[Insert Pithy Title Here]

[chris_gerrib]

One of the nice things about Amazon.com is that one can pre-order books and they just show up. Well, Jack Campbell's latest book, Valiant (The Lost Fleet, Book 4 of 6), was in my mailbox last night, so I read it. As usual, it was entertaining, and I'll have a more coherent review up soon. Although I enjoy Campbell's writing, one of the disappointing aspects of the series is how his fleet bears more then a passing resemblance to the Royal Navy circa 1916, with battleships chasing battlecruisers around.

Now, on the one hand, the WWI navies were probably the most optimal ever developed for direct ship-vs-ship fighting. On the other hand, ship classes and roles were derived from an evolutionary process which is unlikely to repeat itself. But since that's my biggest beef with the Lost Fleet series, I'll keep reading them as fast as Campbell writes them.

In other news, somebody from Reading Is Fundamental found yesterday's post. It's nice to be thanked, and they reminded me that the reason I'm giving is that the Federal government, in a cost-cutting measure, zeroed out a longstanding grant to RIF. You can read more about it here. (Hat tip j_cheney)

Comments

[pyropyga.livejournal.com]

How well does Valiant do at moving things forward? As of the last book I was becoming concerned that not enough was moving forward in any one volume...

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

Jack's not going to set any records for "fastest story-teller" but we're starting to see light at the end of the tunnel.

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

Wow, that was forever ago!

[jetfx.livejournal.com]

Since you're a fan of naval sci-fi you might enjoy Karl Schroeder's Virga series (http://www.kschroeder.com/my-books/sun-of-suns). It has one of the most amazing settings I've encountered:

To be exact, the world known as Virga is a balloon five thousand miles in diameter, orbiting a distant star. This vast sphere contains only air, water and aimlessly floating chunks of rock. The humans who live in this bizarre environment build their own fusion suns and “towns” that are basically big wood-and-rope wheels which they spin for centripetal gravity. They fly home-built fanjets that use bicycle-level technology, and fight wars with jet-powered cylindrical ships that fire broadsides of rockets at one another. The technology--except for the suns--is early twentieth-century.