Review: Covert Space Opera
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 22, 2012
This is an enjoyable to read rollicking space opera with a covert, cat-and-mouse flavor.  This is the first book in the Kelly Blake Series.  This is a stand-alone novel.  Kelly Blake has been drummed out of the Galactic Republic's Fighter Force (single person attack craft force) and exiled to Antares Base.  Kelly finds his home with the Galactic Republic's Scout Force which is responsible for monitoring the border with the aggressive K'Rang Empire.  Much of story focuses on intel gathering and covert ops as Scout Force monitors the volatile K'Rang border.  True to the Space Opera tradition, there are major space battles although most of action focuses on smaller skirmishes.For space opera fans, this is a good one and I recommend reading it.  It is well written with no egregious editing issues.  Classic space opera plot line with humans defending against the alien menace.  Light on space battles but not too light.  Heavier on intelligence and scouting which is a refreshing change.  Hero has a girl in every port.  Actually he has three girlfriends in the same port and all three are OK with a non-exclusive arrangement.  This is where story went a little too far for me.  I am OK with the hero gets the pretty girl cliché but it is a stretch when every single pretty girl starts chasing him.  But since it is space opera, it is just part of the overall enjoyment of the story.Scout Force is 7,595 Kindle locations long. Standard length novels seem to run in the 4,500 to 7,000 plus Kindle location range.  Books in Jack Campbell's first Lost Fleet series were approximately 5,000 Kindle locations.