Odyssey One

[review of the remastered edition]

I'd say barely 4 stars. Author does a good job with some unique technologies and channels the suspense of submarine battle movies. There were many times I couldn't put the book down.

Unfortunately, the book suffers from some...failings of priority. Too much battle—too little exploration and culture. An emphasis on plot—over the lack of sufficient character development. Oh, and there were a few missing words even in this remastered version.

A fun and exciting read and I look forward to reading the rest of the series.

Review originally posted at https://squirtoonsbookishblog.wordpress.com/2018/12/22/into-the-black-odyssey-one-by-evan-currie/

★★★★

Odyssey One is the first in a series (known, very creatively, as the Odyssey One series) by an author I admit to not hearing of before stumbling across this book in my recommended section on Audible. I started listening to the Audible version in work, but realised the book required a little more focus and attention, so I grabbed the Kindle version. It took me three hours to get half way through the book. I read that far without putting it down, and then I stupidly let my phone die, so here I am, writing my feelings up to this point.

So far, I'd give it a solid 4/5. I can't fault the military aspect of this, although I will say there's a lot of military terms, that I either don't remember being explained, or simply forgot, which has led me astray into googling what the hell half of the acronyms meant. Probably just my fault, but I'd say a fiction book should keep me in the story, not throw me out with wondering what one term or another meant.

Sci-fi wise, I feel like, so far, everything has been well explained. Or, as well explained as science fiction can be within current scientific knowledge. What is said seems to make sense to a lay-person like me, which can be quite the achievement, I assure you.

The reason I've dropped a star is the characterisation. I just don't feel like the characters are as realistic as they could be. Some of them seem a little generic, with no quirks or character of their own. The Captain and Steph seem to be the most fleshed out, either the author spent more time on them, or just had more fun writing them.

My phone should hopefully have enough charge for me to get back to it. I'll be back when I'm done!

Three hours later

Ok, so I'm done! Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this read! I loved the science in this. The author wasn't afraid to really go in-depth, mostly about shields and weapons systems, and I'm a little bit geeky when it comes to that stuff, so it was right up my street. 

The archangels had to be my favourite part of the whole book. The characters in the archangel squadron were more fleshed out, and unique, and the fighters themselves seemed amazing. 

In case you were curious, yes, I will be picking up the next book in the series. Perhaps not because of the characters, but I need to see how Earth, or at least the Odyssey, plans to kick some alien butt. 

This book badly needs an edit. It's frustratingly difficult to read and stay immersed in the plot. Repetitions of words that stand out as repetitions are repeatedly repeated in some of the more repetitive paragraphs. We're treated to bracketed three-letter-acronyms (TLAs) even when they are never subsequently referred to that way. We're an audience of military science fiction fans and we have HUD explained to us. Oddly, when I was about 20 pages in, I had to check when this was written, because I had the impression it dated back to the 60s or early 70s. Some of the technology used made me check the copyright date and I was very surprised to find it was published so recently. I'm not saying this is a flaw, because I'm quite a fan of SF from that era, but it makes a modern book feel clunky. A couple of examples:* People are having to get used to new-fangled touch interfaces where they can swipe a finger to call up pertinent information. Come on, we've had iPads for a while now; this just seems weird.* The bridge crew, in their space attire, suddenly make a bet amongst themselves and whip out 10 dollar bills. From their uniforms? On an experimental mission to another star system? * The women are all nervous junior officers who get called by their first names.* Where others are described by their mannerisms, the second-in-command is introduced as being the big black man.It's all very Heinlein in as much as almost everyone is the best of the best, and only shows a flaw if it's about to be revealed as actually a situational benefit - but I'll leave the comparison there, since there's nothing particularly political about Into The Black, or much in the way of social commentary.The plot itself is derivative and predictable but that doesn't mean it's not fun. It's Heinlein, most obviously [b:Starship Troopers 17214 Starship Troopers Robert A. Heinlein https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1533117961l/17214.SY75.jpg 2534973], mixed with elements of Stargate and more than a few ideas lifted directly from the computer game Crysis. It basically consists of three battles, one in the first act and two parallel fights in the remainder of the book. There's not a lot of text that isn't about fighting.The characters are underdeveloped in favour of the technology. The author actually goes into a fair bit of detail about the weaponry, armour and so on used by the protagonists, and tries quite hard to make it scientifically solid (notwithstanding the obvious concessions of an FTL drive). I think this part comes across well. There are some places where I don't believe it, because my willingness to stretch disbelief starts to falter, but they're few enough that I can forgive them.The viewpoint changes are very clunky. We're a couple of chapters in before there's any indication it's not all going to be from the captain's perspective, and then suddenly the perspective starts changing all over the place. We see dogfights mostly from the pilots' point of view, but it snaps to the enemy in time to see them die in the explosion like it's an '80s B-movie put in print. There's a lot of time devoted to person A talking to person B and then us being told that person B pulled an expression hidden inside their blacked out helmet, for example, with the author explicitly reminding us that we shouldn't be able to know this. It would have been a much more comfortable ride if the story stuck to realistic viewpoints or just gave in and had an omniscient narrator.Despite this, I found myself enjoying the story, and would pick up the sequel if I found it lying around. The experience was like watching a SyFy Original TV movie.

A military warfare SF book, heavy on the warfare. The plot is a little contrived, human-kind's first starship, on its first voyage, immediately makes contact with an alien race, who happen to be long lost human cousins, who are in conflict with another alien species. Warfare, ensues.

The technology and hardware is quite believable, apart from some quaint references to “rumbling of the reactors” and space fighter planes “roaring to the attack”. Perhaps an ironic hat-tip to early SF?

I enjoyed the book, and have just started the second one.