Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17550 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 304 pages

Customer Reviews

the enemy within
for the uninitiated: this is a series of science fiction novels telling the ongoing story of the lost fleet, a group of spaceships in a future war between two human groups called the alliance and the syndic. the fleet comes from the former, and they got lost behind enemy lines and would have been doomed had they not found john geary. the legendary black jack, who fought in a battle at the start of the war one hundred years previously and was stuck in suspended animation ever since. geary is now in command, struggling to deal with the myth that has built up around him in the meantime, and trying to get the fleet back home. These books are not great literature by a long way, but they're capably written and feature good space battles.

you could probably pick the story up here, but to get the most out of the series go back to the first volume and read them in order.

for those who have been following this series:

this one like all of them runs roughly 286 pages, and picks up where the previous book in the series left off. like that one, it also takes about a hundred pages to really get going. the first hundred pages are taken up with more space battles, which are well described but not the most exciting ones so far.

after this, though, the book does get going. geary this time faces the threat of his enemies inside the fleet taking action. he has to try and find them, and make a few more tough decisions along with it.

subplots do move on a bit here. the romantic love triangle he's been in gets a bit of resolution. the aliens mentioned in book three don't appear but we learn a little more about them. and an interesting subplot about the course of the war begins. it will be interesting to see how it develops.

not quite the best in the series, but enough to make me want to know what will happen next

Not great writing, but entertaining
Similar in plot and structure to the last three books. The love triangle between Geary and the two women in his life is becoming a bit of a soap. However, Campbell has found a formula and is sticking to it. good for him!

Does what it says on the tin
OK, so you aren't going to have this bound in hand-tooled calfskin to reread.

But I've been out in the galaxy for a few hours-is there another sinister enemy? How is the fleet going to get home/tackle baddies/survive? People inside the fleet are posing difficulties...

I'm totally hooked.