Bennett R. ColesRezensionen

It's a bit like Master and Commander (or at least books in that vein) in SPACE. I thoroughly enjoyed this.

Oh gosh, this is such a good series.

The hunt is on for Dark Star, the Empire’s most organized and dangerous enemy. She is a ghost from Blackwood’s past and a victim of the societal restrictions that are as strangling on the nobility as the commoners. The Empire is ripe for a revolution……

Fun tribute for Hornblower fans. This is what life would be like if the British navy of the 1700s and 1800s were transported to the future space navy. You have the same castes, political setup, personal relationships. Evil lords, valiant Naval officers, and good lower castes. There are the creaking of masts and sails in the solar wind, broadsides, boarding parties. Lots of fun.

Normally I don't give two-star reviews. If I don't like a book I just don't finish. But I really wanted to finish this because I am working on my own solar-sailing series, and am looking for comp titles. I also wanted to like it, because of course if it's good, that makes me look good by comparison.

This is the sort of thing I should like--it's swashbuckling, age of sail in space--but it's just not pulled off very well, in my opinion.

Worldbuilding: The science is never explained, and I don't think it's plausible at all. Solar sailing doesn't work the way he thinks it does, and he never gives any reason for why our characters are using swords and four-shot pistols when they clearly have advanced technology in other respects. Likewise, the empire in the book is a rough sketch of some kind of classist society with nobles, but nothing is ever explained. Like, how does the Navy function when any idiotic lordling can be captain and totally destroy a ship for no reason, and all the competent people can't get promoted? Classism is one thing, but the admirals appear to be completely stupid to allow this. That kind of thing.

Character: The two leads are about as basic as you come. They have no backstory. There's nothing they really want except to be good at their jobs, which they are. There's a romance going on, which proceeds smoothly without a hitch. I could not make myself care about either of them.

Themes: There are no themes. The characters just go along from adventure to adventure without giving much thought to anything. It's often mentioned that the society is classist and that's a problem, but nobody ever does anything about it, and when there's an attempted mutiny, we are expected to side with the captain. The pirates say that they are fighting for freedom, and I had a momentary glimmer of hope that our guys are really the baddies and they will reject the Empire and fight for freedom too, but . . . nope. That would require introspection and our heroes don't do that.

Ethics: our main hero beats up some prisoners at one point. But it's okay! He doesn't ENJOY it, okay. It's just a terrible necessity, because the pirates were such horrible baddies.

I should say something I liked about it, so I will say, there's plenty of action. I am not that excited by swordfights if I don't care about the people involved, but if you are, you're in luck: there are swordfights. I also found the beginning really cool, when the solar storm is raging and the sails are all creaking and it's very sailing-ship-y. (And unscientific because solar storms aren't LIKE that, but WHATEVER. It was still COOL.)

I recently read that this same premise is handled much better in the Alexis Carew books, so I'm going to try those next. Tall ships in space is such an excellent idea; it deserves much better treatment than this.

Another galactic empire.

A space navy very closely based on the 18th/19th century Age of Sail British navy. This includes propulsion almost entirely by solar sail--seemingly including at FTL speeds. Grappling hooks, boarding parties, cannon.

A reptilian alien species who call themselves Theropods--i.e., the name we give to the category of dinosaurs that includes Tyrannosaurus Rex and the ancestors of birds. Okay. I mean, it seems unlikely, but, okay.

Our heroes, Subcommander Liam Blackwood and Sublieutenant Amelia Virtue, are the executive officer and the quartermaster of HMSS Daring. (That's "His Majesty's Sailing Ship, by the way, not "Space Ship." Those solar sails, able to propel these ships at FTL speeds...) They're hunting down pirates led by the nefarious, mysterious Dark Star. We meet them, and the captain, Commander Sophia Riverton, as well as the ship's doctor, Sublieutenant Dr. Ava Templegrey, as they're heading off to a gala ball while ashore resupplying the ship. Riverton, Blackwood, and Templegrey are all midlevel nobles; Virtue and other crew members we meet are commoners. Within a very hours, they'll be heading off again, much sooner than planned, with a new enemy in addition to the pirate, Dark Star.

Am I being a little hard on the book? Maybe. I have to say I like the characters, and the book is more realistic than many about the problems with an hereditary, aristocratic class system. Which is to say, the problem isn't primarily that the noble classes are any more likely than anyone else to be either idiots, or evil. It's a good deal more complicated than that.

But, dear lord, these people are melodramatic. Riverton less so than the others, but even her, in her way.

And they have grand adventures, with both Riverton and Virtue proving unexpectedly good at dealing with aliens--Riverton in part due to diplomatic training and experience, and Virtue with a down-to-earth practicality.and decency. I suspect Horatio Hormblower would appreciate their sailing tactics, even if I find the idea of FTL wind sailing in space a little tough to swallow. The crew of Daring are brave, clever, resourceful.

i can't figure out, though, why any reasonably functional, theoretically high-tech society, would include as part of the legally acceptable process of foreclosing on a deeply indebted household the public murder of the principal debt-holder. Really. By sword. With dozens of witnesses. All cool! I mean, bad taste and all that, but no crime at all.

A more mundane and, I think, even less believable feature: This galaxy-spanning empire does not have photography. Seriously. Blackwood and Virtue encounter it as a fun, new novelty on a space station they're visiting to make contact with an information source.

By the later part of the story, I did really care what happened to these characters, but at the same time, I was left frustrated and annoyed with some of the plain ridiculousness. No, I am not going to be able to swallow the idea of FTL travel via solar sail--especially in a book that doesn't even acknowledge that travel between star systems would require FTL travel, or that there's any difference between in-system travel and travel between systems. That stars are not, by solar sail, just a few days or weeks or months apart.

This book, and the series, will certainly have happy readers, and I envy them. There's some good stuff here, and good fun.

It's not for me, though, and I won't be looking for more of the series.

I received a free electronic galley of this book from the publisher, and am reviewing it voluntarily.

I gave this a 3 because, while it was kind of fun, it seemed so improbable it eroded my enjoyment.

The story takes place in some dense star cluster with at least three space going species, humans, Sectoids (think giant roaches) and Theropods (think giant lizards). Space faring is in vessels with sails (to catch the solar winds which, since this is a dense star cluster, blow strong). The vessels have masts projecting from 4 sides. How it's possible for such a ship to travel through deep space in anything less than centuries is never explained.

The author really stretches the 17th century sailing concept beyond the breaking point. The ships are equipped with cannons (with cannon balls fired by gunpowder), boarding parties are armed with swords and pistols, there are space-faring pirates and cutthroats in every port. Sailors get an extra ration of rum once in awhile for doing a good job.

What's improbable is that the ships are also equipped with lasers, artificial gravity, computers, "sensors" and some other sort of propulsion called 'thrusters'.. The bridge has a transparent canopy so the first mate can scan the sky with a high-tech, but hand-held telescope. The mix of technologies is just confusing.

The humans have an Empire, ruled, naturally enough, by an Emperor. There are noble men and woman who get all the choice jobs in the Navy, apparently without regards to their actual ability.

The story concerns the HMSS Daring, disguised as a merchant ship, out looking for pirates. Operating under the Emperor's direct authority (a letter of Marque), the crew can keep any loot they recover but if their mission fails they will be disavowed by the Emperor. The officers are all nobles and the story is mainly about Subcommander Liam Blackwood and commoner ship quartermaster Amelia Virtue.

The dialog is often witty and well done and it's not really a bad story. The long smoldering romance between Blackwood and Virtue could have been consummated sooner (not a spoiler, you know from the time they meet they're going to end up in the sack together). Apparently in this Navy it's common for men and women to serve together and fraternization between ranks (and between nobles and commoners) is allowed (if not actually encouraged).

In the background, is a potential war between the humans and the Sectoids. Humans don't like the Sectoids, because, well, they're giant roaches. This gets resolved (in a way I saw coming well before the final reveal).

A sequel planned as at the end the Daring is being refitted for another mission. Not sure If I'm going to want to read it.

I did not read the first book. Yet, I had no problems jumping right into this one. Having not read the first book, sometimes you can feel like you have missed a lot. However, this was not the case with this book. What drew me into this book was the world and the characters that the author has built with this series. A nice futuristic book. Everyone from Lt. Commander Thomas Kane to Lt. Katja Emmes and SubLt. Jack Mallory were all strong characters. As much as I enjoyed the characters and the world, I did feel like about two thirds of the story was mainly just conversation. There was really nothing going on. The last third of the story is where the action happened. However, it was over pretty quickly. I do agree with another reader that if this had been the first book in this series that I would have not wanted to continue reading.

In the far future of Bennett R. Coles’s Virtues of War, Earth’s colonies are in rebellion. The politics of the rebellion are a little fuzzy, but that doesn’t matter. What does matter are space battles and futuristic ground combat. Not that the story and characters take a back seat to the action, but there is plenty of action. The story follows several up and coming officers of the Astral Force as they combat insurgents, rebellious colonies, and sometimes one another. This is Military SF done right. Coles’s experience in the Canadian Navy is obvious throughout and while tomorrow’s space combat bears a resemblance to the naval combat of today, it is more than naval warfare translated into space.

The 400+ pages of Virtues of War went by in a flash and if real life had not interfered, I would have finished it in one sitting. Virtues of War is the first volume of the Astral Saga, with the second volume, Ghosts of War due out in March 2016. If Coles can maintain the quality of storytelling and writing he displayed in the first volume, I imagine we will be hearing much more from him in the future. I hope there is more solid Military SF from Coles yet to come.

I received an Advanced Reader Copy of this book from the publisher.

Casualties of war was a fascinating story about the pain, physically and mentally, the veterans go through in the war in space. There are many characters in which all play a very important role to the story as a whole. The characters are extremely well written with a thorough background, which helps you visualize and understand each character as an individual.

The story is filled with curiosity and betrayal, but also containing mutual attachment, loyalty and love. I understand this is a second book in a series, following Virtues of War, the first book. I am intrigued enough in this book that I plan on reading Virtues of War to complete the story line.

As if you haven't already guessed, this is a science fiction novel about the investigations of the after effects to the veterans in the war in space. I found this book to be slow at some points, but it always ends up picking back up, and getting more interesting. I wish there was less slow parts, and the exciting climaxes should have been extended. Overall that is my only complaint about the book as a whole. I would rate this book a 4/5.