A review by rheren
Fearless by Jack Campbell

4.0

Also a great book: I couldn't stop reading. Almost as good as #1. I say almost because he got halfway through and then succumbed to the siren call that hardly any scifi writers seem to be able to resist: for some bizarre reason they always have to have a sexual relationship complicating things. The book was much better before he and his lover started getting involved and jealous and catty and all the lameness that goes along with that. At least the sex scenes aren't graphic, so that made it bearable. The female character worked quite well as a civilian "straight man" to let him explain military and space combat fundamentals to us, the reader, when we needed help understanding what he was doing, but I think the author felt that this role was over, and apparently was like, "well, what other use is a woman in a story about a heroic male figure? Oh yeah, they can have sex!". Disgusting.

Anyways, that particular pet peeve of mine aside, it is a terrific book, and I'm getting #3 as fast as I can. As the books go along it's getting more and more of the feeling of reading about a chessmaster, not an admiral: because we never meet anyone except the captains of ships, it feels like the ships are just pawns crewed by a single person who is either an ally of the admiral or a problem. Also a minor quibble, but it does give the books a different feel than the Honor Harrington books, for instance.