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on October 7, 2016
Either this isn't B.V. Larson at all, or his writing has really gone down hill.
***Spoilers warning***
While this story has some good parts, many of the actions of various characters made zero sense and I found it extremely annoying. The two different admirals, for example, that both basically just rant at the MC about how they "can't take any chances" and then try to destroy him while he's trying to explain he's been set up and just wants to give them an extremely advanced ship to study and add to their fleet.
The love interest made no sense either. In their first interaction he leaves the house knowing he screwed up and it appears she doesn't want to talk to him again. Then when he contacts her later, they both talk about how they missed the other person, seriously?
Not to mention even contacting his love interest as the person to tell the world about the situation he's in at the time is utterly ridiculous. Couldn't he just find a contact for a news company or something or possibly an old trusted friend from childhood that wouldn't likely doctor the evidence he sent and use it against him???
The action in this story is excellent, but many of the motivations and actions of the characters just make too little sense for me to truly enjoy the story. Even the whole problem with the government not funding the navy is never really explained. It seems the author wanted to make a novel with a corrupt governing body, an elitist ruling class, and a society in desperate need of change, but didn't really delve into that enough that things made any sense.
If you want to experience some GOOD books by Larson, check out the Star force series. I thoroughly enjoyed those. This one, not so much.
***Spoilers warning***
While this story has some good parts, many of the actions of various characters made zero sense and I found it extremely annoying. The two different admirals, for example, that both basically just rant at the MC about how they "can't take any chances" and then try to destroy him while he's trying to explain he's been set up and just wants to give them an extremely advanced ship to study and add to their fleet.
The love interest made no sense either. In their first interaction he leaves the house knowing he screwed up and it appears she doesn't want to talk to him again. Then when he contacts her later, they both talk about how they missed the other person, seriously?
Not to mention even contacting his love interest as the person to tell the world about the situation he's in at the time is utterly ridiculous. Couldn't he just find a contact for a news company or something or possibly an old trusted friend from childhood that wouldn't likely doctor the evidence he sent and use it against him???
The action in this story is excellent, but many of the motivations and actions of the characters just make too little sense for me to truly enjoy the story. Even the whole problem with the government not funding the navy is never really explained. It seems the author wanted to make a novel with a corrupt governing body, an elitist ruling class, and a society in desperate need of change, but didn't really delve into that enough that things made any sense.
If you want to experience some GOOD books by Larson, check out the Star force series. I thoroughly enjoyed those. This one, not so much.
on June 7, 2017
The story line was a little hard to follow at first, but by the end of the story, I was setting on the edge of my seat. Put another way, I borrowed the book and by the end of the story, I had purchased the whole Trilogy. REALLY great story, once it really got going. The prequel information was nearly overwhelming (at first). I am glad now I stuck with the story until it got interesting. It was actually interesting in the beginning . .. but the story kept jumping in time until settling down for the last part of the book. I had trouble connecting the dots (so to speak).
on August 20, 2015
I enjoyed this one, but not quite as much as I might have liked. I've been reading Larsons "Undying mercenaries" after reading this one, and the style in this book threw me out of the story at times. Its kind of like he was trying to write like David Drakes "Leary & Mundy" books but doesn't quite bring it off.
I liked it but it took me quite a bit longer to get through it than I thought it would. Pretty long book as well, which is quite nice.
A lot of the quite odd things that happen at the beginning/middle of the book make a great deal more sense by the end of the novel but the "in the dark" kind of feeling is jarring a times.
This was the first book by B.V. Larson that I had read, and while its good, I wish I had started with one of his other series to see just how good a writer he really is, and he really is a dang good author. For me, I liked the book but it didn't grab me the way his others have.
I liked it but it took me quite a bit longer to get through it than I thought it would. Pretty long book as well, which is quite nice.
A lot of the quite odd things that happen at the beginning/middle of the book make a great deal more sense by the end of the novel but the "in the dark" kind of feeling is jarring a times.
This was the first book by B.V. Larson that I had read, and while its good, I wish I had started with one of his other series to see just how good a writer he really is, and he really is a dang good author. For me, I liked the book but it didn't grab me the way his others have.
on September 25, 2015
Spoiler Alert: for some readers, there may be spoilers here.
At times, the narrative of "Battle Cruiser" seems almost sophomoric -- simplistic and naive. Most characters come across as thin sketches with unexplained backgrounds and obscure motivations. Some of the plot is so implausible that even a sympathetic reader's disbelief cannot be suspended to stay with the story.
A crew of aging Space Guardsmen discovers and -- in hours -- is able to take control of a damaged spacecraft built to dimensions intended for much larger humans. Within hours, they are navigating a cruiser hugely larger than their former patrol boat, whose controls they can barely read and about whose inner workings they know little. Fuel and stores are magically available, and repair robots are conveniently skillful in restoring the alien/human craft as its small crew contends with hostile authorities from home.
This effort is about three bridges too far for me. It doesn't support its own weight. The Amazon key words to describe the mood are lacking the ones I would prefer: uneven and inconsistent. I think B.V. Larson can do better. But on this book, he doesn't.
At times, the narrative of "Battle Cruiser" seems almost sophomoric -- simplistic and naive. Most characters come across as thin sketches with unexplained backgrounds and obscure motivations. Some of the plot is so implausible that even a sympathetic reader's disbelief cannot be suspended to stay with the story.
A crew of aging Space Guardsmen discovers and -- in hours -- is able to take control of a damaged spacecraft built to dimensions intended for much larger humans. Within hours, they are navigating a cruiser hugely larger than their former patrol boat, whose controls they can barely read and about whose inner workings they know little. Fuel and stores are magically available, and repair robots are conveniently skillful in restoring the alien/human craft as its small crew contends with hostile authorities from home.
This effort is about three bridges too far for me. It doesn't support its own weight. The Amazon key words to describe the mood are lacking the ones I would prefer: uneven and inconsistent. I think B.V. Larson can do better. But on this book, he doesn't.
on July 4, 2015
This starts with the earth's defense budget is constantly being cut. The political situation is definitely anti-space navy. Then a vengeful assignment put an alien ship is discovered in an ice ball. The Guard and Bureaucratese start to fit. A good yarn that has some believable aliens.
on January 13, 2017
I'm giving Battle Cruiser three stars because of what it could have been. I liked the gist of the plot but the error was in the execution, I feel. I found the stiff, formal, Victorian dialogue out of place for a futuristic Earth, but I suppose it's possible after a reformation as offsetting as something like a Carrington Event. The sticking point is the recovery timeline. If the Carrington Event were as severe as portrayed, the redevelopment of advanced technologies (rejuvenation drugs, personal forcefields, and spaceflight itself) would indicate an incredibly steep developmental curve with an unreal amount of progress achieved in a short amount of time.
I found the characters thin and the love interest contrived in such a way as to be entirely unrealistic. The only character I really found interesting enough to care about was the Beta Female, Zye. Regardless of the thin characters and sometimes inexplicable criticism/outright obstructionism of the main character for no other reason than his lineage, I could see where the details of the plot could have taken a better course and made this a terrific story.
Overall, I think the book felt rushed with a series of contrived conveniences to make the storytelling easy and predictable.
I found the characters thin and the love interest contrived in such a way as to be entirely unrealistic. The only character I really found interesting enough to care about was the Beta Female, Zye. Regardless of the thin characters and sometimes inexplicable criticism/outright obstructionism of the main character for no other reason than his lineage, I could see where the details of the plot could have taken a better course and made this a terrific story.
Overall, I think the book felt rushed with a series of contrived conveniences to make the storytelling easy and predictable.
on August 23, 2015
Battle Cruiser is space opera, my favorite genre for TV and movies. However, lacking the colorful visuals and special effects of video and cinema, reproducing the complex world of futuristic space travelers is a challenge for practitioners of the written word. B.V. Larson handles his future world with competence but the action and descriptive passages lack crisp and innovation combinations of words and phrases. The writing is okay, but not rich and sensual. (As a fellow writer, I get how hard this is.) His characters are a bit stiff and stereotyped, and the storyline contains far too many opponents to his main player's efforts, even when their opposition is clearly irrational and borderline suicidal for the human race. Larson compensates for this tendency somewhat by the device of planted alien agents in human form, but the overall feeling of "everybody is against me" is conspicuously overdone; it reads like an author who's desperate to pump up the conflict in the plot. Having said all this, I still recommend Battle Cruiser as an enjoyable summer read, and I'm looking forward to reading more by B.V. Larson.
on May 10, 2016
I don't know if I've just read too much of Mr. Larson's prodigious output recently but this series seems to be starting out a bit campy and all the characters are even thinner than usual; which is to say they're not quite saran wrap but they are reaching the wax paper level.
I don't particularly believe a great deal of time was put into formulating original plot devices. What seem to be shaping up as the main antagonists are a weirdly evolved lost colony of humans, who are part machine who conquer other worlds and assimilate the inhabitants. This group is called the Borg- I mean Stroj, so if you have seen any Star Trek movies in the last 15 years you have a pretty good idea about them.
The protagonists which is to say one guy and some background characters that are about as deep as hieroglyphics and whose motivations are either explicitly stated or opaque. I'm not saying that anybody expects or even wants the Gulag Archipelago or something of that line in terms of characters or motivations that would be nice to have something to be able to identify with the main character other than he has issues with his father.
This sounds more negative than I intended it to be since were really dealing with light reading and Lord knows there certainly have been authors who have made a lifelong career with three or four plot devices and a familiar protagonist but I think in this instance we finally arrived at the point of what used to be referred to as juvenile science-fiction, that is appropriate for teens before they became fascinated with werewolves and vampires.
I would've given the book 2 1/2 stars but wasn't able to do so and I'm fond of Mr. Larson's creativity in his Undying Mercenaries series but after this experiment I think I'll leave the lost colonies – lost.
I don't particularly believe a great deal of time was put into formulating original plot devices. What seem to be shaping up as the main antagonists are a weirdly evolved lost colony of humans, who are part machine who conquer other worlds and assimilate the inhabitants. This group is called the Borg- I mean Stroj, so if you have seen any Star Trek movies in the last 15 years you have a pretty good idea about them.
The protagonists which is to say one guy and some background characters that are about as deep as hieroglyphics and whose motivations are either explicitly stated or opaque. I'm not saying that anybody expects or even wants the Gulag Archipelago or something of that line in terms of characters or motivations that would be nice to have something to be able to identify with the main character other than he has issues with his father.
This sounds more negative than I intended it to be since were really dealing with light reading and Lord knows there certainly have been authors who have made a lifelong career with three or four plot devices and a familiar protagonist but I think in this instance we finally arrived at the point of what used to be referred to as juvenile science-fiction, that is appropriate for teens before they became fascinated with werewolves and vampires.
I would've given the book 2 1/2 stars but wasn't able to do so and I'm fond of Mr. Larson's creativity in his Undying Mercenaries series but after this experiment I think I'll leave the lost colonies – lost.
on August 2, 2015
Excellent beginning to a new series! I have read almost every B.V. Larson book and my only complaint with his style of writing is the way he writes his ending. Don't get me wrong I love his style and will continue to buy and read his books, but please, please put a little more effort within endings. No need for a spoiler alert here, but something that could have easily been expanded is the last 30 pages but it was just casually lumped together and finished. It was a segment throughout the book that was mentioned and left for thought but was just casually summed up as if taking the dog for a walk at the end. It's easy for me to take shots having never written a book but I'm a big fan of BV and I hope that he takes this as constructive criticism...Sincerely, a loyal reader and fan!!!!
