The Lost Starship

This is a good space opera adventure read. I liked that the level of threat and danger is continuous from the beginning of the story through to the end.

The parts I liked the best were the boarding of the alien starship and the space battles. The protagonists are faced with the daunting task of seizing control of an alien spacecraft that was built by an unknown civilization thousands of years ago. How they attempt to accomplish that is unique in my reading experience. I would never have thought of trying that. This book is only minimally military fiction. The space battles are few and far between, but I liked how they are handled. The opposing sides are alien cultures to each other and employ different weapons and tactics. It is refreshing to see battle postulated between mismatched military cultures. Military fiction is overflowing with fictional alien cultures that are armed exactly the same on each side. I liked the approach that each side had different strengths and weaknesses when they meet in battle.

The part I found the hardest was the character exposition. For me, the dialogue between the characters dragged. I found positive and negative in the character relations. It is a good thing that the protagonists are not a smoothly working team. Again science fiction books are filled with the heroes being of one mind and never disagreeing. In this book, the protagonists disagree and argue about what to do at each stage of the mission. I found that realistic and somewhat refreshing, while also getting a little tired of the bickering.

The leader seemed too much of a martinet during the first part of the book. He is always sure of what to do next, and orders his team to shut up and obey him. This felt like an unlikely style of leadership because they were such a small group in a tiny little scout craft. Then toward the end he changes, but starts trying to sleep with his underlings. Perhaps realistic for a man, but it irritated me.

I enjoyed this read and would read a sequel.