Review: A solid intro to a new mil sci-fi series that has me eager to read the rest.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 7, 2014
This is the first book from Sam Schall, and it's a winner. As others have said, it compares favorably to David Weber's early Honor Harrington books with a strong female protagonist, tight action and good hints at a much larger story. The main character, Captain Ashlyn Shaw has spent 2 years in a hellhole of a military prison after having been set up to take the fall for a disastrous mission. Mr Schall tells a compelling tale of Shaw's release from prison and struggle to come to grips with what happened to her, while also re-entering military life. Schall says this is the first of three books, and I look forward to reading the rest of Capt. Shaw's story. This introductory book did it's job by getting me hooked on the story, and has added the other books of this series to my "must buy" list.That being said, the book is not without a few shortcomings. First, it suffers from some of the poor editing that's unfortunately now acceptable from indie-published works. Nothing egregious, but a few wrong words here and there, and a character's name that changes from Gavin Haritos to Gavin Garitos in the last couple mentions. More importantly, I'd like to hear more about Shaw's struggle in dealing with what happened. The surface approach in the book kept it moving at a quick pace, but left me a little disconnected from the character. Lastly, the author could do more (and perhaps will in later books) to explain why a vast, interplanetary military found it so critical to get one squad leader from one special forces group out of prison and back in service.