Vanguard by Jack Campbell (Genesis Fleet #2)

Ascendant by Jack Campbell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Jacket Blurb:  A young fleet officer and a Marine stand together to defend their colony in the continuation of the powerful and action-packed Genesis Fleet saga from New York Times bestselling author Jack Campbell.

In the three years since former fleet officer Rob Geary and former Marine Mele Darcy led improvised forces to repel attacks on the world of Glenlyon, Old Earth and the Old Colonies have continued to shrink their military forces.

But open warfare erupts once again when Glenlyon tries to force open a trade route. Isolated and alone, Glenlyon places its hope in informal agreements with other worlds also facing attack. But fiercely independent worlds settled by people who wanted to escape higher authority don’t easily agree to such commitments. While politicians try to bring some kind of formal alliance into being, Geary and Darcy once again find themselves fighting desperately to defend their world, hoping they can hold out until help arrives.

If it comes at all.

Read for January 2020 scifi book group.

Book two in the Genesis Fleet Series.

Speaking for myself, I find Jack Campbell's books - specifically this series and his Lost Fleet series - to be a nearly ideal scifi read among a plethora of dystopian plots, overly long space operas, and unnecessarily verbose military science fiction.

Vanguard continues the story of Rob Geary, an unlikely hero who's up against impossible odds protecting two star systems with one small ship. It's also the story of the supporting cast of characters who all have a role to play either in space (fleeing conflict on a freighter), defending a space station, or protecting a planet from invaders. Actually, they are all up against impossible odds and each has their own battles to face.

In this installment, I found the supporting characters - Lochan, Carmen, and Mele - and their plot lines, to be more interesting than Rob's. Situational settings perhaps? Less time lag with communications? More emotional engagement? Perhaps a combination of all of those.

I will also note, and we discussed this in book group, I greatly appreciate the brevity of the logistics in having the space battles described. Trajectories are explained, executed, and our characters fly on. I applaud the realism in the waiting to fly in-system, distances before combat, and the length in communication times.

One comment of concern I do have, was how quickly the Captain of the fighter Piranha was, ah, eliminated. It was almost as if the author needed to cut that plot line off and just snipped that ship out of the picture. Very abrupt.

As I said above, I noted these are nearly idea, but not necessarily perfect. There are some quirks that gave me pause and question plausibility. Still, these are what *I* want to read when I need some solid space faring sci-fi. Recommended.



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