By The Living Stars, which is an expression used in this series, the series still has little to recommend it at this stage? Why six books. It is clear that three would have covered it.

So many times the repetition of what has happened before reappears. Maybe once was forgiveable, but over and over. Then let us suspend our disbelief for the throwaway aliens... Book five and we haven't seen them, just some evidence and supposition that they exist and is one of a few reasons the enemy is as violent and distasteful as they are.

But what we see with out really finally saying it is that the war of terror exists because so long ago they killed our Great-Great-Uncle and they think so long ago we killed their Great-Aunt that no one can let bygones be bygones, even though each side of course will say the other did the killing the first.

No one but our hero, who thinks it, but won't say it where it will do the most good.

And our hero of course is the only one after 100 years of murderous war who can think of new tactics...

We got all that ages ago, certainly saving us as readers and purchasers several dollars and time, oh the time to slog through it.

Where we have problems is the Hero was more heroic before and less so now. His one dimensional side kicks are just that, one dimensional and the facade of background material trying to give them depth has come too late to take away any of that boring look at them. It is also trite and cliched, first our hero is sleeping with the only politician in the fleet, who happens to be a woman and now a thorny conscious in his side, and now that they have stopped sleeping together, he wants to sleep with the highest ranked lieutenant to the command structure who also is a good looking woman, with baggage that counts for nothing.

Where they should have reached home, reached the aliens, or been destroyed by book three, well we do have some arcs that get tied up. But in all this the people that he is fighting, oh they are getting the word that he shows mercy which for the last hundred years has been few and far between, but they do not believe it every time he shows up and so the bosses on the enemy side insist they fight to the death.

Fighting if you believe in your cause, give me liberty or give me death, is one thing, but fighting when you don't and you know that someone above you is ordering you to a useless death is making the Stockholm syndrome to taken for granted. I have more faith in people than that. I have more faith in the fear of death than that. I have more faith than anything that Jack Campbell with his hero who self doubts so much it is a wonder he won't just go kill himself. A 100 year temporal displacement, that many changes, dealing with no ties to the past should take a lot more pyschiatric help, all the time then this guy gets. So try and fail at suspending your disbelief.

What to do? Don't read this series if you haven't started. Only read this book if you are the person who has to know how something ends once you have started. Once finished with this series, it will never be read again. ( )

Consistently entertaining, which is an achievement for such a long series. ( )

http://bactra.org/weblog/algae-2009-0... ( )

While this book is very similar to the previous books in the series, featuring the inevitable space battles with the Syndicate, and desperate plotting by John Geary, it seemed like this one avoided becoming stale. As with the rest, this book is about how superior tactics, honor and discipline will win the day, which is never a bad thing. ( )

This one was on par with the rest of the books. Captain "Black Jack" Geary defeats syndics fleets and gets his lost fleet back in alliance space. But what about the aliens that started the war ? Is there going to be a civil war among the alliance worlds? Will Geary lead a coup for control? Guess will have to wait for book No 6.
I was a little disappointed in this one, (not that I have high expectations of military sci-fi).As a whole this would have made a fair trilogy, with book 5 being the third. But in Valiant: The Lost Fleet, Book 4 Campbell expanded on the idea of another empire on the far side of Syndics space, who were fueling the 100 year war between the alliance and the Syndics. So I naturally thought there would be more about this mysterious race. But no! The standard two fleet battles, plus freeing P.O.Ws after a fierce ground battle. And the same vague references made about the aliens.
It seems that Campbell is straining hard to extend the series past it's natural life span.
But I'm a fool who will give it one more book to see if it gets better. ( )