Review: Great Idea, New and Novel
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 13, 2013
The author has created a new way for ships to move at faster than light speeds though our galaxy. A novel idea. It is obviously a self published book with all the indicators of such. Typos, words missing, etc. that would have been caught be a good editor.  But, that's OK.My biggest problem with the book series so forth is really something that only a former Navy man would notice. Apparently, according the book, the Navy and Marine Corps of this time is rooted in rank, traditions, etc. in the wet Navy of old Earth. I noted that all the ranks from the enlisted to the officers are the same as we have in today's Navy. But, no Navy has ever had all the saluting, standing at attention when the Captain takes the bridge, etc. as the the author has his characters doing. The Navy's customs are built on a long history of sailing on the worlds oceans and they have adopted regulations to fit the circumstances of shipboard duty. Firstly, the Navy never salutes when under cover. That means below decks or in a building. The proximity of officers and enlisted men on fighting ships makes all that saluting impractical. The only exception is if they are under arms. Secondly, above decks or outside, a superior officer, except the Captain, is only saluted upon their first encounter each day. Third, a sailor or marine never salutes with out his hat on. Unlike the Army who salutes at the drop of a hat. And every body doesn't snap to attention when a superior office enters the bridge. Only the Captain is announced. Everybody on the bridge has a job to do and the continue to do it.Nuff said.  I find the books, to this point quite entertaining and generally well written. I would recommend them to anyone that like space operas.Follow up:  I wrote the above before I got into the meat of the second novel. Mainly what I had gleaned form the first book. A couple of observations now that I've finished book 2:I think the author has been reading a lot of the David Weber's Honor Harrington series. The battle scenes are very similar, with large and powerful ships standing off at long range and pounding each other into submission. The whole thing is reminiscent of naval battles from the 16 century until WWI. World War II, of course, changed the whole dynamic of sea warfare moving the large aforementioned ships into to a position of a supporting cast to the new primary weapon system, the aircraft carrier. I always wondered when some SciFi writer was going adapt that same philosophy into their warfare scenario.  To me it seems a natural progression of space warfare. Small, fast, highly maneuverable, but deadly fighters being launched out of range of the big fat boys and tearing them to pieces. The primary battles would be for space supremacy fought between fighter squadrons.  As WWII showed, the big fat boys, no matter how heavily armored and defended can and will be destroyed by a concentrated attack by a good fighter squadron. From a technical standpoint, I serious doubt that long range missiles of any kind would be very effective in the far future as an offensive weapon. The longer the defense has to track the incoming missile the greater the probability of destroying it. That would be especially true for ground based antimissile batteries that could afford to launch thousands of defensive armaments for every missile launched from a ship. Also, think of modern SAM's on steroids, which is what an attacking force would face as they approached a planet or an  orbiting fortress. An attacking force might prevail, given enough numbers, but their loses would be horrific. Remember the terrible loses of B17's and B24's over Europe until the Mustang came on the scene.  It should also be noted that we already are building methods to destroy incoming missiles, with some success. Imagine what a few thousand years could bring in development of an antimissile defense. No, for missile use to be effective in the future, I think that the range will have to be close enough so there is little time react. That argues for a submarine in space (stealth). A ship that can strike without warning from close in to the target. Alternatively, develop a beam of some kind (ala Star Trek) that travels with the speed of light, giving no warning to the defender at all. Or maybe both.There other technical elements that the author uses that I think are questionable to say the least. But, to go on would be boring, so I'll stop here.