Victorious (The Lost Fleet, Book 6 of 6)

Victorious is the conclusion of the Lost Fleet series, and as a climax, it slightly underperforms. To be honest, I'm doing it a disservice. Victorious is consistent with the quality of the last three novels, delivering a great deal of clever action, easy-to-love protagonists, and plenty of plot advancement (something missing earlier in the series). From this perspective, fans will not be disappointed and there is no drop in quality.

However, this is the conclusion of five previous novels and that means I expect build up to a fantastic climax. Yet the same weakness that's been present throughout the series weakens Victorious: a lack of foreshadowing before major action scenes. As a reader, you just don't know enough for there to be suspense, as all narration is from Geary's highly competent viewpoint. Surprises are just challenges to be overcome for our main character, but that means the reader never experiences tension.

Victorious has many clever elements, expansion of the setting, and the fleet combat was actually some of the best throughout the series, but ultimately it didn't feel like a satisfying conclusion. It's just more of the same, and that's not enough for a finale.

Recommended with reservations.

Within spoiler tags, I think others will argue that the aliens had been foreshadowed. That's not my complaint: the issue is that fleet battles never grow tense, and you're never really concerned for the survival of the Alliance fleet. This is hugely impacted by Geary's highly competent narration; always looking at setbacks as mere challenges to be overcome. But this is also due to the structure of the story: we enter the Syndic home system, and then we are told what the problems are, at which point Geary is a few pages away from solving it all. Rinse and repeat for the Alien battle. Rinse and repeat for his experience with the Alliance Grand Council.

I think other viewpoints need to be introduced, so that you can see plans shape to defeat Geary. Some of the plans have been exceptionally clever -- the Syndic home system was fantastic and the Alliance Grand Council is the true enigma. Other viewpoints would be confident in Geary's death, which allows the reader to worry. After all, Geary is not that worried for himself.

And finally... it was fairly obvious that the Aliens were a problem that was surmountable, given the placement of the scene (end of the series) and the plot armour surrounding Geary. I had personally guessed at sensor deception, though the exact mechanism was more clever than I surmised. Regardless, it's stuff like that that weakens this series.

A 'fun read' is the easiest way to describe Victorious, but I want more out of my 4-5 star books.