Warship: Black Fleet Trilogy 1: Volume 1 (Black Fleet Saga) Paperback – 16 Jan. 2015

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was exactly what I was looking for - something a bit like Star Trek, but not actually Star Trek. I agree with other reviewers that it is rather derivative of so many military sci-fi books and predecessors such as Hornblower. In some ways, the parallels were reassuring - warp drive, Starfleet, the layout of the bridge. In other ways, they were slightly irritating. A book can have a cast as big as the author likes, but to limit the officers to such a small number made it seem like a very low budget TV series. There was no sense of a proper command structure, and the supposedly 1,100-strong crew were pretty anonymous, often getting mentioned only as casualty statistics. It would have been nice to know what so many people actually do, something that is of necessity glossed over with respect to a Star Trek ship. Having said all that, the action was believable, with a lot of convincing detail and a lot more genuine jeopardy than is so often the case. Overall, some pretty good world-building too. I'm looking forward to reading the next book.

I loved this book. It's fast moving and the commands on the bridge seem well thought out and realistic. I felt I was almost there. If you like traditional sci-fi with aliens and shoot em up action then you'll enjoy this. The only weakness was Admiral Winter's unexplained, pathological hatred of Captain Wolfe. It had to be more than just his being an earther, so a little more background would have helped. Perhaps I missed something. Anyway, I really look forward to the sequel.

A great example of the aliens vs humans military encounter - which is a fairly crowded and generally rubbish sub-genre of sci-fi. And Dalzelle has improved. His other books - Omega Force - all of which many people like and rate highly I thought were a tiny bit crap. I still read them but I have to say they were just a bit too wooden in characterisation to work for me.In this book, Dalzelle has nailed the gung-ho space opera well. Okay, the science is not there but the characters are fleshed out and have a bit more depth than his other earlier books. The fighting is well thought out and exciting enough to pull the pages through at speed.And, whilst this book is clearly the first in a new series, it does have an ending rather than leaving you hanging on half way through a storyline.Overall a great fun, easy on the brain space romp done with some panache.

Warship is the story of the despised captain of an ageing destroyer who, together with his crew, makes first contact with a rather aggressive and predatory alien race. He survives to tell the story to a complacent humanity that has colonised numerous planets and which remain divided into rival alliances but has known no wars for about two centuries.As you will see for yourself, there is nothing terribly original about most of the elements or most of the events that take place within this book. Those who are familiar with space opera and military science fiction will recognise a number of themes and features that first appeared in others books belonging to the same genre.Despite all this, Warship is a good title. The story is well-told and it just about plausible. In particular, the author has taken care to avoid some of the most obvious and annoying stereotypes that similar books can sometimes exhibit.To begin with, Captain Jackson is no young and dashing “super-hero”. He is despised, lonely and suspicious because of his origins and has a bit of a personal problem that I will not mention to avoid spoilers. He will, of course, rise to the occasion but this is achieved by being an extremely competent and dutiful officer, not through some totally implausible heroics. There is one such scene towards the end but even this smacks of despair more than anything else.Then there is the alien scout ship about which nothing is known except that its capacity for utter destruction is soon seen to be considerable and it proves incredibly difficult to destroy because of its very nature.Then there is the action itself. The long travelling and the jumps through space are well-told and so are the space battles. Here again, the author has managed to avoid drowning the reader in “pseudo-science” although he does provide enough information about spaceship propulsion and faster-than-light technology for this to be interesting. The battle scenes themselves are also well told with a sobriety that makes them all the more efficient.Four stars for a good, solid and exciting story, and I will certainly read the next instalment.

Could not put this book down. Fast moving not too much technical detail to slow the story down. Would recommend,

What a fantastic read! The psychological depth and sophistication of this sci-fi story definitely stands out. I am also quite impressed by the author’s ability to knit a rich background that manages to inject a real feel to the flow of this story.Kudos to the author Joshua Dalzelle.Karl_

I've never read a book with such attention to detail and that would also keep me wanting more to read! Amazing work, it is a must read. I would even recommend to new readers since the adrenaline rush from this BOOK was greater than anything I felt from a Netflix or prime video tv show. Joshua Dalzelle made such a descriptive wording that I was clearly able to picture everything In my mind, NO VIDEO REQUIRED. Amazing work, magnifique.

This is a good solid sci-fi book without grand world building or the need to press over-arching philosophies or social constructs. In short, it's a alien/human shoot-em-up with a few obvious pop-culture references to boot. I won't give plot spoilers, so please feel free to read on.The jacket cover sets up the story about right. It opens with interplay between our captain and some pointy-haired boss. I groaned in the first chapter when it looked like interpersonal melodrama would rue the day, but most of that is context for later in the story. It becomes background radiation (though important to have to understand the character). In short, it sets the scene then gets out of the way.The world of Warship is not the least bit outrageous, and honestly is one of the more realistic I have found in a scifi book. Absent fusion reactors, faster-than-light travel and gravity plating (staples of the genre), there is little overwhelmingly fantastic about the future 400 years from now. You won't have to suspend much belief - or have to follow massive tech "info dumps" that try to indoctrinate you into a comprehensive world the author has invented. Warship is built in a world you understand. The tech does not get in the way.The story itself is fairly straightforward and fun: organized war between humans pretty much disappeared for 200 years once we had the ability to physically expand faster than our ambitions - basically there was no need to fight over resources when they are so plentiful. As a result, warships are largely figurehead elements - they are not called upon to do much of anything but ferry people around. Now toss in a possible existential threat to humanity in the form of an unknown alien, and the story gets interesting.Dalzelle crafts an honest story we've all heard before, and happens to toss in some refreshing updates. This is not Captain Kirk "renegade" or the out-to-pasture dude who has one last mission. This is a guy who does a job that does not even exist anymore: Destroyer Captain. Example: after the first shot is fired, he wryly notes that he is now the defacto most-experienced living warfighter in all of humanity. It unsettles him in more ways than one.All this said, Captain Kirk is seen in here, as is Scotty. I kid you not, "she's giving all she can take" is a line used for "the old girl" destroyer more than once by the ship's Chief Engineer (who turns out to be Indian, rather than Scottish). Dalzelle is having fun here, and takes you along for the ride. It is serious in tone, but Dalzelle obviously understands how to insert some light-hearted moments to bring the reader closer to his world.There are some weaknesses, perhaps. The idea of a peaceful humanity falls at odds with the fact that humanity in the book really did not set aside differences or tribalism. They just took the provincialism that is human nature and dispersed it so far apart that the factions really found it easier to ignore each other, except at some edges. With enough "stuff" to go around, those edges stay peaceful, even if tense.I am not sure that is plausible - here on Earth we find old resentments hard to ignore, even (especially?) when we have plenty of stuff to go around. The Middle East is fighting 7th Century grudges as I type, and often over nothing more than tribal hatred. Not sure distance makes the heart grow fonder. Of course, there are two more books I have not delved into here. I suspect that humanity will find a way to mess each other up again. We always do.I also appreciate the lack of grand social engineering here. People are still people, and resentments do exist between them. I like the not-so-subtle jab at elitism throughout the book: "Earthers" are looked down upon because as the space-faring took off, each faction took with them the "best" into space. Those who left Earth considered themselves enlightened, but in reality they prove to be anything but. As subsequent "elite" generations left more and more of Earth's population as castaways - not considered valuable enough to colonize the stars - they created for themselves a group of people they could look down upon in order to make themselves feel good. As the story unfolds, it is obvious that this is a false dichotomy - Earthers are just as talented as anyone else. But the elite need someone to look down upon. The elite even implement a form of affirmative action to undo their own prejudices, which only increases the seclusion of those they claim to be "helping". Like I said...Dalzelle's world is believable largely because it is not far from where you live today.I listened to this as an Audio book on a long drive. Will dig into book 2 when it comes out on Audible, or when the number of pages I am reading drops below 1000. Either way, it's on the list.Summary: good fun story without a lot of work or dreck. Uses a world you know and understand in order to focus on the story, not the infrastructure.

Very good space opera, with intriguing plots, deep characters, overall consistency, no oversemplifications, realistic strategies.The author knows his job, reading is quick and smooth.

Da ich sehr viele Sci-Fi Bücher gelesen habe, tauchen zum Glück immer mal wieder mir unbekannte Werke auf meiner Startseite auf.Ein solcher Glücksfall findet sich hier.Im Gegensatz zu anderen Joshua Dalzelle Büchern, wie sie manch einer vielleicht auch kennt, besitzt dieses Buch einen Tiefgang den ich nie erwartet hätte. Wo seine anderen Bücher der "Omega Force" ein netter Zeitvertreib waren, konnte ich dieses Buch nicht einmal mehr weglegen.Vielleicht bin ich durch meine Zeit in der Marine ein wenig vorgeschädigt, aber der Autor hat es ohne übertreiben geschafft, ein mir völlig realistisches Szenario zu erzeugen. Die militärischen und sozialen Strukturen, die wissenschaftlichen Entdeckungen, ja selbst die menschliche Arroganz und Verlogenheit wird so dargestellt, als ob es die etwas "verfrühte" Romanversion eines tatsächlichen Ereignisses wäre.Wer ein paar Euro übrig hat, oder gleich Kindle Unlimited besitzt dem kann ich dieses Buch nur ans Herzen legen.Ich freue mich derweil auf eine gelungene Fortsetzung.