Renegade

Spiral Wars, Book 1

De: Joel Shepherd

Narrado por: John Lee

One thousand years after Earth was destroyed in an unprovoked attack, humanity has emerged victorious from a series of terrible wars to assure its place in the galaxy. But during celebrations on humanity’s new homeworld, the legendary Captain Pantillo of the battle carrier Phoenix is court-martialed then killed, and his deputy, Lieutenant Commander Erik Debogande, the heir to humanity’s most powerful industrial family, is framed for his murder. Assisted by Phoenix’s marine commander Trace Thakur, Erik and Phoenix are forced to go on the run as they seek to unravel the conspiracy behind their captain’s demise, pursued to the death by their own fleet. What they discover about the truth behind the wars and the nature of humanity’s ancient alien allies will shake the sentient galaxy to its core.

©2015 Joel Shepherd (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

Humans, aliens, and cyber-species

Contents: PG 13. No sex, lots of F-bombs (marines), no religious cussing, several ship-to-ship battles and close-quarters combat. There is obviously death, but nothing too grisly. The violence does not feel gratuitous. The tone of the series (three books so far) is fairly upbeat and heartwarming, but serious, not frivolous.

I've heard all three books in the series and am looking forward to book four. Sequel or bust!

Set in the distant future in the far reaches of the Milky Way, Joel Shepherd serves up a solid space-opera populated with humans, aliens (froggies, humanoids, furballs, bugs) and even some robots and drones (various species of cybernetic super-intelligence). The crew of the military warship Phoenix are likable, and the main characters grow on you across the three books published so far. Bonding occurs credibly as this honorable but renegade crew gradually uncovers a conspiracy at the highest levels of authority, a secret terrible and fearful, hidden away for centuries, and protected at all costs. When Phoenix stumbles on the truth, they are forced to make some tough choices, and to engage in desperate missions, driving them further and further from home, into deep space. For the most part, they stand alone, but gradually they do acquire a few allies. I hope to see some of the current alliances deepen.

Spiral Wars feels a little like Sullivan's Riyira fantasy series, because long-believed lies are slowly uncovered, history revealed to be myth. Some friends prove fickle and some alliances false. There is a sense of suspense and intrigue, of holding one's breath for the next shoe to drop.

I've been reading space opera lately, but I tend to avoid tales told in 1st person "i-me-my perspective" because a singular voice gets old fast. This SPIRAL WARS series, told in 3rd person, is better than most I've read. It compares on a par with THE EXPANSE series by Corey. I loved Bujold's VORKOSIGAN series, too, but it’s quite different in tone. I would rate SPIRAL WARS higher than Ryk Brown's FRONTIER SAGA — which became repetitive and drawn out. I rate SW a little higher than Dalzelle's BLACK FLEET and OMEGA series. I liked SW more than Fox's EMBER WARS series, and far more than the EXPEDITIONARY FORCE series by Alanson (told in 1st person, alas). I also recommend the engaging LINESMAN series by Dunstall, but it is quite lightweight. I also enjoy the LIADEN series by Lee and Miller, but it is a mixed bag and a very slow work in progress. SPIRAL WARS is my current favorite in space opera.

Shepherd's writing style is generally flowing, vivid, and interesting but he tends to occasionally slow the pace by stopping to describe things too much — including trivial aspects of the setting, and how the technical stuff works. Some people might like the technical explanations, but I zone out a little.

If the author can maintain this quality of storytelling until the conclusion of the series, he will have created a solid hit.

The narrator John Lee delivers a value-added and highly enjoyable rendition of Spiral Wars.

Not my usual subset but very much my style.

After hundreds of hours of John Lees very unique style in my ear I can hardly listen to anyone else. Unfortunately I've run out of obvious deep SciFi's so I decided to try a subset I dont care much for.. Im not much of a "space military" fan but this was a pleasant suprise. I really enjoyed the slow and complex character and plot development and the overly descriptive writing style. I would have given it all 5's but personally felt Joel Shepard missed many opportunities to colorize and flesh out his obviously well designed and complex universe by not putting as much focus describing the non battle scenes. I definitely felt like I could "see" the battles and had a real marines eye view of the action but was always wishing I had just a little bit more "experiance" with the worlds, ships, and stations. Over all yes, yes it is very good.

Pure space opera

Like space opera? This yarn delivers it straight no chaser. Space battles, hand-to-hand fighting, intrigue, the whole bit.

Narrator and Story.

Enjoyed it, narrator was too chopping. Distracted from the story. Character development too long! Aliens too odd and hard to understand! But appears to be getting better.

Fantastic fun.

Fast paced and well written. A great conspiracy, spy and scifi novel rolled into one.