Lost Fleet: Dauntless, by Jack Campbell

CHRISTMAS GIFT RECOMMENDATION FOR FANS OF SCI-FI

There’s something about Christmas that makes it impossible for me to read anything remotely festive. I don’t want heart-warming. Forget romantic. Absolutely nothing with tinsel or a roaring log fire. Give me a good thriller with a high body count. Or some forensic police procedural. Even better, roll out the sci-fi.

The sci-fi novel that I am going to talk about today is the first book in a series of six Lost Fleet books, which have been New York Times bestsellers. I’ve now read the first three books in this series and intend to devour the remaining three in one big gluttonous splurge between Christmas Eve and New Year.

The blurb for the U.K. version of Lost Fleet: Dauntless is as follows:

After a hundred years of brutal war against the Syndics, the Alliance fleet is marooned deep in enemy territory, weakened and demoralised and desperate to make it home.

Their fate rests in the hands of Captain “Black Jack” Geary, a man who had been presumed dead but then emerged from a century of survival hibernation to find his name had become legend. Forced by a cruel twist of fate into taking command of the fleet, Geary must find a way to inspire the battle-hardened and exhausted men and women of the fleet or face certain annihilation by their enemies.

Obviously, if you hate sci-fi then it won’t be for you. I am very much pro-sci-fi and presently find myself without a current season of Stargate or Star Trek to look forward to each week. So when Titan Books offered me a review copy of this novel, I said yes mostly because they mentioned Stargate Universe, of which I was a fan, until it was unceremoniously dumped by the TV network just as it was getting seriously good. Admittedly, the blurb of Lost Fleet: Dauntless didn’t do much for me, because I didn’t really think deeply about the consequences of a hero who emerges from survival sleep (after languishing in an escape pod with a faulty beacon) for one hundred years. ONE HUNDRED YEARS. Culturally, that is a long old while. It’d be like me suddenly having to work alongside my great grandma, but for Geary it’s even worse: he’s the great grandma (so to speak) having to deal with the reckless young whippersnappers. And what an outdated fogey he seems to many of those under his command. The other half, of course, worship him as a hero, sent to them by the “living stars” to help them win the war by killing as many Syndics as possible, a concept that does not sit well with Geary, who clings on to such antiquated notions as the “rules of engagement” and the idea that civilians should not be killed, even if they do happen to be living on enemy planets. Notions of which the generations succeeding him have lost sight

It is one hell of a book. There is military strategy; betrayal; managerial incompetence; astrophysics; the fascinating effect of light speed on the course of space battles and some compelling clashes of character. The tension persists because our hero does not have to win just one battle. He has to lead a fleet (from the flagship, Dauntless) on the long and dangerous journey home through hostile territory, which means new challenges and new threats in every star system. Each of these star systems has different military defences and so each requires a different strategy, meaning that Geary is must come up with complex tactical solutions and battle formations in order for his fleet to survive. The formation of a fleet can determine whether a battle is won or lost, as is illustrated in the following passage, where Geary has positioned his fleet into a series of discs resembling a nutcracker shape, to meet the Syndics’ “hammer formation”:

As the last minutes to contact scrolled down, Geary had to imagine events in his mind’s eye, because time lag meant he wasn’t really seeing it as it happened. Dauntless‘s sensors and Geary’s eyes told him that the two jaws of the nutcracker were still closing to contact, when at that moment the upper disc of Alliance ships was already cutting down through the Syndic hammer at a high angle even as the second disc should be cutting upward father back. While the Alliance ships shot through the Syndic formation along its shortest axis, each Alliance ship was in contact with the enemy for only a few minutes, able to flay any ships within range and then racing onwards before its own defenses were too heavily stressed. But while the Alliance ships were continuing outward, allowing time for their shields to recover, the Syndic ships were getting hit again and again by new Alliance warships as the narrow disc of the Alliance formation swept through the Syndic formation.

There is also a nice feminist streak in this novel with many of the most powerful characters women. The commander of the Dauntless is Captain Desjani, a woman who has risen through the ranks due to her intelligence and fearlessness. Co-President Rione, a high-ranking politician and the only civilian on Dauntless, is another powerful woman that Geary often approaches for advice.

Publishers can get very excited about world-building novels but this is a universe-building novel and each star system is described in great detail and there is extra material at the back of the book, including star maps and how they are connected by “jump points” (which can be used for hyperspace travel) and a list of all of the ships in the fleet. There is also a candid interview with the author – who served in the U.S. Navy – in which he explains how his time driving ships whilst having to remain aware of submarines below and aircraft above, helped him to envision battle formations in space. And most excitingly, there is an extract from the beginning of the next book in the series, which naturally ends on a cliffhanger.

The page-turner qualities of this novel and the glorious escapism it offers make Lost Fleet: Dauntless the perfect Christmas book for any friend or relative who enjoys sci-fi and might just need a little time off from full-on festivity.

Titan Books, £7.99. Paperback. 350 pages.

Advertisement