This is a new author to me; one of his first books that I’ve read, but certainly not the last. Our story is about a huge starship that Earth has built to defend itself from attacking aliens. Earth has survived their first encounter with an alien race bent on the destruction and eradication of humanity. How it survived that initial encounter is not totally known since there wasn’t any prior books in this series. That’s some what annoying because several times during the book, the characters mention what happened during the original defense of Earth, but we’re not provided the entire story. It appears that Earth’s entire space force, which wasn’t much, was almost totally destroyed, but with the aid of other allied aliens, the enemy was finally beaten back. Now Earth has built a massive space ship called the “Behemoth” and it is the defender of Earth and the Solar System.
Captain Gray Atwell commands the Behemoth. He has been with the ship since it’s first inception and has watched it grown into the monstrosity it now has become. It is definitely a fighting ship, and while huge, it can move far faster than one would expect. The crew has been trained and should be ready to do their duty and protect Earth from any future alien attacks. Aboard the Behemoth, Captain Atwell is advised by Clea An’Tufal of the Kielan, an allied alien race. She has knowledge of the enemy although her race has almost been exterminated.
The Behemoth has not been tested in battle. While she has weapons far superior than previous Earth ships and she also has a new shield system, none of this has actually been in a fight. Her crew is the same, most just came from various academies and have been assigned to the Behemoth as their first duty station. The Behemoth is a defensive weapon for Earth until another ship of her kind can be built. Hopefully, that will happen before another attack takes place.
That hope has now gone when an unidentified starship is found fast approaching Earth. It’s design and intent are completely unknown, even the alien advisor has not knowledge of this type of ship. It doesn’t appear to be one of the previous enemy ships, but who knows what’s out there in the vastness of space. The crew of the Behemoth is about to find out and be tested to their limits.
This is a very good book and makes an excellent start to a new series. The writing is straight-forward with minimal technology babbling although you do get an understanding that things work a little differently between alien and human ships. There is a lot of character building and not just focused on the Captain. In fact, the background for Captain Atwell is not greatly written about, but you get the feeling that he’s in his position because he earned it.
I am lucky in that the next book in the series, “Warfare” is already published and I have it on my reading list.