Review: Excellent space combat, intrigue, and humor
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 8, 2014
I think Bill Robinson has found his calling--this is one of the best space combat stories I've read in a long time (like early 'Honor Harrington' long time).  Katana Krieger has a very young captain of a frigate, promoted well ahead of her cohort.  Her ship is sent to find out what happened to some civilian and navy ships that have gone missing.  What they find, and fight, results in an almost-continuous sequence of action and surprises that made is about impossible to put the book down.Krieger tells us the story in first-person present tense, which adds a sense of immediacy while letting us know what's going on her head, which is filled with snarky humor, a very active intelligence, and anatomically improper hunches.  The effect is an excellent narrative and a picture of a caring, yet strong, commanding officer who demonstrably deserves her rank.  Robinson's future navy has women serving in combat roles--Katana is a woman--and uses the complications of mixed-gender crews to add a bit of humor to situations and interactions.  I thought some of the main supporting characters could have been filled in a bit more, but the omission made for a tighter narrative.The science is good.  Robinson stays away from any attempt to really explain how star jumps work, apart from some reasonable extra-scientific background.  Where it shows up is in ship's maneuvers, with multiple comparisons (you could have stopped at one, Bill) of space combat with wind-driven naval tactics and maneuver.  Missiles and lasers work as they should, crews get thrown around by violent maneuvers and impacts because there's no gravitic control, systems break and go down due to combat damage or sabotage.The plot is full of action, yet simple, with Katana's narrative being the only one.  The mystery of who the enemy is unfolds, along with a hint of political maneuvering, butt-covering, and greed, in a way that held my attention but with enough pauses to avoid dulling the experience.  The hints of intrigue are in most cases lightly done, which keeps the book from dragging down into expository scenes, but help set things up for later situations.  The setup for the following books is straightforward and avoids a cliffhanger ending (I hate those!), but has enough precursor threads to be believable.The editing is pretty good overall, and the goofs generally didn't lift me out of the narrative.  However, the book has more confusion between "it's" and "its" than I've ever run across.  The choice really seemed completely random, with the correct choice being used in many places and the incorrect choice occurring in the following sentence.  Yes, I'm picky about this stuff--it may not bother you.Overall, an excellent read.  I'm looking forward to the next in the series.