Surviving Behind Enemy Lines

The Galactic Star Force Battle Fleet is a cobbled together remnant of human society that is trapped in a system filled with hostile aliens. Some of the humans are kept as a foodstuff by one alien race, while the group that managed to escape and desperately wanted to free them is being maniacally attacked by another alien race that simply wants to see humans completely oblitereated.

The author obviously knows a great deal about fighting techniques and strategy. It's obvious in each battle scene that this is a guy who knows exactly what he's plotting. Most of the time, it's easy for the reader to get a very clear idea of exactly what is happening with both the enemy and the heroes. The battle scenes did flat-out work in terms of consistency and strategy. There were nearly transparent rules that were followed strictly for tactical abilities with both groups as well as equipment performance. The physics in this book neither get ignored nor do they disappear conveniently.
There are also some very helpful definitions and specifications at the front of the book, especially if the reader is starting the series with the second volume.

However, this book suffered greatly from an overabundance of repitition. Everything that happens is explained at least twice and it's usually from the same perspective. If the reader missed something important in the plot the first time, they have no need to fear, they'll get a chance for a recap in the not-too distant future.

The author's martial arts discipline also left a stamp all over this book. That isn't necessarily a terrible thing, but in this one, the stamp was at least page-sized and the letters were bright red. His heroes were very strictly honor and duty-bound to the point that there isn't even the flicker of doubt that they will always do the right thing and they will always do their absolute best to save their fallen comrades. The solidarity and hope that the humans show in this book is a beautiful dream, but the problem is that humans tend to get more complex than that. People have doubts, lose their convictions, or get scared on a regular basis and those things often get in the way of the principals that just about everyone wishes they could live by.

As for the aliens, well, both races are terrible, evil creatures. The aliens are impulsive and ruled by their greed and pride, which is what tends to get them into trouble when battles against humans are concerned. Sometimes, the aliens are so completely stupid that it's laughable. Certainly, everyone makes dumb mistakes now and then, but it's hard to believe that an alien race with such a glaringly obvious species-wide character flaw would become a conquering force of any sort of threat level.

The world of this book is very sharply delineated. Those who live by honor and adhere to duty, common sense, and careful plans of action are bound to succeed, whereas those who heed their impulses and their individual pride are doomed to fail. The bad guys are very, very bad and the good guys are very, very good.

So where does that leave this book? On a pure science fiction level, it tends to dissolve into specifications, statistics, and jargon and the story is set up and knocked down so succinctly that there's nothing to get really excited about. However, if applied as a sort of philisophical allegory, it might work as a very nice thought experiment for a class. The book holds little margin for error or misinterpretation within its pages and so could be used to help illustrate differences in Eastern and Western thought as well as helping to get people thinking about what it would actually take to get people to stop fighting amongst each other for silly, petty reasons. The book is certainly a call for peace and for that, it's very difficult to fault the author. He's just trying to show a better humanity striving its way towards a utopian existence.

Some mention should be made for the diagrams and illustrations in the book. They're very well-done pencil sketches by artist Dion Hammil and while it might have been nice to see them as full pages in the book the fact that they were included was a very nice bonus.

This book is one that I would recommend to a middle-school or junior high-school aged boy, especially one who hasn't got a great deal of time for reading. The repetitiveness of the book would serve him well if he has to put the book down for a length of time before he gets a chance to read it again. It could be the kind of book that would get boys to read more, especially if they prefer to have far more action sequences in their entertainment and it offers enough in the way of ethical and moral questions that it could probably get him thinking beyond the confines of this fictional world.