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Have you been worried I was lost? Well I was. Amazon turned me on to The Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell via it’s recommendation service, and I gave a whole month of my life to it in one swift binge. The fourth book in this six book series, Valiant, was released on June 24th, and I was first in line to get it at my local book store. Having read the first 3 books the previous two weeks I was eager for the next chapter of the saga.
In the far distant future two factions of humanity have been waging an interstellar war for more than a century. En route to a glorious and decisive battle, the good guys (the Alliance) discover a damaged escape pod in the wreckage from one of the very first battles in the war, nearly 100 years earlier. In it is an ordinary man who has been idolized and turned into a fleet inspiring myth for the whole Alliance. Captain John “Black Jack” Geary is back from the dead and facing a myth larger than any mortal man could ever embody, a war bigger than all of humanity, and the reality that all he ever knew is gone. As the ‘decisive’ battle goes horribly wrong he finds himself as the most senior commanding officer in a fleet of more than 200 ships that are trapped and desperately out numbered in all respects… And that’s just the first 10 pages of the first book.
Summary: The Lost Fleet is fast paced, action packed military science fiction with many familiar elements. The universe is derivative but the narrative, detailed battles and strong writing bring it to life in a way that will leave you turning pages late into the early dawn hours.
The first book, Dauntless, sets up a very interesting and compelling world. Campbell sets up the concept of a fleet that is lost on numerous different levels. Literally, the remaining ship captains don’t know precisely how to get home intact. However, in addition to that they’ve lost the knowledge of how to use the old ‘jump drives’ since the advent of the much faster ‘hypernet’ system and crew members have died in battle at such a frantic pace that simple experience has been lost even amongst the most senior leaders. At at deeper level, the Alliance has lost it’s moral compass as they have fallen down the slippery slope of ‘eye for an eye’ tactics and war-crime atrocity trading. Lastly, the home worlds of the Alliance are forced to assume that the whole fleet was lost in the disastrous battle preceding the first book.
As a result, the fleet is grudgingly forced to follow a leader that is literally a historic relic, complete with ‘ancient’ tactics, experiences and morals.
The first book, Dauntless, doesn’t contain much more than a few battles and setting up the scenario for the rest of the series. It’s superb and entertaining but somehow also very unsatisfying. Moreover, the second and third books — Fearless and Courageous – were too drawn out in my opinion. I felt they could easily have been written as a single volume with very little overall story lost to the cuts. Don’t get me wrong, they were entertaining, but not nearly as much as Dauntless. They do set up some interesting plot lines while also showing that the fleet is maturing as a team. In the end though, they seem more like filler while Campbell decided where he really wanted to take the saga, and at best they are an exploration of the logistics involved in bringing a crippled fleet limping home from behind enemy lines.
So why would I rush out and buy the fourth book — Valiant – the day it was released? By the end of the third book I could sense that Campbell had gained a solid focus, and that the plot was going in a single, straight line towards a conclusion even if the fleet was zig-zagging it’s way through enemy space. That and the action was awesome for a summer read.
Valiant is by far the best book in the series so far. I can’t discuss the plot without giving away the spoilers for the first three books, but I can say that if you abandoned the fleet after the third book you’ve made a terrible mistake.
My biggest complaint about the whole series is that Campbell repeats obvious and easily remembered details from previous books ad nauseam in later books. Since, there is no sane way a person could pick up this story in the middle, this only serves to annoy readers who have been around from the start. Cutting this repetition alone could save 100-200 pages throughout the whole series. I have a few other minor quibbles with the books as well, but I’ll save those for the discussion in the comments.
The verdict: All books are either good (3/5) or excellent (4/5), but the fourth is a must read (5/5), even after considering the fact that you have to read the first three to get there. You won’t be disappointed.
9 responses so far ↓
1 Victor // Jul 17, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Engineers, Power Cores, Mines. Favorite part of this series so far :)
2 Damon // Jul 18, 2008 at 3:38 pm
I am just like the reviewer I could not put these books down. I found myself up until the wee hours of the morning reading. I just had to know what happened next or how they were going to get out of that situation. I would give this series a 5/5.
3 John G. Hemry (aka Jack Campbell) // Jul 21, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Thanks for an overwhelmingly positive review. I appreciate the constructive criticism as well, because I see myself as a story-teller whose job is to entertain readers.
The repeating of information from book to book poses an interesting dilemma for me. I’ve seen other complaints about it, but I’ve also heard from many readers who picked up the second, third or fourth book in the series first and only after finishing it did they go back and read the earlier books. Those are the people I include the info for so they can figure out what’s going on (and secondarily for those who’ve told me they like a refresh on things they might have forgotten since the last book came out). My compromise has been to try to keep repetition to the minimum needed to allow a new reader to understand what’s going on and hope readers familiar with things like the nature of the fleet conference room will just skim by those couple of sentences. It is a compromise, it’s not perfect, but there is a reason for it. I’ll keep trying to handle it better.
As long as I’m here, let me thank every reader of the books who helped VALIANT achieve a career milestone for me when it made the New York Times extended mass-market paperback bestseller list and the USA Today national bestseller list. That was seriously cool.
John
4 Cam // Jul 21, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Hi, John. It’s seriously cool that you dropped by to comment.
Moreover I see your point about the repetition when readers have a year or so between books. I read them all in just under 3 weeks back to back and that must give me a perspective that is fairly fringe from your core demographic. When the 5th book comes out I’ll be in a better position to read, and benefit from, the reminder sections and therefore be able to comment more usefully.
Again, thanks for stopping by. Great work. I can’t wait for the last two books.
5 Doug Hall // Jul 24, 2008 at 5:19 pm
I’ve really enjoyed this series, to the point of rereading them a few times–rare for an old guy (52) like me! I think Campbell/Hembry has created a very good character in Geary, who isn’t perfect and is tortured by his alter-ego, “Black Jack”.
I do agree that there has been some repetition in the series, though I do agree with the author in his post that someone picking up a book in the middle of the series would need to know some of the back story for that individual volume to make any sense. To his credit, I think the author has done the “back story” repetition better than many authors (Harry Turtledove comes to mind), so it isn’t quite as irritating as in some other series.
The description of the physics of battles at the extreme speeds in space are excellent and rarely addressed anywhere else in fiction–TV, movies or in writing. You really do feel the tension of the battles and of the losses suffered by Geary’s fleet.
My main complaint has been the rather odd inclusion of the Shinto-like religion that everyone human in Geary’s galaxy seems to follow. Human nature and our own experiences on our rather tiny part of the solar system seem to speak against that. It DOES make a nice moral compass for Geary, but you’d sure think that humans, spread out over systems across the galaxy would have either maintained the various religions we have now OR developed others to compete with the ancestor worship referred to in the Lost Fleet. The monolithic nature of their belief systems is unrealistic to me.
BUT…that’s a minor complaint. I’m looking forward to seeing the next installment and, much as I know the Fleet wants to get home soon, I’m hoping they don’t for a while. I’ll miss ‘em.
6 Alexandra // Jul 29, 2008 at 11:54 am
The repetition did not really bother me because of the time laps between the books. I enjoyed the serie from the start but I lieked less Valiant (wich will not prevent me from reading the two last books :)) because I found to much of romantic problems. They are at wars and they have to bring back the ships. they are not in High school.
7 Tom // Jul 30, 2008 at 10:10 am
I have just finished Valiant and was very pleased with it. I have been very pleased with the entire series so far.
I enjoy reading Johns solutions to the myriad of problems that his fleet is encountering. Logistics being the primary problem. I also appreciate the challenges John has encountered with the fleet captains. Specifically, his trying to get them to stop rushing into battle pell mell and claiming victory by using sound tactical doctrine. Even though John has continued to defeat the Syndics, his losses, while not great in each battle, have continued to mount. It is appearent that this weighs very heavily on him.
The “moral” issues that he has been confronted with are significant also and he continues to uphold an honorable tradition.
The “romantic” aspect of the story, in my opinion, was an interesting addition to the story line. Tanya and Johns relationship has been building for a while and I am finally glad that we got some resolution. The fact that both Tanya and John have acted honorably, was the right way to go. John, being the commander of the fleet is in a very difficult position and has acted appropriately.
As to the religion question, I think that it offers an interesting alternative. Instead of wondering how we got from here to there, I choose to accept that, in the authors universe, there is where they are now, and that is the end of it.
POSITIVES:
So far, I give the author , Mr Hemry 5 stars. He has created a unique and interesting story line and I continue to look forward to the next installment. His understading and explanation of the relatavistic effects even at 0.1 and 0.2 light speed are excellent and should not be confusing to the layman.
NEGATIVES:
I feel that sometimes it is not necessary to have John Geary rationalize many decisions that he makes. If you have read the entire series you should know “why” Geary is making these decisions. I suspect that this is related to the repetition issue addressed above, and in my opinion is very minor.
8 Cam // Jul 30, 2008 at 10:29 am
I too enjoyed the romantic sub plot and do not think is distracted from the story in any way. In reality they’ve been away from family for months and you know the rest of the crew is indulging here and there. To see the leadership sacrifice and do the honorable thing only solidified their quality of character in my opinion.
9 Eduardo Souza // Jul 30, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Hi John G. Hemry (aka Jack Campbell) I LOVED all first 3 books and I am waiting the last one to arrive here in SAO PAULO BRAZIL.
I would like to tell you that the fleet formation ans battle description are wonderfull, but sometimes difficult to realize. Would it be difficult to include any picture or graphics in the futures editions?
Keep the excellent work! I hope one day we can see BJ Geary in an animated series or even a television series!
Regards,
Ed
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