The Lost Fleet: Dauntless, by Jack Campbell

The Lost Fleet Series, by Jack Campbell is a book series I wish I had discovered a long time ago. The series starts off with Dauntless, which is book one of the Lost Fleet series (which has expanded into spin-off series since I started reading them). It scratches the Star Wars/Star Trek itch fiercely, and leaves you satisfied. Like Star Trek, the series is good at exploring moral dilemmas and showcasing cool science fiction stuff, and it even has some great space battles in it as well.

The series isn't dark at all. It does have some politics and romance drama in it, but mostly it has space opera action and exposition and plenty of it.  If you are a Star Wars/Trek fan looking for a fix and waiting for new material from your series of choice, you should check this series out. It is very similar in tone and flavor to those series, while being different enough to be interesting (lots more "real" science in this series, as opposed to the technobabble features in Trek/Wars).

The book starts off right smack in the middle of an action sequence, and just keeps going from there. Character motivations are transparent and easily understood to influence behaviors. All of the characters are relateable on some level. The villains/antagonists are fairly straight forward, and that's OK with me, I am just looking for some space opera in a book like this, not deep thoughts and poetry.

I am close to finishing the third book in the series right now, Courageous, and I am happy that this series, like Star Trek & Star Wars is free of extreme violence, rapes, torture, etc. Really most of the violence is barely PG level, it is mostly just space warfare which still involves killing, but not visceral killing. The rules of war are discussed openly and often, and that also makes me happy.

I am very happy with this author, and this series, and based on what I have read so far, I heartily recommend it!