World Famous Comics: Fearless (The Lost Fleet, Book 2)
Fearless (The Lost Fleet, Book 2)
By: Jack Campbell Publisher: Ace Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Ace Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 304 Publication Date: January 30, 2007
Product Description: Captain John "Black Jack" Geary tries a desperate gamble to lead the Alliance Fleet home-through enemy-occupied space-only to lose half the Fleet to an unexpected mutiny.
Great overall story - painful characterizations I had a love/hate relationship with this book. On the one hand, the overall plot was intriguing and kept my interest. On the other, some of the things his characters say ring so false that it became hard to continue somewhere around the middle. While Geary's relationship with Rione develops, the way it unfolds leads one of the worst-told romances I've ever read. These two characters spend most of their time very wary of each other, with Rione acting as a combination of Geary's conscience and his suspicious monitor. Lots of back and forth trying to probe each others' motivations and hammering out an awkward working relationship. Then things get romantic, but nothing changes. They have basically the same conversation over and over, which grew tedious, and I found myself wincing at the dialog. Rione has this weird quality of being both professionally detached and shrewish. It's not very convincing.
I really wanted to like this book as much as the first, but it just felt like there was a lot of repetition and one-dimensional characters. Perhaps military sci-fi isn't my genre. I'm not sure I want to invest more time in reading the next books in the series.
Fearless: The Lost Fleet book 2 Good storyline continues to be well developed and written. Characters first introduced in Dauntless are becoming fleshed out and believable. The true enemy is slowly being introduced... I expect the series to continue becoming better and better.
Rip Van Winkle in Space - Part 2 This is the second book in the Lost Fleet series and it does not disappoint. The space battles are presented in crisp clean prose, with believable attention to physics. The hero, John "Black Jack" Geary evolves and changes under pressure and even, with due discretion, acquires a girlfriend. There's stronger speculation about the existence of aliens as a driving force for the 100 year old war.
My biggest complaint is structural. Book One: Dauntless and Book Two: Fearless could have been combined in a single volume. The story arc would have been a lot stronger that way and a certain amount of repetition designed to bring the out-of-sequence reader up to speed could have been eliminated. As it is, I feel that the overall arc of the series has just barely crept forward. And the author is not really exploring the psychological complexity of his characters. Some of the dialog is just daft (Scottish dialect for whacko) instead of striving for depth.
But I love the way Jack Campbell writes his action sequences. He manages to capture some of the agonizingly slow motion imposed by the vast distance of space and combine it with an ability to keep the reader on the edge of the chair. I'll keep reading and hoping for more. In some ways, Jack Campbell is the science fiction equivalent of Dick Francis in the mystery genre: he's a slick stylist with a knack for action.
Where is Honor Harrington? OK, here's the good. Jack Campbell describes fleet operations in a believable manner. Frankly, I believe his fleet structure would work better than the pseudo ship of the line fleet structure used by David Weber.
But Weber has already done it (and done it, and done it, and...). Weber also included a rich universe, a good deal of romance, and a lot of involved politics. Mr. Campbell has thrown in some cardboard cutouts to ask leading questions of his hero.
Oh, yeah. Are there aliens in this universe? I don't know. Stick around for book six.
There's nothing new here. There is no personal story here. There is no human story here. There's a lot of inspirational interludes where the author uses the mythical "Black Jack" to opin on the santity of life and playing by the rules of war. There's also a number of set up characters who (amazingly enough) turn their life around just knowing that good old Black Jack believes in mercy and honor.
Please.
Sorry, for a writer with an easily readable style, I think Mr. Campbell is wasting his talent. After he finishes paying some bills, I would like to encourage him to write a well balanced novel that depends on human characters and emotions almost as much as the battle scenes.
Great Read! This book was very entertaining to read. It's not an in depth collossal and extravagent work of sci-fi but an interesting take on the whole "lost hero refound to save the world in the nick of time". I literally couldn't put the book down and finished it that night, much like the first one. Others have given a really good synopsis of the book so I'll skip that part.
What really draws me into this series is the balance between the action and the dialogue. The space battles are done in a way that leaves you biting your nails. Sure you know what's going to happen and most likely how it's going to end but how he takes you through it is the exciting part.
All in all, this is a great book and a great series! I highly suggest it for anyone wanting some fast and troubled heroes facing impossible odds!
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