Tarnished Knight

The Lost Stars, Book 1

By: Jack Campbell

Narrated by: Marc Vietor

Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

The New York Times best-selling author puts the Alliance fleet’s enemy in the spotlight as the people of the Syndicate Worlds attempt to rebuild their lives after Admiral John “Black Jack” Geary defeated them....

The authority of the Syndicate Worlds’ government is crumbling. Civil war and rebellion are breaking out in many star systems, despite the Syndic government’s brutal attempts to suppress disorder. Midway is one of those star systems, and leaders there must decide whether to remain loyal to the old order or fight for something new.

CEO Artur Drakon has been betrayed. The Syndic government failed to protect its citizens from both the Alliance and the alien enigmas. With a cadre of loyal soldiers under his command, Drakon launches a battle for control of the Midway Star System - assisted by an ally he’s unsure he can trust....

CEO Gwen Iceni was exiled to Midway because she wasn’t ruthless enough in the eyes of her superiors. She’s made them regret their assessment by commandeering some of the warships at Midway and attacking the remaining ships still loyal to the Syndicate empire. Iceni declares independence for the Midway Star System on behalf of the people while staying in charge as “President”. But while she controls the mobile fleet, she has no choice but to rely on 'General' Drakon’s ground forces to keep the peace planet-side....

If their coup is to succeed, Drakon and Iceni must put their differences aside to prevent the population of Midway from rising up in rebellion against them, to defend Midway against the alien threat of the enigma race - and to ferret out saboteurs determined to reestablish Syndic rule....

©2012 John G. Hemry (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Military science fiction at its very best..." (Catherine Asaro, Nebula Award-winning author of Carnelians)

excellent and well presented

Read the story when it first came out and loved the entire series.. ordered the audio by mistake. Am going back to see if there are any more with the audio. Listening was great in a whole new way.

narrator

I love the lost fleet series I have for quite a while but they really shouldn't cap the narrator from the lost fleet series on here instead of switching to a new narrator it was nice being able to hear the different voices to give the different character's life instead of just here in one man read through the lines.

Enjoy OBSTLT (or Be Subject to Life Termination)

I remember when the author first announced his signing a deal for two spinoff series to follow The Lost Fleet about three years ago. Since then, Lost Fleet has come to a close and Beyond the Frontier has been through two volumes, and what was originally referred to as The Phoenix Stars has just seen the light of day.

As the first reviewer notes, this book adds little to the Lost Fleet narrative, but succeeds quite well at expanding the universe through which the Alliance Fleet has rampaged since Dauntless's publication half a decade ago. The Lost Fleet was the author's third series, and the fact that its characters and geography have made it into further stories beyond the Alliance Fleet's escape from Syndic space is a wonderful thing, even if at first blush that is only to add greater depth to the snapshots of life in one system through which the Alliance fleet has passed through in the last three Lost Fleet novels.

Though it is technically the beginning of a new series, Tarnished Knight leans heavily upon the original Lost Fleet series and its continuation, Beyond the Frontier. The events in the Midway star system occur after those depicted in Dreadnaught.

This entry features more space battles and ground combat from the Syndic perspective, as the Midway system battles various internal and external threats. But where the Lost Fleet series proper often turns on fleet politics and combat logistics, Lost Stars deals with the aftermath of revolution and the tenuous balance maintained by two strong leaders with complementary power bases, who both need one another and have the means to bring about the other's undoing. The problem is that we already have the outlines of this story by virtue of the glimpses we've received through Dreadnaught and Invincible, thought it can be interesting to see just how things came to change between visits. Meanwhile, the author dangles the prospect of further developments in Alliance space in the next Beyond the Frontier entry, titled Guardian and due next year as usual.

The perspective of this story is a bit different given that there are two point of view characters. The author maintains a style similar to Lost Fleet though, with great tactical details, scheming, and occasional humorous interludes.

Mark Vietor is terrific as always. For those who have come to associate the voice of Christian Rummel with this universe though, be prepared for slightly varied pronunciation of some character and place names. My wish that Rummel would have been tapped for this series is the only reason for four stars as far as the performance goes.

I can't imagine why one would read this without having read the eight Lost Fleet and Beyond the Frontier books first. If you have though, I think you'll find enough of what made those stories winners to satisfy with this new slant to the universe. Little gems about the Syndic way of doing things like the one referenced in the title are almost worth the price of admission alone.

Twenty minutes into it, and I want a refund!

Is there anything you would change about this book?

The narrator and Audible Frontiers! In at least three previous "Lost Fleet" and "Beyond the Frontier" audiobooks CEO Gwen Iceni was pronounced the same. Along comes the "Tarnished Knight" series and suddenly Iceni is pronounced "I-cen-I." Made me so angry that I missed the next few minutes of dialog every time Vietor said "I-cen-I." The producers couldn't maintain a consistancy in the way names are pronounced. Now I don't want to continue the book. The producers also allowed Marc Vietor to be much to "aggressive" in his reading. That's my take, anyway. I wanted to like this book but I'll skip the audio now and get it on my Kindle.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Marc Vietor?

Christian Rummel was so good that it will be hard to replace him.

takes more chances.

Would you consider the audio edition of The Lost Stars: Tarnished Knight to be better than the print version?

yes

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

the story jumped from person to person and got off the space ships. a real change up from the lost fleet books. giving a lot of fresh air

What about Marc Vietor’s performance did you like?

he was straight with his voice not giving any personality to the performance but made ever one stand out in there own way. its hard to do but bravo for pulling it off

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

no but provide a lot of setup for the other books down the line

Any additional comments?

read lost fleet first if you haven't
already

I hate to pan one of his books

I loved Jack Campbell's "Black Jack Geary" novels and devoured every one. This series, however, is dull. I don't like any of the characters and the book is powered by mistrust and suspicion, not my cup of tea. Since it's Jack's work, I couldn't go below a three star rating - because it might just be me.

epic space adventure

Love this voice actor, The way he tells the story makes you live whit him in. This great story 🤓

An excellent addition to the universe.

At first I was hesitant about the narrator. He is certainly different and I learned to appreciate Christian Rummel as the voice of the Lost Fleet series and his voice and narration style is perfect for that series. Christian sounds triumphant, and fits the naval adn military theme of the Lost Fleets well. Macr Vietor is different and at first I didn't like it, but I came to love his narration. His voice simply oozes with the tone of the Lost Stars books, books less about military victory and a professional navy and more about intrigue, in the Syndicate Worlds, where you can trust absolutely no one, and everyone is out for their own self interest. Marc Vietor brings a subtle venom to is voice that lets you know you are in a venomous universe. So if you are used to the old narrator, give this one a try, I think you will like him.

Nonetheless, this is a great book. It is more of a set up, by many means. I'm writing this a few books in and i don't remember anything screaming out at me other than learning how this star system introduced in the Lost Fleet books came to be and a more fleshed out intro into inner Syndicate politics. Jack Campbell is excellent at describing combat in space between fleets. That still exists in this series, but the protagonists have few ships and have to be creative about what they do. There is an increased focus on politics, intrigue, and ground combat and it is all done very well. This isn't the navy of the Alliance, large and proud and honorable, or Blackjack with his morals and competence. This is the seedy realty of the Syndicate Worlds where many new great personalities are explored and no one is safe.

Solid Follow Up

Solid story. Liked hearing the Syndicate side of the aftermath. Great characters. It's like a planet where everyone is evil and suddenly, as a whole, they all discover kindness in the same month.

Interesting spin off of the original series

The Lost Fleet novels and world have been amazing. This book gave a deep look into the Syndicate and an alternate view of some of the events in previous books in the other series. It's interesting seeing the effects of the Alliance victories and how the Midway star system had to adapt and change as a result. I enjoyed most of the characters and the plot kept me invested. While not my favorite by this author, I liked it and plan to continue the series. My biggest issue was with the narration. The change in pronunciation of some of the names from the previous series was jarring and irritating. Short of that, the narration was good but that was hard to listen to.