opera of Geary’s intertwined professional and personal relationships with his two closest aides is a bit tedious, but the careful doling out of information about a hidden alien enemy is done well, as is the gradual way the defrosted captain is winning over the hearts and minds not just of his own fleet but also some of the enemy.

I’m sure there is more complex and subtle space opera out there- I’ve just got to find it- but this is enjoyable lightweight entertainment that has served as a starter course in some concepts of space combat that I may use in my own works.

From: Ian Pattinson Goodreads reviews