Dauntless is the first volume in the six-book Lost Fleet series, now reissued with a fetching new series of jackets by Titan Books. Sitting firmly in the sub-genre of military science fiction, they tell the story of the human Alliance fleet, which is defeated, demoralised and cut off deep in the home space of its human arch-enemies, the Syndics. What adds spice to the recipe is the fact that the Alliance fleet is, due to freak chance and an accident of seniority, now under the command of Captain John ‘Black Jack’ Geary, a relic from the very beginnings of the war who was discovered in cryogenic suspensions and thawed out by the Alliance Fleet not long before the Alliance Admiral met his end. ‘Black Jack’ is a legend, a hero, a paragon – a fact which makes it possible for him to take over command at all, and which makes constant problems too – his commanders expect him to be the dashing warrior of legend, but like most legends it has lost all but the seed of its connection with reality. The stage is set…

Badly mauled by the Syndics, the fleet manages to escape, but, constrained by the technology they can use to travel faster than light, they are many years and many jumps from Alliance space. Captain Geary has to consolidate his authority whilst taking stock of the state of the fleet, developing a plan to get them home and working within the sometimes-suffocating limitations of his own legend.

It would be impossible to read this book without being conscious of parallels with Battlestar Gallactica – a ragtag fleet, lost in space, held together by the will of its commander – and these books will undoubtedly appeal to BSG fans; however it does not do to overplay the comparison. This fleet does not represent the sole future of humanity, and it’s a fully military armada. Jack Campbell is a pen-name for John G. Henry, a retired Naval officer and graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, and this naval background comes through clearly in the military conception for the book. Campbell also respects some of the key laws of the universe – relativity and the speed of light under combat conditions – meaning that ships can’t see where their opponents are, only where they were, and that the faster you move towards your enemy, the less accurate your understanding of his position becomes. This makes for an emphasis on ship to ship combat that is decidedly naval, without the more air-force like fighter combat that provides instant gratification in much television and cinema SF completely absent.

With a rock solid central premise, an interesting and engaging central character and a fluid writing style, this is a very enjoyable book and I shall be continuing the series with anticipation.

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