Customer Reviews
The Plot, like the Fleet, goes lumbering on - By: M. J. Farncombe, 11 Aug 2008 
To cut a long story short... there's this long-lost hero, back from the dead, who has picked up the role of leading a space navy home, fighting two or three battlesin every book. There are romantic subplots (badly written), politics (OK) & hints of alien interventions (annoying) but what makes this series are the depictions of the military encounters, which are tensely written with just enough inventiveness to keep them fresh.
If that sounds your cup of tea (Earl Grey, hot?) then you should start with book one Dauntless (The Lost Fleet, Book 1) & quickly work through to the previous entryin the series Courageous (The Lost Fleet, Book 3 of 6): 3, which was a really good example of this genre. This entry is a little off the boil - the subplots predominate & the battles are not as well imagined. I'm glad that it's now been announced that there are six booksin the series, as I was wondering if the fleet would ever get home, or if it would just wander through space losing ships (and the plot) as the books went on. Here's hoping books 5 & 6 pick up the pace a bit.
the enemy within - By: Paul Tapner, 30 Jun 2008 for the uninitiated: this is a series of science fiction novels telling the ongoing story of the lost fleet, a group of spaceshipsin a future war between two human groups called the alliance & the syndic. the fleet comes from the former, & they got lost behind enemy lines & would have been doomed had they not found john geary. the legendary black jack, who foughtin a battle at the start of the war one hundred years previously & was stuckin suspended animation ever since. geary is nowin command, struggling to deal with the myth that has built up around himin the meantime, & trying to get the fleet back home. These books are not great literature by a long way, but they're capably written & feature good space battles.
you could probably pick the story up here, but to get the most out of the series go back to the first volume & read themin order.
for those who have been following this series:
this one like all of them runs roughly 286 pages, & picks up where the previous bookin the series left off. like that one, it also takes about a hundred pages to really get going. the first hundred pages are taken up with more space battles, which are well described but not the most exciting ones so far.
after this, though, the book does get going. geary this time faces the threat of his enemies inside the fleet taking action. he has to try & find them, & make a few more tough decisions along with it.
subplots do move on a bit here. the romantic love triangle he's beenin gets a bit of resolution. the aliens mentionedin book three don't appear but we learn a little more about them. & an interesting subplot about the course of the war begins. it will be interesting to see how it develops.
not quite the bestin the series, but enough to make me want to know what will happen next
Does what it says on the tin - By: IAN CAMERON-MOWAT, 26 Jun 2008 
OK, so you aren't going to have this boundin hand-tooled calfskin to reread.
But I've been outin the galaxy for a few hours-is there another sinister enemy? How is the fleet going to get home/tackle baddies/survive? People inside the fleet are posing difficulties...
I'm totally hooked.
Another short but entertaining read - By: S. Banks, 20 Jun 2008 
These books are a very tried & tested formula but they are very easy to read not very chalanging but extremely hard to put down..
If you liked the first three this is a must..
