Review: I Like Kelly Blake Although I Should Hate Him
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 17, 2013
There are so many reasons to down-rate this novel and all the other Kelly Blake novels.  Kelly is the Maryist of Mary Sues, always making the right decisions, always getting the prettiest women, having the right connections, always winning.  The physics is a joke: transporter rings for instantaneous galaxy-wide transitions, and energy canons that replenish themselves, for example.  Lavish detail is spent on describing the furnishings of residences, interactions are straight out of a romance novel.  What kind of SF is this, anyway?Well, it's fun, it's action-packed, it's highly readable, and the author eschews those little horror memes.  Oh, and Smith gets the ranks right (I hate it when authors don't know the difference between naval and marine ranks and intermix the two - or don't know that lieutenants can't get promoted to commander).  He also gets the politics right and understands how bureaucracies work.  There's a bit too much fraternizing between officers and enlisted but that is easily passed over.This book is the latest in the series and traces Kelly's career from Captain to Rear Admiral.  He plays less of a major role than usual and Smith lets the other characters (and there are hundreds) move to center stage.  It's a "formic war" against really big ants, though they are outgunned, out led, and out classed technologically.  And, this time, the K'Rang are the allies, though there are still some resentments, which impact the plot.  Candy Blake gets a big part.I really like this series and plan to buy the next one.