Well that was totally satisfying. Edge of your seat sci fi adventure. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. The protagonist was totally likable. There were good well developed secondary characters. There was an eerie alien planet, mysterious happenings and bright sparks of humor. I kept wanting to underline the good bits. There was no info dump so you just had to go along for the ride and trust everything would become clear in time. At the final denouement I was happy to see that I was correct in most of my guesses.

I totally hope we haven't seen the last of this hero. ( )

When the system tells you someone is in charge it can be hard to fight it when so much of the evidence conflicts with what is said. And that is the underlying theme to the story. Four people awaken out of a cryo sleep on a ship with no power instead of arriving on the flagship of the Evagardian Empire. Three of them are recent graduates but one is listed as an admiral and he has to be the youngest looking one the other three have ever heard of. As they try to find out why they have crashed on a transport ship and not at their destination they try to puzzle out the admiral’s background and of course he isn’t helping. As they go into each other’s background you get a good sense of world building in the novel. The four quickly realized they must leave the ship before it kills them and cross part of the planet to a colony that should get them back to where they need to be.

It is a race against the clock to cross before they run out of air and things are not as they seem when they get to where they need to be. Lots of tension among the characters and there is the mystery surrounding the admiral a well. A fun fast read and I want to see more in this universe.

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley
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A dead ship, marooned on a planet that might not be uninhabited after all. Three recent graduates and an admiral--or is he? They're not sure he isn't a spy. He refuses to tell them even his name, but his identity is less important than their survival ... unless he's the key to how they ended up here in the first place.

Admiral contains many sci-fi tropes, but that's what makes it a fun read. I might have enjoyed it, had it been written in third person. Instead, the narrator is the mysterious admiral, who is so intent on being mysterious--both to his subordinates and to the reader--that we learn nothing about him until the final scene of the book (literally). The author seems to think that if we know who his hero is, we'll lose interest. But my interest in a book is born from my investment in its people, and I cared nothing at all for these. Putting a character in mortal danger doesn't matter unless I have reasons to want him to stay alive, and all I knew for sure about this protagonist (for the entire book) was that his head is filled with intentionally vague thoughts and he engages in intentionally vague conversations. Characters are constantly almost saying things to each other but never speaking plainly enough for the reader to know what's actually being talked about. Hints are dropped all over the place, but so ambiguously no reader who is still learning the rules of the storyworld has any hope of understanding the context.

Laborious, frustrating, ultimately annoying execution of a cool idea. Once I knew who the hero was (on the last page of the book), I realized I could have cared about him a lot if the author had allowed me to get to know him naturally throughout the story. I probably won't read further into this series because my to-read pile is towering already, and life is short. But then again, I might, just to see what the author does with this character now that the tedious secrets are out. ( )

When I read the first reviews for this book I was quite intrigued: the trope about people waking up in a damaged ship and not knowing what happened is one I've always found fascinating. As I started reading Admiral, though, I had a few misgivings: the tone felt somewhat off, the exchanges between the characters a little stilted, the overall impression that of uncertainty - and not related to the situation at hand.

Yet something kept me reading on [...]


Full review over at SPACE AND SORCERY Blog ( )

Two weeks ago, I came home to a package from Berkley Publishing. Inside, they'd given me a copy of each book in Sean Danker's Admiral series. I got a hardcover Admiral and paperbacks of Free Space and The Glory of the Empress. Thank you Berkley and Mr. Danker! In exchange for their generosity, I thought I'd review the novels as I read them. Back in 2016 when Admiral was debuting, it got a lot of press, and it caught my interest. Later that month, I purchased a first edition hardcover and read it right away. On this second reading, my first impressions held up. This is a good story.

TL;DR

Admiral by Sean Danker is a fun, fast, tense stand-alone novel that introduces the Evagardian Universe. Recommended.

Story

This is a survival story. Four people are on a dying spaceship, and three of them are recent graduates of the military headed to their first posting. The other wakes to find he's been promoted to Admiral, but there's a few inconsistencies with his sleeper. One graduate trusts the newly promoted Admiral; one thinks she knows his secret; and the final suspects that he's a spy. But they all have to work together to figure out where they are, why help hasn't come, and how to survive until they can get off the planet.

This story hits the ground running and maintains a break neck pace. It rests occasionally, but there's information coming at the reader all the time. In a manner, it reminded me of Alien because there's a constant tension throughout the text. This is psychological horror; the ship and planet feel oppressive and uncaring. Problems escalate as the story progresses, and all characters have to use and extend their skills to survive. But the planet has surprises of its own.

Characters

The main character is likable, and throughout the text, we're not sure if he is an Evagardian or a spy, and he's not going to tell. His skill set keeps the group alive and keeps them focused on the next goal. When the book is over and you learn his identity, you can see the hints laced through the story. He is focused on survival through most of the book, but in rare moments, we get to see him wrestling not only with their situation but his past.

Before the accident, the recruits were headed towards the most prized posting in the Evagardian empire; so, naturally, they're the best of the best, which is exactly what's needed to survive. A technician, a medical officer, and a negotiator round out the party, and each has an opportunity to show their skill. Each of these were distinct personalities, but I don't remember much physical descriptions, except for the negotiator. Even then, it was a description in relation to another person within the novel. Each has an interesting backstory, but it's the negotiator that has the most interesting, even more so than the Admiral. I would love to see her get her own story.

Worldbuilding

In Admiral, worldbuilding is kept to a minimum in order to maintain its high pace. While I read this, I divided the worldbuilding into two categories: 1.) the immediate surroundings, and 2.) the larger world of the Evagardian universe. By necessity, we get more of the first. The whole novel takes place on one planet with one point of view. So, we see a wrecked ship, the planet, the small cast of characters more than anything else. But throughout, hints and gems from category two are dropped. These hints describe a much wider and complicated universe. We learn that the empire is ruled by an empress and has a multi-layered aristocracy. A war with another civilization just finished. To put it simply, there's plenty to be explored in the next two books. I look forward to seeing how the universe is fleshed out in the future volumes.

Thoughts

Even though this is book one, it's very much a self-contained novel. The story ends; it doesn't leave open plot threads, but it's easy to see future plot opportunities. It made me very happy that we don't end on cliffhanger, waiting for book two. It's a very tightly focused story in the Evagardian universe that lays enough worldbuilding to make book two intriguing on its own merits. I liked that throughout the book, we're unsure of the Admiral's true loyalties, and the survival necessity means that those loyalties don't matter. Watching the characters wrestle with their suspicions adds an extra layer of drama.

The publisher notes that they're not alone on the planet, but other than a few, low-key hints, it doesn't matter for two-thirds of the book. When it does matter, it feels sort of like a different book. In this way, it reminded me of the movie Event Horizon because the source of the horror changes seemingly abruptly. I think the author was too sparse with the hints early on for such an overwhelming presence in the end. After all was said and done, I can't say why we didn't see more earlier on. Unlike Event Horizon, this change didn't ruin the book for me.

Conclusion

Admiral is a fast-paced, deep space survival novel. It's is an excellent, stand-alone introduction to the wider Evagardian universe. Sean Danker filled it with interesting characters that I easily became attached to by the end. The tense, weird world makes for a fun, fast read. Recommended.

7 out of 10 ( )