Vanguard: The Genesis Fleet, Book 1

By: Jack Campbell

Narrated by: Christian Rummel

Jack Campbell returns to the world of the New York Times best-selling Lost Fleet novels with a new action-packed military science fiction series that explores the founding of the Alliance...and the men and women who fought to create it.

Earth is no longer the center of the universe. After the invention of the faster-than-light jump drive, humanity is rapidly establishing new colonies. But the vast distances of space mean that the old order of protection and interstellar law offered by Earth has ceased to exist.

When a nearby world attacks, the new colony of Glenlyon turns to Robert Geary, a young former junior fleet officer, and Mele Darcy, a onetime enlisted marine. With nothing but improvised weapons and a few volunteers, Geary and Darcy must face down warships and armored soldiers - or die trying.

As battles rage and pirates take an increasing toll throughout the colonies, the only hope for lasting peace lies with Carmen Ochoa, a "Red" from the anarchic world of Mars, and Lochan Nakamura, a failed politician. They have a plan: to lay the groundwork for mutual defense that could someday grow into an alliance. But if their efforts don't succeed, the growing power of aggressor worlds could turn regions of space founded on freedom into battlefields between the first interstellar empires.

©2017 John G. Hemry (P)2017 Audible, Inc.

Solid Addition to the Series

Jack Campbell goes back into starfaring exploration history with a new series set hundreds of years before the events in his "Lost Fleet" series.

For me, this seemed kind of like a way for him to reboot the series, stepping away from the massive scale battles that the series ended with, and returning to a much smaller theater which allowed him to focus on developing new characters. Just one strange issue with this, however. It seems that some of the characters are direct ancestors of the protagonists in the later series. The main character is yet another Geary, and his personality and speech traits are virtually identical to the "Black Jack" that we all know so well. It's like they're the same exact character. I don't know this was even deliberate on the author's part, or if he can only write a few certain types of characters.

At any rate, this was a missed opportunity to introduce very different characters in a different setting, and stretch his creativity and give us something that feels new. Instead, this is simply "Lost Fleet" scaled way back.

Inflection

This was a great beginning to a series! The only criticism I have is the inflection at the end of many sentences. Verbally they often don't end with audible equivalent version of a period. As Voice Over and public speaker myself I find it hard to find any fault with Mr Rummels presentation since I have my own faults. I just think that if he were to overcome this one tendency, he would rank right up there withe the best narrators Audible has. My favorite being Scott Brick who is a master in this business. Now, if I could only borrow the voice quality of James Earl Jones.............

An excellent prequel to The Lost Fleet!

This is a great story of the Lost Fleet caliber. Hearing familiar names was like recalling old friends. I'm definitely going back through all the Lost Fleet books when I finish this series.

Another very good first book to a Jack Campbell series . . . 😱

I had my doubts about yet another Jack Campbell spin-off from his Lost Fleet Series -- but he has done it again with a 4+ Star 1st book of a new series. The start with multiple character developments occurring in separate stories was really well done -- and the weaving of these characters into a single story was handled masterfully. You'll like this military SF book . . . 😱
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5 stars is great (I rarely give this rating).
4 stars is good (given only to interesting and well-written books).
3 stars is OK (the usual listen I encounter on Audible).
2 stars is poor (and not worth the credit or the listen).
1 star is awful (and to be diss'ed and shunned and spread as thus through out the Audible Universe)!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 😱

Didn't Like Narration

As much as I loved the Lost Fleet series (all of them) this fell a bit flat for me. Likely the narrator from the Audible version I listened to had something to do with it. But it was a case of too many characters, not enough interesting action, and people I just didn't care to follow. As well, a lot of it felt like something I have read before in a Campbell book, just rejigged. Things picked up in the end nicely but it was a hard slog through most of the book.

Story: As Earth expands, things are not always peaceful in the outer reaches. Into this world of pirates and claim jumpers, a group of people will come together to fight to protect a new colony.

The cast is quite large and the story feels like it was culled directly from stories of the settling of the "Wild West' in the United States. From 'sailors' being shanghaid, claims and claim jumping on planets, and might making right in lawless areas that Earth justice just can't reach. Readers will likely assume the book is about Geary, ancestor of the protagonist from the Lost Fleet. But he shares main character duties with 6 other people so this book has a bigger scope.

As with all Jack Campbell books, there are decent men and women just trying to do right in the world. The men will be simple and calm; the women will be crafty and overemotional. That the males are always going to be clueless about the emo females is a given in a Jack Campbell novel. Just once, I'd like to see a world that has emo/overemotional men, simple and non-crafty women, men NOT confused about women and what they want, men in touch with their own feelings, and perhaps even non hetero characters, for once. Vanguard, as with most of Campbell's books, feels like it is populated by characters from the 1960s only.

Campbell has a chance with Vanguard to explain many things that led up to what we know in the Lost Fleet series. Perhaps the biggest discussion in this book was how the religion of 'ancestor worship' came about - more as a way to make sense of the universe as man expanded. But there are other little tidbits as well if one reads closely.

Perhaps the main difference between this and other Campbell books is that he starts really big and then by the end of the book narrows things down. In the Lost Fleet series, he starts small - with one man - and then builds up a world around him. It means that until the characters start coming together, the story can feel like it lacks connection and immediacy.

The Audible narration was, to be honest, bad. I'm tired of the "If he has a Scottish last name, he has to talk in a Scottish accent' thing. E.g., my last name is German but no one has spoken German in my ancestry for 350 years. The narrator should have a better way of distinguishing characters than to just give everyone an accent based on their last name.

So although I never really got into Vanguard, it was by no means a terrible book. Admittedly, I have to put a lot of the blame on the narration for turning me off. I am fairly sure it was the same narrator as the Lost Fleet series but here I felt like I was listening to the same characters over and over again.

Great!

Where does Vanguard rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Great start for a new story line. (Especially for the folks familiar with the Lost Fleet books) It's all here, character development, humor, romance, excitement and even a little science. I'm already looking forward to the next book!

Any additional comments?

Jack Campbell, new series, space story with a main character named Geary, come on, "Nuff Said"!

The book is great but the system is lacking

The card catalog fails to id this novel as part of a series and has no option to preorder book two which is already in hard copy

Excellent Story as Usual!

Awesome begining to this already excellent series! Rob and Ninja are just the right types to be the honor of Blackjack's Ancestors!

Great story -- definitely a Jack Campbell tale

I enjoyed the various references via names/concepts/ideas that foretell parts of the Lost Fleet stories. If toy like Lost Fleet -- you'll like this. Now to wait for the next one in the series.

not what I was expecting

not at all what I was expecting. really enjoyed it. good character and plot development. looking forward to the next one