Tags
5 stars, military scifi, scifi, spaceships, spy, stranded, survival
Four people, strangers, are roused from their sleeper units for some unknown reason. They are not on the ship they thought they would be on. The crew of the ship is nowhere to be seen and the admiral didn’t even know he was an admiral. Thus begins the story of a group of survivors who have no idea where they are, where their next breath of oxygen will come from, if they will be rescued and what dangers they will face before they figure it all out.
Little by little they learn more about what happened, to the ship and to the crew. But the planet they crash landed on is extremely hostile to humans. There is no atmosphere, it is covered in a strange green mist and the surface is very unstable. They have limited power and almost no resources for getting off the planet. They have only each other to help them stay alive. They are going to get to know each other very well. And yet not at all.
There is an intensity to the story told in Admiral caused by so many unknowns. The biggest unknown is the admiral. Who is the admiral? Salmagard thinks she knows. So does Deilani. Nils isn’t sure. Even though the story is told entirely from the admiral’s point of view, it takes the entire book to definitively figure out who he is. Hints in the story might help you guess, but they might also help you second guess.
Throughout the book, the characters were constantly speculating, thinking, planning, moving, and acting on survival plans. They had no chance to sleep. This aspect of the story made it edgy. And I’m pretty sure the characters lack of sleep in the story led to some interesting dreams in my own sleep.
Is this a spy story – as hinted in the book’s blurb? Even having finished the novel, the spy element is vague at best, though I can tell you that there is a spy in the story. How’s that for absolute uncertainty?
Admiral is a departure from the type of novel I usually read. While you got to know 4 very interesting characters, you really didn’t get to know them very well at all. Especially the admiral. Most of my reads involve a more intimate understanding of the characters and of the relationships between them. Though I still prefer my normal fare, Admiral is a fascinating read and I am glad I read it. And I am likely to read the next book the Evagardian series when it is released. I can definitely recommend it to readers of SciFi.
Admiral by Sean Danker releases on May 3, but can be pre-ordered now.
“I was on a dead ship on an unknown planet with three trainees freshly graduated into the Imperial Service. I tried to look on the bright side.”
He is the last to wake. The label on his sleeper pad identifies him as an admiral of the Evagardian Empire—a surprise as much to him as to the three recent recruits now under his command. He wears no uniform, and he is ignorant of military protocol, but the ship’s records confirm he is their superior officer.
Whether he is an Evagardian admiral or a spy will be of little consequence if the crew members all end up dead. They are marooned on a strange world, their ship’s systems are failing one by one—and they are not alone.
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