The Lost Fleet: Dauntless

“The Lost Fleet: Dauntless” is a hard sci-fi
novel by former Surface Warfare Officer John G. Hemry
writing under the pen name Jack Campbell. 
Dauntless is named partly for the flag ship of the fleet,
partly for the SBD Dauntless Dive Bombers
and the airmen who flew them (and because his original
title had been given to another author).
It is the first book in his lost
fleet series of six books.
Hemry took his experience as a Surface Warfare Officer
(the officer in the US Navy that pilots a ship)
to create realistic naval engagement in space. 
The physics is mostly all there. Opposing forces have
to deal with time-late images due to the finite
speed of light.  Ships are ponderous and have to
deal with relativistic distortions as they accelerate
to fractions of the speed of light.
The only time the book strays from strictly realistic
physics is for Faster-Than-Light travel.

Hemry’s protagonist is a Captain John ‘Black Jack’ Geary,
a survivor of the first battle of the war.
He awakes from survival sleep almost a hundred years
after the war began. Only to find himself the highest
ranking officer in a fleet trapped behind enemy lines.
Much to his chagrin he has become a hero of his nation.
He has to deal with not only getting a poorly equipped
and trained force out from behind enemy lines
but also with the expectations of all those he commands.

Hemry took his inspiration from mythical sources
such as the King Arthur myth and the real world
history of the long retreat of ancient Greek
mercenaries from Persia as chronicled in Xenophon’s
March of the Ten Thousand (Anabasis),
including the deaths of all high ranking
officers at the beginning of the book.

Hemry’s gift is in describing situations,
battles, and locations, not
necessarily characters. 
His descriptions are not bad but lacking.  His
protagonist can be a little too heroic
at times and some characters can
be a bit one sided or shallow.

“The Lost Fleet: Dauntless” is a worthwhile read.
It is a good beginners hard sci-fi book and
fans of the genre will not be disappointed. 
In the end it leaves you wanting to read the other books
in the series.  Which is always a good thing.