Book Five (Star Carrier Series) - Star Carrier

Far too much filler through constant repetition of previously stated facts. The author is clearly trying to milk this otherwise excellent series to the maximum which is disappointing. Also the author's rather distorted political views, while lightly hinted at in his previous books, now are clearly brought forth and truly detract from the story, to the point that the book feels almost like a manifesto.
Perhaps it's time to put this series to rest before Mr. Douglas ruins it completely...

The book was just as engrossing as the previous books in the Star Carrier series. The story continues directly from the the fourth book in the series so readers will enjoy this book more if they read book four before the read book five. If you enjoy the book you can look forward to at least one more as book five ends with an obvious lead in to a book six. I'm looking forward to the next book(s) in the series.

Senseless repetition of the same ideas on several pages. Too little interaction from the single alien species, and completely lacking in the European side of the Earth Conflict culminates to a single page rant a few pages from the end about how the author doesn't like socialism.

The problem with the last two books has been that the heroes of the first three books are bench warmers, and no one has taken their place in the skies. The book takes a small netrunner journey, but fails to advance the story as it should.

Ian Douglas science and facts are too good and very true.
Harry turtledove may be the master of human emotion and thinking, while Ian is the master of science and facts. They both should cooperate to write a novel.

This series has always presented certain beliefs as fact in it's cannon (China as an intractable and genocidal enemy, Islam as a young and dangerous belief system, religion in general as a societal problem). In large part the author always kept it vague and limited to the "future version" of these real world issues and entities. In this book the author breaks that thin veneer and pushes forth his own personal interpretation of "history" (our present) in describing the supposed societal harm caused by "socialism" and suggesting that only with the return of religion could society be healed (never mind that religion never "left", it was simply considered impolite to proselytize, illegal to attempt forced conversion).

Now suddenly socialism is the reason for the decline of the U.S., somehow socialized medicine, food and shelter for all being the downfall of our nation. Not greed, corruption or the influence (or complete co-opting) of the political system by the wealthy minority. No, it's the boogeyman of "socialism" and a focus in basic human dignity and ethical behavior.

I'm saddened by this turn, dismayed an author feels preaching ignorant dogma as thinly veiled background will slip by his readers. It's even more ironic in a book that hinges heavily on methods of altering people's beliefs and behaviors via hidden memes.

Maybe the author is unaware of his own biases and assumptions but I find it unlikely. More likely we are seeing a blatant and skeptical attempt by the author to inject his personal briefs into the story, without even the hint of an actual understanding of the underlying sociological or economical factors that play into out current economic and political issues. Best he should have stayed to what he seems to have some proficiency, describing at length (exceeding, excruciating length in often repetitive iterations) the dubious physics and science that underly his story's universe and the technologies that are so vital to it's story.

Really enjoying the story with only one minute exception, author has a tendency to redundantly repeat defining story characteristics like"grin" technology.... If we're in book 5, it's probably not that necessary. Minor though consistently done on several concepts.....i just tune out, not a big deal.

Sadly, I felt that there was no conclusion to this episode in Star Carrier.
The book went on and on about galactic politics, no real feel of threat or action in the battles and a general feeling of no conclusion to the plot.
previous novels (which I liked extremely) focused on the battles and strategic issues at hand and reached some sort of conclusion at the end.
this one just left me floating at the end wondering what had happened to the second part of the book and perhaps the last chapters were just missing.
obviously written with a continuation in mind.
disappointing.

Spent too much time repeating the same background information. One time in each book should be adequate to bring the reader up to speed, but instead he repeated the same information multiple times in the same book..

There was little to much advanced physics explaining in the sometimes it felt like reading a text book. The book did have a good continuing story like and good characters to relate too
I am looking forward to read the next book in the series.

This was quite disappointing. I quickly developed the habit of skipping large sections because they did not advance the plot at all. I enjoyed the previous books. Now, I am unsure if I will continue with this series.

I have absolutely loved this series. The author regardless of which pseudonym he is writing under is fantastic. He is a truly experienced and very well informed writer. His books are very much on the side of hard science fiction and not fantasy. These days there is far too much scifi fantasy and not nearly enough of this kind of book. So thank you for getting us a new Star Carrier book out so fast.

However, this book is not as good as the others in the series. It felt a little like we were going back over ground that had already been covered just so another book could be written for the series. There is lots and lots of room to explore in this universe and plenty of potential books. I just felt like maybe this book was a bit of a punt. The ending was also very unsatisfying this time. I want more of Trevor Grey but he really seemed shallow as a character this time out. I'd like him to continue being the brilliant intuitive tactician he has been in previous books and the inheritor of Koenigs roll as admiral. Not this sorta whiny guy who is sure he is going to get punished for every mistake.

I do like the alien bad guys more than the Slann. Although I like the nod that the Slann name gives to us old gamers. Maybe these should have been the bad guys in book 4 and we could have continued a story from there with them. I am actually writing a book series where one of the bad guys is like the new book 5 aliens. Maybe a little nastier. It makes for a very interesting food for thought. No pun intended. I have tremendous respect for the level of detail the author puts in these books. Its great science and in all likelihood is a better view of what the future will be than just about anything else out there.

The only consistently negative thing I have to say about the series as a whole is that the authors view of religion is, for lack of a better word, immature. Its a very from the outside looking in at religion as an institution vs a more mature look of how religion relates to people personally. It puts far too much emphasis on The Bible, Koran or documents period being at the core of faith. While its true that in say Christianity there are adherents who very nearly treat the Bible as God or who seem to forget that they are supposed to believe in a living God not a dead book. The reality of Christian faith and I am sure Islamic, Buddhist etc is a far more personal one and far less textually regimented than it is often portrayed by outsiders or particularly atheist. While I have no idea if the author is a man of faith or not he does seem to come at faith with a certain lack of understanding. When compared to his vast understanding of technology it stands in stark contrast.

Also, readers should be aware that there is no doubt as to the authors very libertarian ideals politically. He makes no qualms as to his feelings toward government, regulation, the French, Europeans as a whole etc...It would not be hard to imagine the author at a Tea Party rally.

That said these are some of the best hard science fiction books you will find. Period.

Quick review:

I've really enjoyed each story so far in the "Star Carrier" series.

The universe is neat, the aliens are genuinely... alien.

The only real problem I've experienced, is the consistent repetition of parts of the story. It's like, every so many pages or every chapter or so, the author decides to retell, in summarized form, a chunk of the story. Usually it's about something you read in a couple chapters back or in a previous book or say, some details about how a vessel's propulsion works.

This didn't bother me all that much in the first book. By the second book, it was starting to get a little annoying. I tried to shrug it off as being like, a streamlined intro for someone who didn't read prior entries in the series. Now on book five, it's really starting to grate.

By now, we understand how the vessels move around.
By now, we understand the slang and terminology used in the books.

We read the last entries, we don't need to be told what happened again and again and again.

This is pretty much the only thing I have against the series.

The story itself is excellent, the characters are great, the aliens are fantastically weird and the combat is satisfying.

Just, the experience would be so much better if I didn't have to enter auto-pilot every time I hit "mini-summaries" of stuff i've read or had explained to me before. It takes you out of the story.

Put it this way:

When you can skip some N pages of content because you realize it's saying the same thing, AGAIN, well, you know things could be improved.

This series really started out with a bang, but at book 5 it looks like it will end with a fizzle. Compared to the first four books nothing of substance happens. We as a reader are left with no better understanding of the Universe of this book, or with any resolution of the previous stories' cliffhangers. New races and threats are introduced and then dropped whenever convenient.

Additionally, the author continually repeats the same boring definitions about the ship, and even in the closing chapters he still feels the need to tell us things we already know. It really feels like this story was written out of order, so the author felt compelled to explain everything three times.

For such a long book, I was able to slog through it pretty quickly and I found the little plot that was here interesting. I am just very disappointed that after four solid efforts, the author seems to have put little effort into this book. After investing a great deal of time into reading this series, I can only hope the author improves on the follow-up.

Love the overall storyline. And the Asimov inspired galactic cybernetic consciousness. And the detailed technical explanation fitting for a hard Sci-Fi.
3 stars for the unnecessary, multiple, too frequent repetitions. I got quantum power taps the first time, thank you very much.

I have immensely enjoyed reading this entire series. "Dark Matter" is book 5 of an ongoing series so I recommend starting with book 1, but it is not essential. While the first couple of books is this series focused more on the action side of space warfare, the more recent books were increasingly political. I don't mean that as a bad thing, really. The series is adapting and changing, so I don't feel as though book 5 is a rewrite of book 1, instead it is a logical progression. Keeping a few characters from previous books and putting them into new situations with new challenges, and incorporating new characters with different backgrounds who view problems and their solutions somewhat differently. The author takes quite a bit of time to explain...everything. How the ships and technology function, as well as naval and marine traditions, and even quite a bit about the tactics in space combat. If hard science fiction isn't your cup of tea then this might not be the series for you, but I thoroughly recommend it for anyone who likes a bit of explanation to go with their sci-fi space battles.

As always, a great continuation the series. This episode starts a little slow but pulls you into story and you cannot put the book down until it is finished. Here is hoping for another after this one!

There was little to much advanced physics explaining in the sometimes it felt like reading a text book. The book did have a good continuing story like and good characters to relate too
I am looking forward to read the next book in the series.