This is the second series I’ve started reading by Daniel Gibbs. I didn’t continue with the other series nor will I probably continue with this series. I have many reasons why, but one is that I don’t understand why Mr. Gibbs continues to staff his starships with Army ranks. The Captain of the CSU Lion of Judah is a Major General David Cohen, not an Admiral which I feel he should be. Of course I’m not the author so I guess he can and does what he pleases, but this ship certainly isn’t ran like any military ship I’ve ever been on.
For one, the crew is just too familiar with the Major General (Maj. Gen.). I’ve read where a number of his crew members call him by his first name, yes they may be senior members of his crew, but calling a Maj. Gen. by his first name is a definite NO NO in my book in any military for any occasion. The second thing I have trouble with in this book is that it’s heavily focused on religion. The Coalition Defense Force seems to be multi-religious in that there are a number of different religions present on this ship with the Captain (Maj. Gen. Cohen a devout Orthodox Jew. He has an XO who is an alien and a Muslim with several other crew members belonging to other Christian religions. So, his crew comes from very different backgrounds, but they have been at war for a long, long time. Then the war was won and they were headed home to Canaan, the homeworld of the Terran Coalition. Their war was just fought against the League of Sol which had taken over Earth and driven freedom seeking peoples to this new world of Canaan.
But, as I said, the war was won and the communist of the League of Sol has surrendered. This fighting was over for now at least and the Lion of Judah’s crew were looking for a long period of rest and peace. The ship was FTL capable using the Lawrence drive which they had used numerous times during the war to move about large tracks of empty space. This entire part of the Milky Way galaxy was very advanced in technology and medicines. The only thing they couldn’t master was to stop humans fighting among themselves, but with this war over, it appeared that had been accomplished also. So, the Lawrence drive was initiated once again toward home.
Only it didn’t take them there! Something happened, something very terrible happened. The Lion of Judah and her seven escort ships entered into the same wormhole as usual, but it seemed a much longer trip than it should have been. When they came out into normal space, they had no idea where they were at. And this is where the real story begins. Unfortunately, fighting for the crew of the Lion of Judah isn’t over, but their one main goal now is to figure out what happened and how to reverse it if that’s even possible.
Fortunately, they did have one particular scientist on-board who had a lot of knowledge about the Lawerence drive and hopefully he could figure out what happened. But, as you’ll soon find out, this guy isn’t military and has little respect for the military. Dr. Benjamin Hayworth is a grumpy old man that seems to have an attitude that goes against everything that Maj. Gen. Cohen wants to do. He’s disrespectful to the point that he should have been working from the brig instead of at a science station on the bridge. Yet Ma. Gen. Cohen needed him to figure out how they were going to get back home. They might need help to do so, but where were they going to find help almost 4 million light-years from home?
If you like a religious bent in your science fiction books then you’ll like this book and possibly the series. I for one, don’t think I’ll continue to read the series. Still, I appreciate the author writing science fiction and hope he continues to do so. The next book in the series, “Mercy” is available on Amazon right now.