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Dauntless: The Lost Fleet by Jack Campbell
Aug. 2nd, 2017 11:50 amJohn Geary's knowledge of military tactics and protocols are from before he went into suspended animation 100 years ago during a battle against the corporate Syndicate. In the meantime, he has become a legend, and he has to struggle with the differences between expectations and reality. He's thrust into the command role, taking control of a fleet of 200 ships, and each book covers two related adventures as they try to make their way back home from behind enemy lines.
The Lost Fleet is about commanding hundreds of ships and all of the politics and morale involved in that. It’s a good series, but Jack Campbell starts with the bar set a little too low, emphasizing pure quantity and removing any tactical maneuvers. It’s sort of like the first couple of times people play Storm of the Armadas, where the battles turn into a joust, so I suppose it's natural.
Like Storm of the Armadas, it simplifies things by starting both sides with essentially the same technologies. This series also reminded me that human beings can’t react fast enough to aim and fire weapons over the sorts of distances and speeds that are common in space warfare.
More than any other story I’ve read, The Lost Fleet emphasizes the delays between giving orders and having them executed. Quite often the characters actually take naps between engagements. Jack Campbell is the first sci-fi writer I've read that does this. What he doesn't do is explore the resulting PTSD, although that would make for a very different story.
The Lost Fleet is about commanding hundreds of ships and all of the politics and morale involved in that. It’s a good series, but Jack Campbell starts with the bar set a little too low, emphasizing pure quantity and removing any tactical maneuvers. It’s sort of like the first couple of times people play Storm of the Armadas, where the battles turn into a joust, so I suppose it's natural.
Like Storm of the Armadas, it simplifies things by starting both sides with essentially the same technologies. This series also reminded me that human beings can’t react fast enough to aim and fire weapons over the sorts of distances and speeds that are common in space warfare.
More than any other story I’ve read, The Lost Fleet emphasizes the delays between giving orders and having them executed. Quite often the characters actually take naps between engagements. Jack Campbell is the first sci-fi writer I've read that does this. What he doesn't do is explore the resulting PTSD, although that would make for a very different story.