Valiant

Originally reviewed on Short Rambling Reviews

This is the fourth book in the series and it is great, at the end of the last book Courageous, they had just survived a major battle in the Lakota system. After they escape Geary decides to send them back there, at this point I thought he was nuts, however there was clear logic to the decision. I realised at that point, this series still has a lot to offer and Jack Campbell’s ability to surprise me hasn’t waned. Just when I think I have Geary’s thought process figured out and thought he would do one thing, he does something completely unexpected, I have to say this is refreshing, especially when other elements such as combat can be a bit monotonous and formulaic at times.

I thought in show more the last installment, we would find out a bit more about the unseen enemy they have been speculating about but alas no. Jack remedies that problem in this installment, however rather than answering questions it just posed more and as a result added another layer of depth to the universe.

As with all other installments there is an element of the fleet that opposes Geary’s command, however, even though there are the usual fleet conference disputes, and open challenges, this time it took a more sinister turn. Members of the fleet would turn on their own ships. As this issue wasn’t resolved I should imagine it will rear its ugly head in following installments. This aspect of the series (commanders openly challenging Geary in conferences) had grown tired and its nice to see Jack make this much darker and have wider implications.

This installment delved into the human aspect of the war over and above Geary’s conscience. As the perspective had predominantly focused on Alliance losses and cost. It showed the other side, the losses suffered by the Syndics and the extreme treatment and betrayal of people by their own rulers. To me this was a little disturbing but added so much to the overall feel of the series. In a way it made me want to see Geary succeed in getting the fleet and all crew members home more, but it also made me care how he does it. I also found a new respect for Geary, it is clear that ethics and rules of war had come out the window in the hundred years the war had been raging, and Geary was bringing a little integrity, ethics and morality back.

In Summary, this is a great addition to the series and adds another level of depth to an already rich universe. show less

You know the drill. Still Lost Fleet, still good.

Fewer battles in Valiant, as Geary returns to a Lakota system that's taken more of a pounding than he thought. However, the fleet is a mess, with an unknown saboteur introducing deadly computer viruses into systems, and more hard fights against the Syndic enemy. The political situation is getting more and more fraught, but home is little more than a dim light in the distance.

In Valiant, Jack Campbell’s fourth book in his The Lost Fleet series, Captain “Black Jack” Geary is back, leading the remaining Alliance fleet through Syndic territory in an effort to get home to Alliance territory. They’re worried about their fuel cells, food stores, and the materials they need to create weapons. They’re obviously also worried about the Syndic fleet(s) following them, trying to trap them and eliminate them wherever they go. So far, they’ve beaten the odds and whipped the Syndics and they’ve discovered that the Syndics are afraid of Geary. The Syndic CEOs and crews are inexperienced and this weakness allows Geary to exploit this weakness in battle and concentrate on, yes, more pressing needs. In this book, show more they’ll also witness a Syndic hypernet gate collapse, see the horrifying damage it can do, and try to get the truth out to the Syndic worlds, letting everyone know the Alliance is not responsible for this atrocity. Finally, they’re getting closer to finding out the truth behind their suspicions that some form of aliens on the other side of Syndicate space might be influencing the war and trying to exterminate humanity.

One of the previously mentioned more pressing needs is fleet treasonous behavior on the part of fleet captains. Geary’s always had adversaries and has actually had to arrest a few, but things are getting nasty. Worms are found in several ship’s operating systems that would have resulted in Geary’s ship and a couple of others jumping into jump space and never emerging again, lost forever, while the rest of the fleet remains helpless. Who are these evil rivals who are willing to kill him and their colleagues in the fleet? Why are they willing to go to such traitorous lengths? Geary needs to find out and find out fast!

Another pressing need, although less so, is the two women in his life, Co-President Victoria Rione and Captain Tanya Desjani, his fleet commander. Rione has been his on again, off again lover, now permanently off. I’ve never liked her. She’s a politician who does nothing but play mind fuck games. She’s a total bitch and treats him like crap. I hate her guts and so does everyone in the fleet. And she hates and treats Desjani, Geary’s biggest supporter, like crap and with great disdain. Desjani used to follow Geary around like a devoted puppy dog, willing to do anything he commanded. She still follows his orders, but in this book, Campbell finally develops her character to a much larger degree and we get to know a lot more about her and find out there’s a lot more to her than just blind devotion to the Alliance and to Geary. It’s refreshing. Tanya Desjani is given more development in this book. We’re finally shown some other, nicer components of her personality. When we first met her, her two main personality traits seemed to be utter blind devotion to Geary and an unusual battle lust. Now she is actually a potential love interest for Geary and no one could be better for him. It’s also refreshing to see a “nice” woman who cares for and respects Geary treat him with dignity and respect and honor, as well as offering an objective opinion on tactics and other things, unlike Rione and it’s just sad that the two women simply end up getting catty with each other. It gets damned annoying. I just want Desjani to punch her out! It creates a real headache for Geary.

My series complaints about the fleet weaponry remains and stands. They have virtually no missiles, so they rely on “grapeshot” and “hell lances,” both of which are for close quarters combat, which of course is not remotely possible at the speeds Campbell (or anyone) writes about taking place in space. There would simply be collisions and warships would blow up. It’s that simple. Besides, it’s simply stupid to think that 17th century Earth-based pirate’s grapeshot using actual ball bearings would be used thousands of years in the future in outer space. It’s truly the most ridiculous space “weapon” I’ve ever heard of in my life. Grapeshot tears ships apart. Sure it does. Since you’re 100 yards away from each other traveling at the speed of light and not colliding, I guess that can happen, right? Shit. Hell lances are little better. Close quarters combat. There’s another close quarters weapon, but I forget the name now, but essentially it’s 17th century naval battles in space, when ships got alongside each other and fired at point blank range and men boarded each other’s ships. It’s utterly the most stupid thing I could possibly imagine. Most sci fi writers use weapons such as, yes, missiles, but also lasers, grazers, plasma weapons, anti-missile defenses, and much more. Not here. Oh, and when 120 warships attack 120 other warships and fire at each other, maybe, maybe five get hit. Two get destroyed and three get seriously damaged. And that’s considered successful. Compare that to the greatest military sci fi writer of our time, David Weber. He has hundreds, at times, thousands of ships, each with impeller wedges powering the ships which are hundreds of kilometers wide, so that the battle lines are thousands, maybe millions of kilometers wide and millions of kilometers apart and the two fleets fire at each other at maybe 1.5 million kilometers apart. For close quarters laser action, perhaps they close to some 700,000 or 500,000 kilometers. I could be off, but you get the picture. And hundreds of ships blow up at one time, not five. It’s ridiculous to think that 120 ships firing at one time can only blow up a couple of ships. That’s the definition of ineptitude. Is it any wonder why this war has been going on for over 100 years? Their weapons are hideously bad. Can’t R&D do something decent? So, that’s my major complaint with this book and this series. And it’s a major complaint and it always knocks at least one star off the overall rating because I think it’s such a serious drawback.

All that said, I think this is a pretty good book in a decent series. This isn’t the best military sci fi series I’ve ever read, not by a long shot. But it’s holding my interest. I want to know what happens to Geary when he gets the fleet home to the Alliance. Will the politicians welcome him or view him as a threat? What will be done about the aliens? Can the war be stopped? Will he and Desjani finally end up together? I want to know, shortcomings be damned! So, four stars and if you’re reading the series, recommended. show less

If you like military SF at all, you should be reading this series. After a century of war with the Sydicated Worlds, the Alliance fleet, led by the reluctantly legendary Captain "Black Jack" Geary, is trapped deep in enemy territory, trying desperately to get home with technology that could finally win the war. If they fail, the Alliance is left with no defenses to speak of.

This is the fourth book. It's as good as the others, with the familiar space battles, fleet politics, and ethical questions. New treacheries unfold, and potential allies are found in unexpected places. Captain Geary's fundamental decency continues to stand him in good stead. And he remains clueless about women. (To my mind, those are the weakest bits of the series, show more but you don't read military SF for the romance.)

This is very much a middle book, with all that implies, but it's well worth reading. Start at the beginning, not here, but don't skip this one. show less

Lo and behold, Valiant actually progresses the plot of the series overall! Valiant starts off with a battle (which began at the end of the previous book) and is fairly interesting as it involves a neat little trap the good guys spring on the bad guys. After this battle, things slow down a bit and it takes a few chapters to get going again, but what does happen is interesting.

The basic plot hasn’t changed from the first three books. The Alliance Fleet is still trying to make its way home after being stuck in enemy territory. Captain John Geary is still one of the few officers with anything more than sawdust for brains, but thankfully, he’s still in charge of getting everyone home. He’s also managed to form a small cadre of loyal, show more reliable, and dedicated officers who are trying to follow his example. What develops in Valiant are a number of subplots that have been hinted at in the previous books. The major one is that of a growing concern that a third, alien, party is manipulating the war between the Alliance (the good guys) and the Syndics (the bad guys). Whereas these cunning aliens have only been alluded to in the previous books, in Valiant we actually see some concrete evidence that they actually do exist and that they are indeed very powerful and politically adept. While there is still a lot of conjecture thrown around by the main characters and many questions are still left unanswered, we finally see some solid plot development. On a further note, we also see more of the junior officers this time around; one in the form of an intelligence officer. Usually Campbell denotes junior officers solely by their rank, but here he actually names a few, which is nice.

In regards to a different subplot, specifically the one dealing with the non-Geary idolaters in the fleet, we see some further developments on that as well. Instead of outright mutiny like we saw with Capt. Falco in the second book, we see the non-Geary camp beginning to utilize subterfuge and sabotage as a way to try and undermine Geary’s efforts. They even go so far as to resort to cold-blooded fratricide in a few cases. I won’t spoil the details. This subplot develops in the latter half of the book, plays out very well, and kept me interested.
Finally, the romance subplots are developed further as well. Thankfully, Co-President Victoria Rione is slightly less of a nagging crone as she was in the previous book. Thankfully, we see the romance between her and Geary cool (if not simply taken out back and shot), and another romance begin to develop between Geary and a certain other officer. It plays out alright, but it does work. I still don’t think Campbell has the best knack for writing romance however. It still feels a tad on the forced side.

As for the battles, it’s still more of the good stuff we expect from someone like Campbell.

Overall, I’d give Valiant a respectable 3.5 out of 5. It’s good and it’s definitely better than Courageous, but it doesn’t quite possess the same pacing as the first two books which would net it a recommended 4 out of 5 rating. So, would I recommend it? Not necessarily. However, it’s probably worth a read if you’ve already started the series because it does pick things up and advance the plot as well as several subplots. Good, but not quite great. show less

Originally posted at FanLit:
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/reviews/valiant/

Black Jack Geary, the crew of the flagship Dauntless, and the other ships of the Alliance fleet are still wandering around in enemy territory, trying to get home (and reminding me a bit of that stupid show I loved when I was a kid: Lost in Space). They�??re worried about their stores of fuel, food and the material they need to create weapons. Theyƒ??re also worried about the Syndicate fleets, but theyƒ??ve been successful enough so far that the Syndics are equally afraid of them. In Valiant, there are more Syndics to fight, civilians to rescue, and sabotage to discover. The Alliance fleet will also witness the terrifying collapse of a Syndicate hypernet show more gate and learn the truth about their suspicions of an alien presence that may be influencing the war from afar.

Personally Geary is still dealing with some treacherous ship captains and he must make some hard decisions about how to handle them. He also has a problem with the women in his life ƒ?? co-president Victoria Rione and Tanya Desjani, captain of Dauntless. Up to this point I mostly appreciated Campbellƒ??s depiction of the women in his space fleet, but now theyƒ??re starting to act unprofessional. For such strong women, they sure can be catty!

Overall I continue to enjoy Jack Campbellƒ??s LOST FLEET series. Valiant is the fourth book and while some of it is repetitive in both language and plot, and while some of the plot is really far-fetched (most of that having to do with how they manage to guess the intentions of their enemies and the aliens) it does serve to increase tension as we find out about the aliens and the potential danger in the hypernet gates. The romantic jealousies add emotional drama, though I could have done without some of that (or at least I would have preferred for the women not to be so silly about it).

Tanya Desjani is given more development in this installment ƒ?? weƒ??re finally shown some agreeable aspects of her personality. When we first met her she was rather bland. Her two main personality characteristics seemed to be blind devotion to Captain Geary and an almost bloodthirsty lust for battle. Now that she is a potential love interest for Geary, Campbell has decided to give us someone to love. The devotion has been toned down ƒ?? Tanya will now offer her opinions and will display skepticism or even disapproval of some of Gearyƒ??s plans. She has also acquired a touch of snark and a much-needed sense of humor.

Speaking of humor, there were actually times I laughed aloud while reading Valiant, and Iƒ??m not sure that has happened before in this series. Campbell is most funny when heƒ??s poking fun at navy officers, intelligence officers, engineers, and Marines.

Iƒ??m moving on to the fifth book, Relentless, but I canƒ??t shake the feeling that this series should have been condensed to a total of four rather than six books. show less

If you like military SF at all, you should be reading this series. After a century of war with the Sydicated Worlds, the Alliance fleet, led by the reluctantly legendary Captain "Black Jack" Geary, is trapped deep in enemy territory, trying desperately to get home with technology that could finally win the war. If they fail, the Alliance is left with no defenses to speak of.

This is the fourth book. It's as good as the others, with the familiar space battles, fleet politics, and ethical questions. New treacheries unfold, and potential allies are found in unexpected places. Captain Geary's fundamental decency continues to stand him in good stead. And he remains clueless about women. (To my mind, those are the weakest bits of the series, show more but you don't read military SF for the romance.)

This is very much a middle book, with all that implies, but it's well worth reading. Start at the beginning, not here, but don't skip this one. show less