Jack Campbell's The Lost Fleet: Dauntless is a good science fiction novel that had the potential to be great. It's a very detailed character study that is devoid of physical descriptions, thus leaving so much to the imagination that it becomes distracting. Even so, it's still the promising beginning to what should be an interesting series.
Captain John "Black Jack" Geary is a legend in the interstellar war between the Alliance and the Syndics. Part of his legendary status stems from the fact that he was thought to be dead for nearly a hundred years until a ship found his life support pod floating in the far reaches of space. He had been in stasis ever since being ejected from a mighty ship that was destroyed at the height of a great victory for the Alliance.
Geary comes back to a military situation unlike the way things were when he left. The past century of never-ending war has taken its toll on the people fighting it, and in that short period of time they seem to have lost all sense of honor and purpose. When Geary shows mercy to some prisoners, as opposed to just executing all of them, the idea seems foreign to make of his crew members. It was like they were fighting the war just for the sake of fighting a war.
What makes this story work is the portrayal of Geary and how he tries to live down his legendary status. He's a major celebrity and war hero who is trying to gently climb down from the pedestal that everyone has placed him upon. He is a man of honor who wishes to both win and end the fighting, plus he's carrying all the drama of missing out on the last hundred years. Most of the action takes place in the background, so it's mainly the plight of Geary that carries the story.
As mentioned before, the biggest problem I had with this book was the lack of descriptive information. I never got a clear idea of what most anyone looked like, much less the supposedly magnificent ships they were commanding. In one part, the author goes on about Geary admiring the ‘beautiful' battle formations of the fleet, but never attempts to describe how they were moving or anything else. This is a very short paperback, weighing in at just under 300 pages, and I felt like it could have used a little more info on the setting. Otherwise, far too much of the story consisted of blank faced people in tiny rooms going on and on about battle plans and honor.
Despite its shortcomings, I thought The Lost Fleet: Dauntless was a decent opening to a science fiction series that shows a lot of potential.
