Impulse, Dave Bara
I picked up Impulse because I have a weakness for space opera — probably because I was raised on a steady diet of Star Trek and Star Wars, Blake’s 7 and Babylon 5. Impulse is fun enough, with chases and traitors and first contact with (sort of) aliens, and dealing with romance on board ship, and conflicts between differing kinds of orders.
It’s fun, but kind of bland; others have done it better, and there wasn’t much contact with aliens. Both romances were straight out of Kirk’s playbook, really, and the main character is a mixture of mature and immature; inexperienced and cocksure; getting rank through privilege but also coincidentally being good enough for it, somehow… His fuck-ups don’t have major consequences for him (only for other people), and generally life goes along pretty easily for him — other people get hurt and die, but he makes it through and will be fine.
I found the ending extremely annoying — the nominal goal of the book isn’t reached, and it’s just… very unsatisfying. There’s more in the background that interested me that wasn’t brought out.
Still, fun enough to occupy a train journey. Not sure if I’ll read the rest of the series, though I think the second book is now out.
I’d seen this book around and was kind of interested, though I was wary because there hadn’t been many reviews. Not sure if your review makes me want to read it more or read it less now. A 2 star should make me run the other way, but it still sounds like a fun book, even if it’s totally shallow and cliched 🙂
It’s fun, just not exceptional, you know? I might even pick up the second book for some light reading.