The Buchanan Campaign

Federation War, Book 1

By: Rick Shelley

Narrated by: Tim Pabon

Rick Shelley’s Federation War trilogy begins with a novel that takes you through the barracks corridors and the trenches of war, bringing the war of the future home with a combination of battlefield action and home-town heroics.

For Doug Weintraub of the Buchanan Planetary Commission, it begins with a fuzzy call, quickly cut off. Federation troops have invaded his world. The battle they’ve long feared and tried to avoid is coming. Now it’s time to seek help, to launch a rocket into Q Space, and hope for Second Commonwealth troops to arrive - and soon.

Aboard the Starship Victoria, it begins differently. It’s a short, unexpected message on the screen for Sergeant David Spencer of the Royal Marines. New orders - surprising ones - that will send him and his men to an independent frontier world that’s become a new front in the war between the Commonwealth and Federation.

Doug Weintraub and David Spencer soon find themselves in unexpected roles - a skilled warrior in the Royal Marines side-by-side with a back-world farmer. They’ll need each other to keep the Federation at bay.

©1995 Rick Shelley (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Serious let down

This story had a great premise and even started off pretty well. Though after a good start it just lets you down.

The story as a whole is very slow and the switching between characters makes it very confusing. When the story could have been told from just the viewpoint of the main character Doug. Instead it jumps around too much and has a lot of wasted conversation between characters who aren't important to the story.

The narrator does a less than decent job with the character voices and his range is not very good. At some point the character voices just get annoying. I found myself just waiting for this book to be over.


All in all this book had a lot of potential but underachieved in many ways.