Faith
Hyped as a cross between Moby-Dick and “Duel” (the Richard Matheson story in which an automobile driver is harassed by the driver of a big rig), this debut SF novel delivers the goods. Set in the far-flung future, the story involves a menacing alien spacecraft, called Faith by its victims, that systematically attacks inhabited star systems. Now it’s returning to the Sakhran system, 300 years after an attack that nearly wiped out an entire civilization, and one man, the commander of a human warship, is planning to take on the alien marauder in a battle to the death. The book closely resembles a military thriller—a daring commander tracking an enemy sub across the seas—but Love provides readers with plenty of SF color: aliens whose history seems drawn from ancient Eygptian influences, human warships named after psychopaths and crewed by dysfunctionals like the hero, Commander Foord of the warship Charles Manson, and other fun stuff. Love  has a quirky style—a character’s eyes are “as warm and golden as urine”—and it seems virtually impossible to imagine an SF fan who won’t thoroughly enjoy the tale. --David Pitt