The Trafalgar Gambit

Ark Royal, Book 3

By: Christopher G. Nuttall

Narrated by: Ralph Lister

Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

Humanity is losing the war. The once-mighty space navies have been crippled, officers and crew have been stretched to the limit, and Earth herself has come under heavy attack. The end cannot be long delayed. For Admiral Smith and the crew of HMS Ark Royal, the stakes have never been so high. The one hope is to make contact with alien factions that might oppose the war. But, as Ark Royal sets off on a desperate diplomatic mission, it rapidly becomes clear that there are both human and alien factions that wish to fight the war to the bitter end - and that her previous missions have sown the seeds of success...or total failure.

©2014 Christopher G. Nuttall (P)2014 Audible Inc.

royal pain

What disappointed you about The Trafalgar Gambit?

The author seems to be repeating the same topic so he can fill the book with word count. The book drones on and on about prince Henry's royalty, his relationship, and the media's fascination with royal gossip. I was so tired of those repeats, I skipped a 10+ minutes of the reading and still didn;t miss anything important. As a science fiction enthusiast I don't care for any gossip of the royal family. That is just one of the many uninteresting topics the author repeats. Really seems like he finished the book but was short on word count. So he went back to see what he can repeat to fill his quota. Book 1 and 2 was MUCH better then this last book.

More of the same with a solid resolution

The strength of this series, the story arc of humanity's war with the Aliens, comes to a conclusion in The Trafalgar Gambit. Christopher Nuttall does not leave many loose ends as he builds the story to a crescendo that results in a satisfying ending to humanity's first interstellar war.

Fundamentally this book is more of the same as far as the characters and plot goes. If you are already sick of being reminded that Ark Royal is old and the only ship that humanity has that can stand up to the Aliens then you should move on, but if you want to find out if the Old Lady can survive another confrontation with the Aliens then you won't be strung along. Humanity is losing the war and Ark Royal is sent out on a final mission to make contact with a peaceful alien faction as a last chance to save humanity.

I am not a fan of "trilogies" that get milked for extra books so I applaud the fact that Nuttall wraps up the story arc of the war very nicely with this book. It concludes a solid military sci-fi trilogy and yet still allows for more books to begin with a new story arc. If book 2 kept you engaged then there is no reason not to pick up book 3 and see how it all ends.

Ralph Lister remains consistent as the narrator so I am giving him 4 stars this go round for yet another 3.5 star performance. :)

Satisfying conclusion to an enjoyable trilogy

The Trafalgar Gambit completes Christopher G Nuttall's Ark Royal trilogy. The story picks up immediately after the conclusion of Book 2 with Earth having been directly attacked by the aliens while Ark Royal was on her mission in enemy territory. In the concluding chapter, Ark Royal is given the mission to make contact and negotiate with any alien faction intent on peaceful resolution. Along the way, the crew must deal with sabotage attempts both external as well as internal. The battle scenes are brief, but intense. Prince Henry is recovered and plays a decisive role in both negotiations and battle.

The sci-fi elements are limited mainly to prior physics with some added alien biology and unique socio-cultural factors of the aliens, although there is little novelty. While the conclusion is satisfying, and likely signals the end of this series, there were some unanswered questions, from the mundane to whatever happened to Molly to how the geopolitical organization of Earth will evolve.

The narration is excellent with good pacing and range of voices. This is both an enjoyable and engaging listen.

Mr. Nuttall we get it...really...we do

What did you love best about The Trafalgar Gambit?

It is a good basic storyline, with a lot of room to expand in. The problem is the author tends to dwell on things over and over again. The Ark Royal is old, and armored and the only ship that can stand up to the aliens. OK. The Crown Prince is out there too. OK. There is some problems with the Royal succession. OK. Please stop repeating it aud naseum. The story is worth the listen, as long as you are prepared for the repeats. You do get involved in the storyline of what will happen, and will there be a breakthrough, and how will it happen. Stick with it and hope the author gets the message and the next book is cleaner and smoother.

If you’ve listened to books by Christopher G. Nuttall before, how does this one compare?

Mr. Nuttall seems to make the same mistakes in all three books, maybe he rammed them out at once. His editors let him down by not cleaning it up and asking for a rewrite.

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

Not sure, he does a good job. Characters are distinct and clear.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Don't hold the repeats against me, please.....

Any additional comments?

A good, original way to treat first contact, and possibly a realistic one. The tramline idea is good and explains FTL transits well. The characters are good, if we just got one dose of them we would all be better off. But still a good listen.

Much Better!

Book 3 The Trafalgar Gambit is by far much better then the first 2 books. That said it still has too much of who's sleeping with who in it. Way too Much. But it does have some very good action battles in it. It is well written and well narrated. The wole trilogy could have been so much better if it didn't spend some much time on whot everyone is sleeping with and other draw out things that no one cares about.

That was a chore

What would have made The Trafalgar Gambit better?

cut out half the book.

What was most disappointing about Christopher G. Nuttall’s story?

The repetitiveness of it. Over and over and over!

What didn’t you like about Ralph Lister’s performance?

Same gravely made up male voice for a 19 year old pilot, middle aged pilot, and elderly admiral. If your going to do voices, do voices, not voice.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

I liked the underling story but did not believe the reason the aliens started the war. They attacked cause one alien was mistakenly shot. BUT.. after that they don't seem to give a fig on individuals getting killed. They even blatantly kill each other in disagreements.

Any additional comments?

I finished it. Not sorry i listened to it but if i new how it was going to be after the first book i would not have read it and put my time and money into something else. They can't be best sellers though.

Heart of Oak - Ready, Aye, Ready

Christopher Nuttall brings the Ark Royal Trilogy to a resounding finish. I felt the Russian political intrigue, the Royal Family Press problems, and the Royal Navy references added to the meat of the story. The series builds to an all or nothing battle for Earth's survival in the spirit of the "Last Man Standing." It's an exciting, well performed, performance.

Exciting

This is the last book in the Ark Royal trilogy. The book takes off immediately after the events in the previous book “The Nelson Force.” Warning you must read this trilogy in order starting with “Ark Royal”. All the familiar faces are present including the ones that the rest of humanity thinks are dead.

The writing has improved with each book. The characters are good, the story/plot compelling and the action is fast. Earth is losing the war with the aliens. Admiral Smith and the crew of the HMS Ark Royal are sent on a diplomatic mission. Complicating factor is the Russians and a sector of the aliens do not want to stop the fighting.

As the author cleans up all the loose ends of the story we at last find out the cause of the war. At the end of the book we have the excepted showdown between Ark Royal and a sector of Aliens that want to continue the war. What happens? Read the book. I am looking forward to more books from this talented new author. Ralph Lister does a good job narrating the trilogy.

Passing at best...

As with the other books in this series this one continued on the same trends. Canned phrases, constant repeating of sentences when pointless and an overt obsession with sex and sexuality.

Great end to a great book.

When I reviewed the first book in this series I said that I wondered why I enjoyed it so much and decided that it was because of the wonderful character development along with an interesting and believable storyline. The second book in the series introduced new characters but the essential “whole-ness” of the story and of the characters remained with the new characters integrating seamlessly into the narrative and with one of them becoming a new main character. As with the first two books most of the story was character development and storyline, not battles.

The last book in the series picks up at the cliff-hanger of the end of the second book and is fully the equal of the other two books in the series in all of those particulars that made the first two books such a great pleasure to listen to. The characters are three dimensional and real, the story introduces us to the aliens and to their society as well as to some of the seamier side of humanity, all of the events that occur are reasonable and I found the story so enjoyable that I was reluctant to listen to too much at a time because I did not want to reach the end.

I have listened to quite a few first and second books in a series in this genre but few have been as interesting and none has enticed me into the story as much as this one. Somewhere after the finishing the second book in the series I started to look for other books by the same author feeling that if he could do this well with this series perhaps another series by him would be well worth listening to. I loved this trilogy and I ended up caring about the people, glad for their triumphs and sorry for their failures. The characters and society of the book are British with all of the traditions of the Royal Navy and, for me, that just added to the overall flavor and taste of the book.

All three books were narrated by Ralph Lister who did a consistently good job. Names and pronunciations were constant throughout all three books which added to the pleasure of listening. Highly recommended for anyone interested in stories of first contact, human and alien understanding and misunderstanding and of the unfortunate results of mistaken actions.

ultimately bland

I've tried to get behind this series but it just isn't that good. the narrator is good and the general presentation is good, but the writing is just not. over the last three books the author has not grown or learnt, simply repeated and repeated the same phrases and recapping. if you streamlined these books you could reduce their lengths by 20% with no noticeable difference.

A weak ending

Overall this was a weak and somewhat predictable ending to what started as a interesting series of books.

Reset repeat

Read first 3 books if you've read one you've read them all, same theme same story wish I'd saved my credits 🤨

getting better but still cringeful

if you ignore the over use of the word "staggeringly" and the frequent detailed description of nipples then the story is simply predictable.

3 different voices

Sadly the narrator of this book is awful he only have about 3 different voices in his repertoire. There are so much better British narrators out there. Peter Kenny or John Lee are so much better and that is just naming 2.
The biggest joke about this is there is so many accents in Britain and this person can only do one accent so all the characters pretty much sound the same.
I like the story of this book but the performance of the audio reading is awful don't waste your credit or money on this.

great book 😀 👍

Love the book very good story I highly recommend listening to this book series
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

a nice ending

a nice ending to a great story. I look forward to what happens next in series.

A nice finish if a little forced.

A good finish to the first arch. However some elements seem to be a little rush near the end. This doesn't detract from the book or story line much at all though.

I was too quick to critise

I reviewed the last story. and moaning about too much of the storyline based on relationships but I see why. this story builds up until an epic space battle that left me feeling emotional and satisfied. I would go as far as saying it was the best story I've listen too. wow!

A very good series of books

I have enjoyed these books. The characters and the Aliens have been engaging and we'll thought out. I look forward to more books in this series.