The Lost Stars: Tarnished Knight

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.

What a great spinoff concept. Prior to this book the Syndicate, controlled by nefarious CEO's, were nothing more than relative stick figures. In this case we get to delve deeper into Syndicate society in the post-Geary age. The main characters were tangentially introduced in the main series, but now we have a chance to see the desperate fight of the leadership of Midway to separate themselves from the central control of the Syndicate.

This is much more of a political novel than the Lost Fleet books. Yes, there is space combat as well as ground combat, but a lot of the book is devoted to the truly twisted political realm of the CEO's, where you cannot trust anyone. Even though they must work together to wring a small hole of safety for both themselves and the people of Midway, the sheer level of scheming is intense (where every move is never taken at face value and no one is what they seem to be). But the two leaders, Drakon and Iceni, seem to see the value of cooperation and realize that the system that they were born into needs to be changed (but realizing that it cannot be done overnight).

A very solid book and I very much look forward to the next (with a cliffhanger like Jack dropped at the end of the book, it is a given that there needs to be another book).

The story is almost as engaging as the Lost Fleet books. However, if one hasn't read the Lost Fleet books the story and setting could be a little confusing. Marc Vietor's performance was good but not great; at times it was hard to distinguish the different characters. Christian Rummel has a much larger range of character voices and I wish he were narrating the Lost Stars as well. Overall a good beginning to another series of books from Mr. Hemry.

I got hooked on The Lost Fleet and then Beyond the Frontier Series and now a new great sub series about the Midway Star system. The story picks up with life on Midway after Geary leaves Midway into the unknown space to explore it. The Midway Star System has declared independence from the Syndic and are forming a new government and alliances of neighbouring star systems. Jack Campbell's usual great space battles, intrigue between different groups all goes into creating action, suspense and the ending leaves me wanting the next volume in the series. If you like the other two series you will enjoy this new one.

Intriguing Alternative Perspective

I won't state one so I don't spoil anything, but in general, my favorite scene were when the main characters were trying to figure out each others angles and if the other could be trusted.

The book is similar to what the fall of the USSR was like for people. Russian's lives were dominated by government their whole lives, and once it fell, they had freedoms but didn't know what to do with them. Take the make characters as Ukrainians that have just left the USSR but have to fear Russia's heavy handed tactics that are not limited to economic or political aggression.

The Tarnished Knight is an offshoot of Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet series. Anyone who was at all curious about the Syndicate Worlds will enjoy this new perspective which follows CEOs Artur Drakon and Gwen Iceni in their bid for power. Neither trusts the other, but must rely on faith when facing their more ruthless advisories... the ISS Snakes who want Midway to remain under Syndicate rule.

For those who aren't familiar with the series: I believe you will still enjoy the book, but may have a steep learning curve as there are many reference to the prior books. Listening to the Lost Fleet series definitely enhances this story.

My only dissatisfaction is that this book ends in a cliff-hanger, but the next volume isn't released until October 2013 :(

Great job by the author of getting readers interested in new characters.

The attack to get the new battleship.

He did not hurt the story in anyway.

Where the revolution begins.

a good book is always worth a second read

both the main characters

the general

great special effects

no

The narrator of this audiobook is terrible - I can't tell which character is speaking because there are no differences in voice tone/pitch/inflection.

Other than that, it is a well read book with a good story.

Great audio performance. Clasic space-opera. Interesting characters.I couldn't decide whether to love or hate the characters.