Dauntless

A pretty basic military space opera with some nice hooks and believable characters. Definitely a quick and fun read.

It's been a good long while since I've read a sci-fi novel, and longer yet since I've read a GOOD sci-fi novel.

This one is really amazing. It's just the right blend of science and military sci-fi- the fleet formation and description of the battle were vivid and amazing. I am not always a fan of military sci-fi, but this reminded me of some of my favourite elements of The Expanse series by James S. A. Corey.

I'm glad this book doesn't go into unnecessary meandering. The story is simple, save the fleet from the enemies along with the macguffin - in this case a Key. It doesn't take long for the action to kick in and the journey to begin.

And what a journey this is going to be.

I liked that, a quick, entertaining palate cleanser type of book between 2 heavier books.
Definitely going to check out book 2.

I think I like military science fiction. But it's so hard to tell, because a lot of it isn't very good.What I mean here is that The Lost Fleet isn't very good. It's not awful, it's all-round better than [b:Into the Black 12971820 Into the Black (Odyssey One, #1) Evan Currie https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1334235177l/12971820.SY75.jpg 16237035] (by Evan Currie, and which I reviewed before) for example, and yet in individual ways its so much worse.The characters are all the same. The bad apples are cardboard cut-out people with no personality apart from the will to be the villains.It needs an editor to point out the language problems. Phrases with annoying repetition, like “He could see that the ship had once been a good-looking ship, but...” just set my teeth on edge.People glower and scowl a lot, which is apparently the MSF way of showing emotion.The protagonist is constantly exhausted, which has an in-universe explanation, but is really a lazy way of replacing conflict with an inner struggle. In one paragraph, his effective second-in-command goes from “glowering” to “glowing” because he compliments her. It's like people are really primitive state machines or something.The premise is interesting: it's an interstellar case of impostor syndrome. I mean, it's definitely explored, I'm just not sure that repeating thoughts about how he can't live up to people's expectations is a fulfilling exploration.Then there are Big Space Battles and I have a problem with them.I mentioned [b:Into the Black 12971820 Into the Black (Odyssey One, #1) Evan Currie https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1334235177l/12971820.SY75.jpg 16237035] earlier because I see a lot of similarities between the books, but what Currie does well is his presentation of the mechanics of warfare over large distances. Campbell tries to make things trickier by factoring in light-speed delays where one side can't tell what the other is doing for minutes at a time, and that's... reasonable. It's actually pretty smart.It would work if his premise - that both sides have no concept of formations or tactics whatsoever - wasn't so preposterous. It would work if his strategy wasn't “attack from the sides rather than head-on”. It would work, but it doesn't, because everything feels like a muddle stretched over several pages.There are a couple of fairly clumsy hints that we're going to be seeing Mysterious Aliens in the sequels. A bit of conclusion-jumping by an otherwise unseen team of engineers gets revisited near the end with the protagonist musing to himself over whether aliens could be real. Hmm.

Very well told and kept my attention. Really appreciated the “realism” portrayed of what traveling and waging war at high speeds in space involves as far as distances, time, strategy, etc. The only downsides were the constant self-doubt in the protagonist's internal dialog (although very reasonable, it became tedious) and the constant “political” undermining, maneuvering, hostility (also not unreasonable, unfortunately, but also grew tedious). How may times does this have to happen before real change can be seen? But I still enjoyed the book and will likely pick up the sequels.

Not the worst book I've read, but I'm definitely skipping the rest of the series.

A very very good first book for a space opera!!!
Captain Jack Geary, or as he is known by every person in Alliance World or Syndic World(stands for Syndicate) Black Jack Geary, became legendary as a result of his death when the Syndics declared war on the Alliance, not only that, he saved a lot of his crew, when he ordered them to abandon ship and stayed behind to see to it!!!!
Fast forward a 100years, much has changed and suddenly, a ship was able to pick up a errant escape pod, inside was the legendary Black Jack Geary Hero and Legend!!!
The story open up right at the moment as the Alliance fleet was supposedly on it's way to winning the war, as they have penetrated deep into the Syndic homeworld, unknowingly closing the trap against themselves!!!
Well, what follows is the Legend's efforts(seemingly effortless), ideas(a lot happens after 100 years) and attitude......suddenly an astounding secret.......

Book two please!!!!!

To be honest, I was super disappointed by this book. The fleet tactics were interesting, as was the speculation about how a never ending war changes people, but the characters were such one-dimensional caricatures that I couldn't take any of them seriously. They were either eager sycophants, brainless and defiant arguers or a hero that is always right, true, honorable and perfect while carrying on a ridiculous internal monologue attempting to convince the reader he's an actual human.

If you like fleet scale space battle with actually interesting characters you might care about, you'd be better off looking elsewhere.

Nice way to wrap up the last year which was full of nice and rich reading experiences. Dauntless is not classic sci-fi nor is it a classic war saga. Dauntless is all about leadership and the choices that one has to make and Jack Campbell puts you right in the head of Black Jack as the hero returned. The concept is also interesting though a bit of a stretch but having set it up Jack does a great job of creating the space odyssey. The delayed light speed calculations are confusion but keep you interested but to be frank some part were impossible to follow the maneuvers of the fleet. But all in all a highly recommended entry into the series.

Wasn't bad but couldn't/didn't get through it. Made it maybe 1/4 through.

“Black Jack” has waken up after 100 years of sleeping in rescue capsule to find out the war is still on. Finding himself in charge of a fleet he will try to get all of them home as quick as enemy will allow him to.

Worth recommending for every space opera fan. There are few glitches and main charcter repeating himself too many times, but it has potential. Interesting universe and tactics description make me think that it could be begining of a great adventure. I definitively will bite into second book in series.

A promising start to what to becomes an excellent hard scifi series. The moment Jack Geary says to the Syndic commander simply, “No.” is the embodiment of this kick-off volume. I've gone back to that bookmark and number of times for a re-visit into this universe. Beyond this book it only gets better as the series continues and even splits into three Series. Highly recommended.