It's a bit like Master and Commander (or at least books in that vein) in SPACE. I thoroughly enjoyed this. ( )

Fun tribute for Hornblower fans. This is what life would be like if the British navy of the 1700s and 1800s were transported to the future space navy. You have the same castes, political setup, personal relationships. Evil lords, valiant Naval officers, and good lower castes. There are the creaking of masts and sails in the solar wind, broadsides, boarding parties. Lots of fun. ( )

Normally I don't give two-star reviews. If I don't like a book I just don't finish. But I really wanted to finish this because I am working on my own solar-sailing series, and am looking for comp titles. I also wanted to like it, because of course if it's good, that makes me look good by comparison.

This is the sort of thing I should like--it's swashbuckling, age of sail in space--but it's just not pulled off very well, in my opinion.

Worldbuilding: The science is never explained, and I don't think it's plausible at all. Solar sailing doesn't work the way he thinks it does, and he never gives any reason for why our characters are using swords and four-shot pistols when they clearly have advanced technology in other respects. Likewise, the empire in the book is a rough sketch of some kind of classist society with nobles, but nothing is ever explained. Like, how does the Navy function when any idiotic lordling can be captain and totally destroy a ship for no reason, and all the competent people can't get promoted? Classism is one thing, but the admirals appear to be completely stupid to allow this. That kind of thing.

Character: The two leads are about as basic as you come. They have no backstory. There's nothing they really want except to be good at their jobs, which they are. There's a romance going on, which proceeds smoothly without a hitch. I could not make myself care about either of them.

Themes: There are no themes. The characters just go along from adventure to adventure without giving much thought to anything. It's often mentioned that the society is classist and that's a problem, but nobody ever does anything about it, and when there's an attempted mutiny, we are expected to side with the captain. The pirates say that they are fighting for freedom, and I had a momentary glimmer of hope that our guys are really the baddies and they will reject the Empire and fight for freedom too, but . . . nope. That would require introspection and our heroes don't do that.

Ethics: our main hero beats up some prisoners at one point. But it's okay! He doesn't ENJOY it, okay. It's just a terrible necessity, because the pirates were such horrible baddies.

I should say something I liked about it, so I will say, there's plenty of action. I am not that excited by swordfights if I don't care about the people involved, but if you are, you're in luck: there are swordfights. I also found the beginning really cool, when the solar storm is raging and the sails are all creaking and it's very sailing-ship-y. (And unscientific because solar storms aren't LIKE that, but WHATEVER. It was still COOL.)

I recently read that this same premise is handled much better in the Alexis Carew books, so I'm going to try those next. Tall ships in space is such an excellent idea; it deserves much better treatment than this. ( )

I gave this a 3 because, while it was kind of fun, it seemed so improbable it eroded my enjoyment.

The story takes place in some dense star cluster with at least three space going species, humans, Sectoids (think giant roaches) and Theropods (think giant lizards). Space faring is in vessels with sails (to catch the solar winds which, since this is a dense star cluster, blow strong). The vessels have masts projecting from 4 sides. How it's possible for such a ship to travel through deep space in anything less than centuries is never explained.

The author really stretches the 17th century sailing concept beyond the breaking point. The ships are equipped with cannons (with cannon balls fired by gunpowder), boarding parties are armed with swords and pistols, there are space-faring pirates and cutthroats in every port. Sailors get an extra ration of rum once in awhile for doing a good job.

What's improbable is that the ships are also equipped with lasers, artificial gravity, computers, "sensors" and some other sort of propulsion called 'thrusters'.. The bridge has a transparent canopy so the first mate can scan the sky with a high-tech, but hand-held telescope. The mix of technologies is just confusing.

The humans have an Empire, ruled, naturally enough, by an Emperor. There are noble men and woman who get all the choice jobs in the Navy, apparently without regards to their actual ability.

The story concerns the HMSS Daring, disguised as a merchant ship, out looking for pirates. Operating under the Emperor's direct authority (a letter of Marque), the crew can keep any loot they recover but if their mission fails they will be disavowed by the Emperor. The officers are all nobles and the story is mainly about Subcommander Liam Blackwood and commoner ship quartermaster Amelia Virtue.

The dialog is often witty and well done and it's not really a bad story. The long smoldering romance between Blackwood and Virtue could have been consummated sooner (not a spoiler, you know from the time they meet they're going to end up in the sack together). Apparently in this Navy it's common for men and women to serve together and fraternization between ranks (and between nobles and commoners) is allowed (if not actually encouraged).

In the background, is a potential war between the humans and the Sectoids. Humans don't like the Sectoids, because, well, they're giant roaches. This gets resolved (in a way I saw coming well before the final reveal).

A sequel planned as at the end the Daring is being refitted for another mission. Not sure If I'm going to want to read it. ( )