Leviathan

Today's post is on Leviathan by Jack Campbell. It is the fifth in his The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier series. It is 336 pages long and is published by Ace. The cover is action shot of the fighting in space. The intended reader is someone who likes science fiction, military science fiction, and space operas. There is no language, no sex, and some violence in this book. The story is told from the third person perspective of the main character. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the back of the book- Two Syndicate World star systems have fallen prey to a mysterious fleet of warships—a fleet controlled entirely by artificial intelligence—that is now targeting Alliance space. The warships are no mystery to Geary. They were developed by his government to ensure security, but malfunctioned. If the Syndics learn the truth, the war with the Alliance will resume with a vengeance.
As the government attempts to conceal the existence of the A.I. warships—and its role in their creation—Geary pursues them, treading a fine line between mutiny and obedience. But it soon becomes clear that his fleet is no match for the firepower of the machine-piloted armada.
With the help of the Dancer species of aliens, Geary has tracked the A.I. ships to their secret base in the supposedly mythical Unity Alternate star system where his fleet, the last hope of the Alliance’s future, will end the conflict at any cost…

Review- I have never read Campbell before but I really liked this world and book. I was thrown into the deep end with the story but Campbell quickly helped me to understand what going on. The universe he creates is fun and feels very real. Campbell does his science homework and I found myself very interested in learning more in real life about some of the theories that he talks about. That said the combat is very slow, like it would be in reality. Campbell gives a good story but does not let reality slow things down. The plot is about the government being dumb and the people who have to clean that up. I liked all the characters I met and when one of them died I was moved.

I give this book a Five out of Five stars. I was given a copy of this book by Ace/ROC in exchange for an honest review.