The Merrimack Event

Shieldclads Series, Book 1

By: David A. Tatum

Narrated by: Troy Duran

Length: 14 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's Summary

Once every four years, the Earth Alliance Naval Academy is included in a war game...or rather, the Wargame: On a distant frontier colony, cadets must repair, recommission, and crew a fleet of old, mothballed warships for a simulated fleet action against a group of seasoned veterans using top-of-the-line warships.

After some meddling on the part of the Admiralty, many of the Academy's best are assigned to the oldest, smallest hulk in the Wargame, the unfortunately named corvette, Chihuahua. Thanks to a genius engineer, an Army veteran loaned to the Navy for the war game, and an unconventional captain, they make a new discovery which turns her into the most valuable warship in the fleet: the first ever Shieldclad warship.

The crew abruptly finds itself center stage in a real combat action, however, when Earth is attacked by an unknown foe, and a lone squadron of these once-mothballed ships is the Alliance's only hope to respond....

©2017 David A. Tatum (P)2018 Tantor

Great New Series Launch!

This is a great launch to a new series! There are some wonderful twists and turns. I can't wait to see what happens next!

A good start!

This was a good start. My only complaints are that it wasn't longer an I have to wait for the next one to come out.

Ok, ready for book two already.

I don't write many reviews, but this book was one that deserves a review.

I like the basic premises of using academy cadets to refit and then crew old warships in a one sided battle against the fleet they want to join. This is a very interesting concept of training a group of officers that I would recommend. Having the officers and enlisted war game to learn what they are made of. But what happens when the war game becomes real?

The authors use of history, in the formation of some his plot line. Plus using questions from the past on the fossil records to build his evil shadowy over-lords. Created one of the better reads that I have had in the past while. I can see where his history background helped in this book. And I hope he continues to use it in future books.

The biggest problem that I saw in the book, was some of the descriptions of life at the academy. It was based more on colleges and universities than Military Academy. I recommend that the author dose some more research into basic military structure. It's the little details that are different from Military life to Civilian life that trip up a lot of authors.

Great Story and Great Characters!

The characters have a great depth and you connect to them with ease and the plot is interesting; however I wish it had progressed the main plot earlier and more throughly as we now have a point where there are many many questions and few anwsers until he writes another book. I very much wish for a continuation of this story line.

It’s the Merrimack EVENT!

Full of action, spiked with humor, a dash or two of romance, and just a trace of mystery twined through the plot, Mr. Tatum has created a near perfect space adventure. And how do I arrive at that conclusion? I can easily picture Harrison Ford as the excelling strategy engineer and add it to the Adventure trail of the Jones’s. I can hardly wait for the next book in the iron-clads!

wow! great story and narration!

what do you get when you combine a solid Sci Fi story, you get that when an author has done his homework and great planning, with Troy Duran's voice?
one of the best SciFi Audio books I've had the pleasure to listen to.
bravo!

great story

Awesome book, can't wait for the next one. A good story line, good characters and a great listen.

Need more

We are powerful. We need more. Write more or Jordi will die. Make writer go fast!

A good Read

This was a good stand alone book. I have listened to allot of Sci-Fi and this has a chance to be a good series. It's a little week on the scientific details and some of the "abilities" the ships have confusing at times. The War Games idea is a good one for the story to start from. I'm looking forward to any additional books in the series.

Merrimack

A little slow to start. Lot of teen romance/angst. But well done action scenes later on. Excellent performance.