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Our discussion of The Lost Fleet: Dauntless by Jack Campbell

On Wednesday, November 18th, we met to discuss The Lost Fleet: Dauntless by Jack Campbell. Here are some highlights of the discussion:

Impressions

  • Military science fiction usually has weapons with more personality than the characters - this book had brief descriptions of weapons and a lot more character development.
  • There were too many references to Geary’s having been frozen.
  • Would Geary hook up with Rione? There was kind of a Battlestar Galactica dynamic between them.
  • Ancestor Worship was an interesting twist: “under the eyes of the stars,” where stars are ancestors.
  • Would such a breakdown of discipline and military tactics have occurred?
  • The book was entertaining and fun, but without extra elements to make it really special.
  • It was ingenious that the aliens used different size drill bits and that someone (a marine!) was sharp enough to notice.
  • Some enjoyed the humor that was dropped in on occasion, like the note from the Syndic that was found at his desk and Geary sending the suicide bombers and their ships back to destroy the station that sent them.
  • The ship names were great – Truculent, Repulse, etc.

Characters

  • Most legendary characters are more heroic than Geary - he is more human.
  • Co-President Rione planted the seed in Geary’s mind that he should avoid becoming a despot when they get back to Alliance space. Now that he is aware of the danger, Geary can work to stop that from happening.
  • The narrative was constrained because it was all from Geary’s point of view.
  • It was ironic that Geary’s last words before his 100 year sleep caused a lot of the later problems with discipline, etc. that Geary then had to try to undo.
  • Some people worshiped him (ancestor worship!) and others hated him and tried to tear him down because of his celebrity.
  • Geary is the only one who sees the enemy as human which is okay, if you win…
  • It was interesting that Geary’s “old ideas” could be used against the new ideas and prove more effective.
  • Some were surprised by how many women were in power – perhaps three women to every man? Others felt the women and men were basically androgynous and some of the captain’s genders were unknown. The Audacious captain was never given a name (or gender) even after three pages of dialog.

Life under Corporate Rule

  • The Sydics are modeled on a corporation – their leader is a CEO and all the complaints about virtual meetings from Geary seemed like a late ‘90s thing. The Alliance started emulating the Syndics with their democratic meetings and votes on military tactics. The only group that had discipline were the marines.
  • Geary acted in a political/corporate way when he strategically got rid of the commanders he didn’t like and moved in other people he felt would follow his orders.
  • The dissenting captains reminded us of certain people in offices we’d worked in and some of the differences and problems that occurred were generational.

Science

  • The book had some real science like the ball bearings.
  • The author focused a lot on the time lapse in space communications and battles. The crew had to wait for what would happen next and had time to get lunch, unlike the battles in Star Wars.
  • We had a question about the escape pods – obviously not everyone who enters one falls immediately into a deep sleep because Geary talked to officers in an escape pod. Do you hit a switch or something when you’re ready and hope for the best?

Will the dissenting commanders defect? Will Geary become the overlord of the Alliance? We'll have to continue reading the series to find out…

Please add any additional thoughts or comments you may have about The Lost Fleet: Dauntless. We gave this title the codes POL, HRO, MIL, ETH, and HDS with an average rating of 4.25.

Comments

So fun! I plan to continue this series.

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