Guardian

By: Jack Campbell

Narrated by: Christian Rummel

Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's Summary

Admiral Geary's First Fleet of the Alliance has survived the journey deep into unexplored interstellar space, a voyage that led to the discovery of new alien species, including a new enemy and a possible ally. Now Geary's mission is to ensure the safety of the Midway Star System, which has revolted against the Syndicate Worlds empire - an empire that is on the brink of collapse. 

To complicate matters further, Geary also needs to return safely to Alliance space not only with representatives of the Dancers, an alien species, but also with Invincible, a captured warship that could possibly be the most valuable object in human history. Despite the peace treaty that Geary must adhere to at all costs, the Syndicate Worlds regime threatens to make the fleet's journey back grueling and perilous. 

And even if Geary escorts Invincible and the Dancers' representatives safely unharmed, the Syndics' attempts to spread dissent and political unrest may have already sown the seeds of the Alliance's destruction....

©2013 John G. Hemry (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Critic Reviews

"Rummel's performance is so entertaining that he makes listeners want to hear how he'll perform the story. He populates the international starfleet military with a multitude of accents. While his female characters tend to sound alike, his men growl and swagger through space with brio." ( AudioFile)

Another 5 STAR Book!

This book is a bit different then the others, but still a great Lost Fleet novel. It has a cool twist to the story,and ends very well. There should be another book, but if not this one has a good ending. No clif hanger.

14 of 15 people found this review helpful

my all time favorite series

Have you listened to any of Christian Rummel’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Christian Rummel is a great narrator.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes, I actually did listen to it in about a 48 hour period of time.

Any additional comments?

I consider the "beyond the frontier" and "the lost fleet" the same series. And probably my favorite series of all time

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Black Jack Going BackHome Again and Again!!!

oh Black Jack is back, and people are not as stupid as they were in previous books. Many challenges come in this boo, but to be honest i did predict some of them.. so they were not as sudden as i hoped they could be.

I do love those funny moments when they come in these books, and in this one it had some fun fun times. you'll know what i mean

Love the narration and the author and looking forward for the next book as this book will give you a good idea of what could happen in the next book, and how good it looks like it will be.

7 of 8 people found this review helpful

Two years was worth the wait!

Where does Guardian rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I anticipated this books release and set my expectations very high. Jack Campbell has delivered some thought provoking military scifi action-packed novels featuring his boyscout Black Jack Geary. I hoped this to be of the same vain. WELL It more than satisfied my itch and delivered yet another well thought out plot and great action Strong characterizations that came alive with Campbell's depth and Rummel's masterful narration. Bravo - Bravo - Encore? Soon I hope! So the answer - One of my best reads!

6 of 7 people found this review helpful

Great continuation of a series

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would recommend this book after reading the previous books in the series.

Any additional comments?

This is one of the best Sci-Fi series that I've listened to. I just started the series about a month ago and I finished all of the previous books in the series just before this book came out. The story is very interesting and well thought out. However, just like the previous books, this book has an open ending. It's not a cliff hanger, but there's no conclusion and you're left waiting for the next book to come out to see what happens next.
Before you read this book, you need to read each book in in the series in order from the start because they all happen in sequence.

6 of 7 people found this review helpful

Back to business...

This book, unlike the side-trip before it, returns to business as usual with the series, and is pretty good.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

This is a super great series

You must read this series in order to fully enjoy it. I keep expecting the series to falter and the author just repeat himself and have lame story lines like many series do after awhile, but NO this has not happened. In this book Admiral Black Jack Geary and the Alliance first fleet are returning to the Alliance home worlds with an escort of Dancers and a captured Kix (Bear-cow) giant warship that they have temporarily called the Invincible. They are, of course, attack by Syndicate special forces but fight them off. On returning to Alliance space and repairs started on the fleet, the political intrigue begins. It appears the Alliance government spends most of its time fight among themselves. (sounds like our government) and getting nothing done. Geary is ordered to take 3 government council member to Old Earth to escort the Dancers as they want to go to Kansas. Lots of space battle scenes and suspense, a bit o humor and politics. Why the Dancers want to go to Kansas and what happened was/is a big surprise which I will not give away. A great story which Christian Rummel narrated beautifully. Can not wait for the next book.

8 of 10 people found this review helpful

Blackjack's adventures continue and it's great!

What did you love best about Guardian?

I appreciated the slight modification on the "naval battles in space" formula used in previous books. There was more of a sense of mystery to this book that I appreciated.

Any additional comments?

I do miss the introductions by the author, telling of different experiences in the military and how they informed his writing.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Everything We Love About this Series!

"Guardian" delivers everything we expect from Captain John "Blackjack" Geary.

This series has turned out to be one of the best-running military sci fi series out there today. It is entertaining, optimistic and quite clean, in a Star Wars/Star Trek style but much more believable. The longer the series runs, the more comfortable it feels, both for the author's writing and for the reader's experience. With spats of humor (that sometimes, though rarely, fall flat), gripping space battles, and heroes you can really cheer for, this series hits the high points while avoiding too many cliches and pitfalls.

This volume really brings everything together and throws some new stuff our way. Campbell clearly knows what we expect, and he delivers in a big way everything that epitomizes this series. We have space battles and ground battles, against the Syndics we so love to hate, as well as against new enemies. We have aliens that truly feel alien, about as far from human spinoffs as you can imagine. And we even have political machinations and some great character interactions.

The pace starts slow at first, recapping recent events (it's been a while since the last book), but builds quickly and continually until the end, avoiding the dreaded cliffhanger. The characters feel like old friends by now, and part of the fun is knowing how they will react in a situation before they actually do.

Overall a great addition to the series, and the good thing is that Campbell could go anywhere he wants with it at this point.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Black Jack's Bringing the Fleet Home, with Friends

For going on half a decade, I've looked forward to each entry in first the Lost Fleet and now the Beyond the Frontier series. And every time I've harbored some little dread that this next one will be the one where it just cannot match what came before. That was particularly true when the war with the Syndics came to an end and some of the mystery of the Enigmas was done away with. But then came Invincible, which delivered two new alien races and space combat with truly intimidating adversaries who happened to be really cute, and the First Alliance Fleet and its commander proved up to every challenge.

Now, starting back at Midway with a standoff with a Syndic flotilla, Admiral Geary must tackle a new sort of fighting, one where is superiority in numbers and firepower are no substitute for sharp wits and decisive action. What's more, the duplicity of the Syndics seems to reach new lows, just as the Alliance's biggest trump card against the crumbling empire seems to be worth far less on the way back than when the fleet left Alliance space. Happily, there are more humorous breaks in the action, largely involving marines, quirky fleet engineers and Dauntless's rather...enterprising senior Master Chief. On the dramatic front, the author continues to delve into the psychological realities of naval crews and marines left to serve seemingly unending tours of duty fighting a war under unimaginable conditions and then faced with the sudden prospect of going home and having to live a "normal" life, or not, as the fleet's requirements dictate. And if tension verging on mutiny in the fleet weren't enough, political maneuvering back home is just as bad as was hinted in Invincible.

So with two hostile alien races, Syndics that won't realize they've lost, a fleet pushed beyond its limits, and politicians on every side ready to stab him in the back, Geary learns the Dancers will only negotiate after he takes them somewhere you'd least expect. Along the way, the author reinvents a few nautical traditions and throws in any number of technical details and character development that really help bring the Dauntless and those aboard her to life. And the additions to the universe that result as well as the revelation of just why the Dancers have come along with the fleet will make you wish it were May of 2014 already.

As the ninth book following Geary's adventures and the tenth book in the universe, Guardian remains remarkably fresh and does quite a lot to build a foundation for many new adventures. Forgoing yet another epic space battle after another, the author instead makes our hero confront a number of tactical puzzles involving enemy boarders, doomsday devices, and enemy ships that won't fight. Most surprisingly of all, it even managed to rekindle my interest in Midway enough to seriously look forward to the next Lost Stars novel.

There are a few editing goofs in the audio production, typically involving ship's names mysteriously changing mid-scene that isn't really a big deal. And though some pronunciations seem to have changed from one book to another, narration remains top notch. This is an easy recommendation, and yet another reason to pick up the series if you haven't already.

5 of 6 people found this review helpful

another one bites the dust

this was a hugely satisfying story of The Lost Fleet series.
look forward to the next one.

love this series

the narrator in this book is excellent. love the story line and how we made it back to alliance space.

good yarn continues

If you could sum up Guardian in three words, what would they be?

electric yet predictable

Have you listened to any of Christian Rummel’s other performances? How does this one compare?

very good as usual

Any additional comments?

overall I think the books are quite good, but I would class them as good for most readers but some will find the repetitive themes boring, younger readers will love them ( my 20yr olds love them)