Review: Farily good
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 17, 2012
This is fairly good military sci fi.  What lets it down is the sort of dialogue that sounds as if someone has combined "Top Gun" with "Star Ship Troopers", where everyone has to make quips all the time.  The romantic elements demonstrate why military establishments frown upon liaisons within units.  It leads to decisions being made that have more to do with feelings than in winning what appears to be a very losable war.  Even with the romantic entanglements, I have to wonder whether military people would make those sorts of decisions in real life.  If it comes down to the mission or the "loved one" and given the importance of the mission, I suspect that many military officers and enlisted men will take the course of ensuring that the mission succeeds.  Of course, in the book, most of the decisions turn out okay anyway, ie the people survive.  I look forward to the odd book that will have the loved one sacrificed so that a mission will succeed.The action scenes are not too badly done, but they do confuse how fighter aircraft have to fight in atmosphere with how they might fight in space.I think that I will get the second book and hope that it improves a little.