At its core, this is a space battle book, set in the far future after Humanity's sprawling galactic empire has crumbled and only three pockets of civilization remain, connected by the remnants of FTL gateways that once connected thousands of star systems. Of course, this being a human situation, two of the three pockets are hell bent on dominance, and a wars of conquest are fought between what are reasonable facsimiles of capitalism, fascism, and militarism.
Now despite the pocket societies having mile long spaceships, the battles are a kind of steampunk meets WWII Pacific Ocean naval engagements. Giant battleships house squadrons of fighter/bombers, which harry the enemy before firing torpedoes at them. When that's done, and the ships are in range, they fire broadsides at each other from banks of laser/particle accelerators. Chunks of ship fly, lots of crew die, and steadfast engineers nurture fragile fusion reactors to keep them from scragging and blowing the ship to atoms. Despite the high-tech nature of space ships, the vibe of battle might be recognized by those who worked on coal cokers back in the day. These are fights of attrition, where even a slight innovation can lead to victory, and I did have a niggle that innovation was generally frowned upon in all three societies, leading to ritualistic engagements with little variance outside known parameters.
Thrust into an unexpected battle of this kind, our protagonist, Confederation (aka USA) Captain Tyler Barron, finds himself far from the rest of the fleet, with no support and pretty sketchy orders. Initially at a disadvantage, Barron finds himself having to innovate because his foe is equally wily and this sets up a tense ship-on-ship situation, the literal 'duel in the dark'. We get into the head of the major characters...a lot. I generally enjoy that in my novels, though there is a touch too much introspection and repetition of thoughts and actions in that regard.
Allan provides a lot of context, covering the political aspects, historical battles and associated heroes, societal mechanics - and particularly the aggressively repressive Union - as well as the skullduggery that the equivalent secret services undertake in their surveillance and suppression activities. He could have easily written this as a WWII story, and it would have worked as well, because character driven, with the sci-fi a handy scaffold to build out from. There is very much a "Capitalism good, others bad" theme, with repeated noting that the free citizens of the Confederation ultimately outfight/outcompete/outperform their Union and Alliance counterparts. Also, there is a lot of focus on the brilliance of certain crew members, with their feats of derring do in the face of adversity literally done to death. Need to replace hundreds of miles of critical cabling in the midst of battle? Sure thing, Captain. Easy peasy, let's get it done.
Still, this is a complicated, detailed, and compelling story, and upon completion, I immediately purchased Volume 2, it was sufficiently fun reading.
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Top reviews from other countries
Ralph Kern
An excellent military SF
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 10, 2017felix H.M
A good book. Good characters in both side
Reviewed in Canada on April 4, 2018SeeKay
Cool universe, great ideas and the most repetitive writing ever
Reviewed in Germany on October 14, 2019