Valiant (The Lost Fleet, Book 4) by Jack Campbell
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Book Reviews of Valiant (The Lost Fleet, Book 4)
Book Review: Redundent
Summary: 4 Stars
Good story still but less and less pages each book plus he keeps wasting pages on explaining everything everybook i mean if your reading book 4 and dont know how the meeting room works just give up readingBook Review: If you like sci-fi I think you'll like this and all of the Lost fleet series
Summary: 4 Stars
I started with the firest book Dauntless and read right through all 5. Great story teller with interesting management twist.Book Review: The Lost Editor...er...Fleet saga continues
Summary: 3 Stars
I've enjoyed the Lost Fleet series, and I continued to enjoy it through book 4, despite its flaws. That said, the book fails the basic sequel test: if this had been the first book in the series, would I still be reading the series? At this point, my answer is "probably not".
What's still good?
The military battles are still well-described. There are better writers of speculative military fiction (Charles Stross, John Scalzi) in term of what can generally be described as "thinking up cool, futuristic stuff". Campbell excels in the telling of battles in enjoyable tactical detail in a plausible, futuristic setting. His ability to factor in time distortions, relativistic changes, simple momentum, leadership, motivation, and even navigation was what originally drew me to the series. This talent is still on display in the battle scenes of this book.
What's not so good?
It would be a stretch to say "everything else", but there are some flaws that appear to be worsening over the course of the series.
CAPT John Geary, the fleet's commander, is still the only character who seems fully fleshed out. We spend the books inside his head, and by book 4 much of the Geary internal monologue about honor, duty, ancestors, etc., is a bit repetitive. Still, Geary remains a likable, honorably motivated leader without becoming a caricature. For the rest, not so much.
Victoria Rione, is, to judge by reader comments, almost universally annoying. What's more, while her motivations initially seemed congruent with her actions, that no longer seems the case. She vacillates between insightful advisor and shrewish harridan, and I actually LIKED her character initially. Now I find myself in the camp saying "Please, someone slap her".
CAPT Desjani, the loyal subordinate and captain of the fleet flagship, still seems too 2-dimensional to function as Geary's love interest. Way too many "Rione spoke while Desjani gritted her teeth" sequences. The book has too much of this interplay. I'd bet Geary wishes Campbell would write a holo-deck into book 5 to get him out of this.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
So, if you really have enjoyed the battle sequences, as I have, then the book will probably be worth it. If you struggled through the 3rd book thinking "please don't have so much cat-fighting in the 4th", well, consider yourself warned. If you are new to the series, I can unreservedly recommend the first book, Dauntless.
I don't want to come off as too harsh. I enjoyed this book and plan to buy the 5th. I think fans of the series will generally still enjoy this entry. Still, I do think it's fair to point out what I see as areas to improve in the concluding books.
3.5 stars.
Book Review: Great Action, Great Premise but Flawed
Summary: 3 Stars
The plot of this book is bookended with two rousing, action-packed battle scenes, one at the beginning, one at the end. The hero is a high-minded military man of unimpeachable honor who exhibits both excellent strategic thinking and the ability to see beyond the narrow limits of the war he is fighting. He faces and overcomes his miliary opponents, his critics within his command, sabotage by computer worms and his own temptation to act autocratically.
In additon the plot includes a dramatic rescue of an enemy civilian population abandoned by its own leaders. Why doesn't all this add up to a higher rating?
This is the fourth book of the series and the structural flaws of the series are hurting the execution of what should be riveting science fiction. The action sequences can no longer carry the reader over the preposterous personal life of "Black Jack" Geary.
In this book, the awkward character of Senator Rione becomes even more awkward. This civilian character whose presence on this miliary vessel is incredible to begin with never has rung true. As the series has progressed, she starts as the competent political observer, becomes Geary's lover and suffers a crisis of conscience when she learns that her husband might be a living prisoner instead of killed in action. In this book, she seems to have morphed into a one-note jealous shrew even though she refuses to enjoy Geary's favors. She all but pushes Geary at his female flagship captain to whom Geary is attracted and with whom he has a lot in common. This love triangle could have been an asset to the series but because it is handled so clumsily all the noble sentiments flying around somehow detract from Black Jack's character instead of add luster to him. Rione is so one-dimensional that none of her changes of face seem credible. Geary comes off as incrediably passive in his interactions with the women.
Unlike previous books in this series, I found this one easy to put down. That's very sad as I love the space battle scenes and the main character. This projected six-book series should be a sweeping epic but the way each book unfolds multiples the weaknesses while minimizing the strengths. For example, after one of the battles Geary reviews certain personnel files that give background information on various officers that have been prominent in this series. However the way he does so is a bit confusing as if these officers are casualties of the preceeding battle although no mention has been made of in the battle scenes themselves. By much paging around, I'm guessing these folks are still alive although the placement of the background information like this at the end of the book deflates suspense and confuses the reader. Am I supposed to remember this for book five?
Book Review: Good Series... but dragging
Summary: 3 Stars
My thoughts, in no specific order:
* The character of Rione has pushed beyond annoying/irritating into the "get rid of this character" territory - move her to one of her own ships, kill her off, whatever... her attitude was required in book 1, growing tiresome in book 2, and completely useless in book 3 and 4 - yes, her attitude has a different focus in this book (Desjani) but it doesn't matter - her purpose has been served. Geary is fully aware of the thin line between Hero and real-world leadership; he doesn't need Rione anymore to remind him.
* The 3rd party (aliens) storyline in the book is obviously not going to be resolved in book 5, so I fully expect a 2nd series with Geary leading both Syndic and Alliance forces against this unknown enemy. The problem I have with this is that the 3rd party was introduced in Book 1 and has dragged out to the point where I'm not sure I want to wait until 2011/2012 for this story to be completed and we find out how Geary chooses to spend the remainder of his days...
* Whereas the previous books had 2-3 well-written battle scenes in them, this one has only 1 detailed battle (1 at the end is hastily written and no explanation of where this force has jumped in from or how they happened to just 'be there') - again, this goes back to my argument that the series is losing steam.
* This series could easily have been done in a trilogy (with longer pagecounts); these books are short and can be read fairly quickly and it only makes me wary of getting started with the next Black Jack series as I'm ready to move on to something new. If the next series ends up being a 5 parter, don't say I didn't warn you.
* My biggest complaint is the author's tendency to repeat things in all 4 books (and probably will be repeated in book 5) - this includes explaining how the 100+ of ship captains use the conference room (virtual, of course), the importance of the hypernet key, how Geary was found floating suspended for 100 years, etc... any reader who cannot look in the front of the book and see this is book 4 in a series of 5 deserves to be confused... the repeated content just makes the story more tiring and comes off as "filler" so the book meets a specific page count.
* My last bit of review is a plea to the author to ask his publishers to consider releasing the next series as a 3 parter, with longer page count and shorter release periods.