Review: No Military I Know Of Would Tolerate This Behavior From a Commanding Officer (Spoilers)
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 10 22, 2013
I have read a little more than half of the book, and have come to the conclusion that I cannot suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy this story. What follows contains spoilers, so proceed with caution. For those who do not want to read said spoilers, I will get right to my conclusion: an interesting premise, ruined by poor plot and character development.The book starts off with a surprise attack on Sydney, Tehran and Beijing by aliens whose only attempt at communication is the enigmatic message "Never again attempt to develop this kind of technology." Apparently referring to advanced research being carried out in those three cities. What follows is humanity uniting to build a space fleet capable of defending themselves from further attack, and to find out just who their attackers are. Initially, three are built; one each built by China, Iran and the EU. So far, so good. It is what happens once these ships are built that is not so good.By an extremely unlikely set of circumstances, all Chinese Naval officers senior to the protagonist with the required qualifications to command the Chinese ship, were at a required training session in Beijing during the attack, and were all killed. The protagonist is a young, attractive female Lieutenant of the Chinese Navy. Apparently, her sole qualification is her familiarity with the advanced technology in question, acquired during a whole TWO HOURS on site as a liaison to the project. This, it seems, is sufficient for the Chinese government to place her in command of China's first starship, and a full third of the world's entire space fleet!Instead of rising to the occasion, she proceeds to behave like an emotionally immature teenage girl. First, she makes a headlong attack on an alien ship, without making any attempt to determine its' identity, capabilities or intentions. When she is challenged on this by her XO, she reacts by ignoring him and proceeding with the attack. She is victorious, and captures a prisoner; an alien fighter pilot determined to be of the race that attacked Earth. Instead of treating the alien like a prisoner of war, she befriends it, and gives it the run of the ship!This is where I stopped reading. At this point, I would expect a Board of Inquiry, followed by a Courts Martial to determine the protagonist's punishment, never mind remaining in command; but I doubt that level of logic will be a part of this story.