==[Note: As of 12/03/2023, this will not be published on Amazon since I have been banned from posting reviews for some unknown reason. Once the ban is lifted, assuming it does get lifted, I’ll go back and post this to Amazon.]==
TLDR: Don’t bother reading this – it’s ridiculous and for very youn adults!
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Ok, whew, this was such a disappointing and long book! I have read a lot of B. V. Larson’s books and a few of David Vandyke’s. They are both pretty good writers of science fiction, but not in this book! The story-line is very interesting and could have been a great series if the writing wasn’t so downright stupid!
We’re introduced to a young Navy Lieutenant name Alexander Callahan. He’s a hot-shot pilot with a callsign of “Flex”. Now there’s nothing wrong with pilots having callsigns, but that’s only while they are in their plane or in the squadron ready room. They don’t run around calling other people by callsigns. I say this because Alex Callahan’s girlfriend is given the callsign of “Catnip” which is just stupid. She’s a Navy Nurse onboard the space carrier *Vanguard*. This arrangement is very convenient for Lt. Callahan and he makes use of it frequently. This is something he has that all his other pilot friends do not have or enjoy and that is the companionship of a female in very trying times. I’m sure this isn’t unheard of, but it could be considered very unprofessional to do what they do aboard ship when deployed for combat. I’m not knocking the fact that he has a closely girlfriend, but the fact that he seems to be the only one with this setup.
Now let’s get into how this space Navy operates. They are on a huge carrier that holds a lot of starfighters and most pilots with any length of time in the service are probably Lieutenants by now. In fact, Lt. Callahan and Lt. Wanda Sinclair (“Nova”) are sent out on patrol which is a routine assignment in this peace-time Navy. That is until they come across something that shouldn’t be in their space. These are small drones that appear to looking over the Moon base which is something they probably shouldn’t be doing since that’s probably not authorized. Flex and Nova are told to go investigate which they do. They find these drones to be incredibly fast and maneuverable. Must faster and more mobile than even their Firebird fighters.
Not knowing anything about these drones or probes, the two pilots are ordered to “bring one back” for examination. The only way to do that is to shoot one which is something Firebirds are very equipped to do. Except they can’t get a lock on these speedy drones. But, the drones do respond to their shooting missiles at them. They attack Nova’s fighter and she is pretty quickly destroyed. Flex has to clear the area or he’ll be the next Firebird taken down by these unknown drones.
So, he gets back to the carrier and everyone starts thinking that he ran from the fight leaving his wingman there to die. That’s not how it happened, but that’s what everyone is thinking. Soon, they reviewed the on-board camera footage and find out that Flex wasn’t lying about the encounter and sure enough they have some kind of unknown enemy now in humanities space. Now what’s ridiculous about this whole thing is that this young Lieutenant isn’t debriefed about his mission by his squadron commander or just by the CAG (Commander Aerospace Group) but he finds himself in front of Captain Grant and some Intel spook named Lieutenant Summers or callsign “Ice”. She’s not a pilot so why does she have a callsign? Additionally, Lt. Summers seems to be a member of the Psionic Corps, ie., mind-readers. Not something I’d want around my ship.
He’s also asked why he fired on one of the probes, Of course he replies that the was ordered to do so, but the Captain tries to deny that was the order. They told him to bring one back, but didn’t tell him to shoot it to disable it. So how was he supposed to bring an unmanned drone back with his starfighter? No one has the answer to that. Additionally, the CAG Commander Carter doesn’t do anything to try and defend his pilot.
Alright, so this story continues but Lt. Callahan eventually gets proven right about what he did so he’s now famous for having “first contact” with something alien. Well, there certainly will be aliens showing up and soon. Lt. Callahan seems to be tagged as the “expert” on aliens so he becomes involved in everything that has to do with the alien encounters. So much so that he’s soon promoted to Commander (by-passing Lieutenant Commander, which would never happen), and sent on some really strange missions. He begins working directly for Admiral Hawthorne. Flex is even sent on a recon mission through an alien portal that has never been tested. There is sees an alien that also sees him and starts chasing him back through the portal. Fortunately, while the alien was almost able to grab Flex, they both fall through the portal and the alien is captured.
Now Flex has to make friends with this alien which happens to look like a lizard so they call his species “Lizards”. Now Flex becomes the authority on alien Lizards and is told to communicate with it for intel purposes. Of course this lizard happens to be smarter than any human (which in this book isn’t hard to do). He learns English pretty quickly. So Alex Callahan suddenly becomes the only character in the story even though there are tons of other pilots, Commanders and other ships Captains, but none seem able to do anything. It’s all up to Callahan. Even the Admiral begins asking for Callahan’s input on just about everything. And that is ridiculous in the extreme. No Admiral in his right mind would listen to a fighter pilot unless he was the CAG reporting on flight operations. Everything else is the job of some other staff officer and not some former Lt. pilot!
It really doesn’t sound like either of these authors have had much to do with the military. And if they did, they must have forgotten how things work. Or, maybe they had some military advisor who was day dreaming about a career no one would ever have. There is also the standard trope about the poor pilot’s father was also a Congressman, a very powerful Senator! Flex resented this because he wanted to earn his rank and position on his own. Well, he already did or he wouldn’t even be a Lieutenant. That kind of chip on your shoulder never works out very well, but the authors had to stick it in this story.
The book seems to be long, but that might be to me having to stop and critique every one of the stupid non-military things they try to do in this book. I guess I would suggest that this story is better suited for a 11 to 12 year old boy or young adult who has no idea what the military is about. It’s certainly not for adults who want an interesting and intelligently written military science fiction story.
I don’t recommend anyone reading the rest of this series so you’ll have to find the next book on Amazon on your own!