The Lost Fleet is a military science fiction series written by John G. Hemry under the pen name Jack Campbell. The series is set one-hundred-plus years into an interstellar war between two different human cultures, the Alliance and the Syndics. The protagonist of the story is discovered floating in a suspended animation escape pod one-hundred years after he made a "heroic last stand" against an enemy fleet. In the present, he's a renowned hero to the Alliance and his name and actions are used to justify poor tactics and decisions. Awakened after being discovered during a secret mission that turns out to be an enemy trap, he's suddenly dropped into the fleet commander's chair and expected to live up to the legend that has grown around him.
The series has ended with Victorious (2010). The author however plans to continue the Lost Fleet series with two spin-offs: Beyond the Frontier, focusing on the main characters from the Lost Fleet, and The Lost Stars, focusing on the collapse of the Syndicate Worlds.[1]
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The Alliance has been fighting the Syndicate Worlds for a century, neither side able to gain an edge over the other. The Alliance, however, has gained access to a Syndic "hypernet key", allowing them to directly attack the Syndic homeworld. This turns out to be a trap and the remnants of the Alliance fleet find themselves trapped in enemy territory.
Before the battle the fleet had come across the hibernation escape pod of Captain John Geary. Known as "Black Jack" in the present, his legendary exploits are known to every schoolchild and he is revered for his heroic last stand in the early days of the war. The posthumously promoted survivor still sees himself in the light of a regular and all-too fallible naval officer, one who could not possibly live up to his flawlessly heroic legend. After an act of treachery during peace negotiations, Geary is left as the de facto fleet commander and with great reluctance takes it upon himself to lead the fleet to the safety of Alliance space. Geary does this in the knowledge that the survival of the hypernet key, the fleet, and of the Alliance itself, all depend on him.
Geary is also forced to retrain the fleet to fight in formation instead of the new tactics of charging straight at the enemy supposedly influenced by Geary's example at his famous last stand.[2] Geary's attempt to change the fleet's culture causes tension with some captains, including one egomaniacal demagogue figure, a captain freed from a labor camp of Alliance POWs with a reputation almost as famous as Geary's, using it to split a good portion of the fleet off on a suicide mission.[3]
The above insubordination is made possible through the advent of a pseudo-democratic command structure that Geary is faced with. Over a century of war, characterized by heavy losses and poor training, the Alliance Navy's command structure morphs into independent ship captains voting on fleet decisions. The system resembles an allied clan structure, with a traditional command structure existing below fleet rank. Geary's command of the Alliance Fleet is constantly threatened by ship commanders who oppose his leadership. Insubordination, defection, and, eventually, sabotage is instigated against Geary's "faction." This faction is opposed by still another faction who wish to instigate a coup with Geary as Tyrant of the Alliance. Geary resists the temptation offered by this faction with great effort, though they continue to apply pressure to him throughout the series.
As the entire military force of the Syndicate Worlds continues to hunt the Alliance fleet, Geary is often forced to raid Syndic worlds for supplies. Supply shortages continually plague the fleet; reasons for these shortages include everything from lack of opportunity to acquire raw materials, to using said materials to create the wrong supplies because of Geary's unique fighting style. During some of the supply raids, the Alliance uncovers evidence of a third faction in this war. Geary believes they are an unknown alien civilization who scared the Syndics enough to start a war with the Alliance. These aliens may even have been responsible for humans discovering the hypernet and may have had sinister reasons for giving humans the technology after Geary discovers that a hypernet gate could be used to destroy a single star system. The hypothetical aliens also have a means of remote destruction of hypernet gates, which will allow them, given time, to extend the war indefinitely.
The alien civilization, whatever their designs for humanity are, do not appear to want the Alliance fleet to reach their home space. When Geary leads the fleet to attack the Lakota star system, the aliens manipulate the Syndic hypernet to divert a Syndic fleet to the system.[4]
Throughout the series, Geary is troubled by larger issues. First, he is troubled by the declining state of the Alliance Government. Specifically, the Alliance government is beginning to lose control of member worlds and losing the support of the military forces; the latter is evidenced by the size of the faction devoted to a military coup of the Alliance within Geary's fleet. Also, in its desperation, the government may choose to imprison Geary as a threat to its own power. Also, the Alliance Navy itself has allowed its standards to slip, and commonly bombards civilians, murders prisoners of war, and ceased salutes and other traditions reaffirming the command structure. Geary fears that the Alliance may not deserve any victory they might achieve. Combined with these is Geary's speculation that, if the increasingly less hypothetical aliens are actively maintaining a state of war within human controlled space, what might their actions be if he can somehow end the war?
Recently, Jack Campbell announced that there will be two follow-on series set after the end of the original 6-book Lost Fleet storyline. The Lost Fleet - Beyond the Frontier series will deal with Geary and the Alliance, and The Phoenix Stars series will take place in Syndic space.[5]
Beyond_the_Frontier:_Dreadnaught Fleet Admiral Black Jack Geary, is given command of the "First Fleet" and sent to the far side of space.[6]
The Lost Stars (formerly The Phoenix Stars) will deal with the collapse of the Syndics, and the efforts of Midway System's system CEO commander and ground force CEO commander to deal with the fall-out.[7] The series was renamed from The Phoenix Stars to The Lost Stars, and the first book was renamed from Phoenix Rising to Tarnished Knight.[8]
Hemry acknowledged in an interview that The Lost Fleet was inspired by Xenophon's Anabasis, detailing the return march of then Ten Thousand, and myths about kings returning to save their nation. In the same interview, Hemry, based on his own military experience, found Geary to be his ideal commanding officer:
He’s a pro, he knows his stuff, but he also knows what he doesn’t know and isn’t afraid to seek advice or sanity checks. A commander needs a lot of self-confidence, but has to balance that with an understanding that he or she isn’t any more perfect than anyone else. (Initially, when he’s still shell-shocked from what has happened to him and is trying to learn how the fleet works ‘today’, Geary is less assertive at times. But part of that is because he’s taking the time to learn how the system works instead of flying in and immediately carpet-bombing everything and everybody.) Geary evaluates his subordinates based on their capabilities, tries not to act on negative reactions to personalities, allows debate, but always makes it clear who’s in charge. Like any other commander, he’s operating within a system that constrains his ability to act, so he has to figure out how to do things right despite that. He also has to avoid the temptation to do things just because he can, since that’s a big step down the slippery slope.[9]
Ancestor worship is a belief system fairly homogeneously embraced within Hemry's universe. This allows Hemry to explore a few aspects of the role of religion in military life without making comment on any current or modern religious group. As with today's military, personnel in the Alliance fleet are mostly believers, and concerned with the morality of their actions in relation to their religious beliefs. In addition, they think a great deal about the afterlife, which makes sense considering the way they are constantly facing death in the line of duty. Religious concerns, prayer, and terminology are infused throughout all aspects of the lives of the sailors and officers in the fleet, and are often included in official communications and events. Some comments from the narration indicate that there are those in the society who have more or less belief in the existence of their ancestors but no characters are openly identified as such.
A primary theme of John Hemry's work as a whole, and the Lost Fleet series in particular, is the importance of the Rule of Law and Military Regulations, especially during wars. Specifically, he deals with the proper treatment of enemy combatants, prisoners, civilians, and saboteurs, as well as traitors within one's own organization. The deliniation of power between civilian and military authority is also very important to the messages the series conveys, especially in terms of struggles between martial and political leaders. Hemry, through John Geary, continually reinforces the concept that military forces must submit to civilian authority, and shows democratic systems of civilian government to be superior to military autocracy in peace-time and in overall control of a society. At the same time, military situations are clearly laid out as being the domain of military personnel, who must lead through the command systems of rank and seniority, rather than those democratic systems which are so important in civilian situations. The character of Co-President Victoria Rione gives advice and assistance to Geary when necessary, but does not and cannot give actual orders or dictate military policies.
As with other works by Hemry, the proper expression of romantic interest between military personnel is explored and clearly defined as being subordinate to those regulations which concern fraternization. While the subject of homosexual relationships is only openly broached once (as a joke between Geary and Captain Roberto Duellos), heterosexual relationships are an important aspect of the plots of the novels. Geary's relationship earlier in the novels with Victoria Rione are legally safe, but politically dangerous. Contrast this with his relationship later in the novels with Captain Tanya Desjani, someone who is subordinate in Geary's direct chain of command, making any romantic situation legally impossible but politically safe within the culture of the fleet. The refusal of the characters to act upon any feelings that are legally forbidden continues Hemry's message of the importance of the Rule of Law and Regulations in military life.
Honor and duty are also strong themes. The double edged nature of honor is explored in the latter half of the series, showing how honor can be both a bulwark against attack, and a knife to one's own throat.
The themes within this book also seem to concentrate loosely around knowledge of the Latin America political system and aspects of the American Political system. It has strong inferences to the Iron Triangle, oligarchy establishments, and corporatism. It's clear the author highly respects an involved democratic system, and treats other systems and power structures with suspicion or negatively based on the losers and winners in his books.
We Read Science Fiction reviewed the series and gave it a good review, giving positive comments on the narrative and the detailed battle scenes. The only complaint directed at the series in the review was Hemry's tendency to repeat details from earlier books in later books. Hemry himself replied to the review thanking them for their comments and explaining that he repeats information for the readers who picked up later books but have not had the chance to read from the beginning of the series with Dauntless.[10]
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