This starts as a typical whodunnit space opera - ships are missing and we want to know why. It turns into a scientific exploration/first contact. Then it finishes as a Someone Must Take Word Home!/run for your lives/fight to the death action story. Nowhere in this story was I at all surprised, not by the people, the banter, the plot twists, or the sprinkling of distractions from all of the above. Like in a stereotypical Star Trek episode, our heroes just happened to have everything that they needed to redesign their starships, translate alien radio signals, and visit doomed planets. Oh, yeah, and the scientific crew with the Next New Weapon showed up right on schedule, too.
As far as starship battles go, this guy can out-Weber the David himself. The entire second half of the book was full of unlikely heroics, feats of strength and cunning, miracles of science and engineering, and the requisite realization of love-found-too-late. The battles ran across star systems, through jump points, and dashed a quarter of the way around the outside of the Milky Way. The place where Shepherd didn't even try to match Weber was the science. There was plenty of science in this fiction, but there was not page after interminable page of explanation regarding things we didn't need to know. Where Weber would have weighed us down with the how of it all, Shepherd simply explained the what and moved on with the plot.
I recommend this as an "airplane book." It has engaging characters, it has a distinct and well-bounded plot/mission, and the areas of interest move quickly from place to place. However, I have no emotional investment in the story, and was easily interrupted without losing my spot in the story line. The presentation is fairly two-dimensional, as well, with all political nuance painted with broad brushes and heavy lines. Combine the gobs o' action with the distinct lack of sex, and you have the perfect book for teenage entertainment.
-- New-to-me books read in 2011 (as opposed to re-reads) --
January
Little Dee vol 2
Little Dee vol 3
Unusual Suspects
Harvest Moon
The Black Stallion (yes, I know, I should have read it with Black Beauty)
Ravens in the Library: Magic in the Bard's Name, with a pre-finished commentary here
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
Fang Bangers: An Erotic Anthology of Fangs, Claws, Sex and Love
Must Love Hellhounds
Truthseeker
February
Dark and Stormy Knights
Tortall and Other Lands
River Marked (2/28 - it arrived a day early)
March
Questionable Content, vol 1
How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf
Lifeblood
Magic Bites
Skinwalker, A Jane Yellowrock Novel
Running with the Pack
Magic Burns
Blood Cross
April
"Skyblaze" Adventures in the Liaden Universe #17
Kings of the North
Goblin Tales
Do Not Sniff the Bees, Two Lumps book 6
Magic Strikes
Magic Bleeds
Mercy Blade
The Initiate Brother
May
Angelology
City of Pearl
An Artificial Night
Late Eclipses
June
After Hours: Tales from Ur-Bar
Magic Slays
Ghost Ship (e-ARC)
Warbreaker
July
Quarter Share
Half Share
Full Share
"Intelligent Design" (short story in the Liaden Universe, published online at Baen)
Heroes in Training
Serenity: Better Days
Serenity: Those Left Behind
Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale
Tiger's Curse
Calamities of Nature, vol 1
Troubled Waters
Wolfsbane and Mistletoe
In Fury Born
August
Naked City
Unnatural Issue
Home Improvement: Undead Edition
Summers at Castle Auburn
"Kin Ties" (short story in the Liaden Universe, found here)
Flying Blind
Archangel
Hunger Games
The Shape-Changer's Wife
A Matter of Magic
September
One Salt Sea
"Guaranteed Delivery" (short story of the Liaden Universe, found here)
Wayfinder
Double Share as an audiobook from PodioBooks.Com
Cast in Ruin
October
Captain's Share (as an audio book)
Land of Painted Caves
Owner's Share (as an audio book)
Beauty and the Werewolf
A Beautiful Friendship
Mastiff
November
Down These Strange Streets
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
"The Space at Tinsori Light," Liaden short story found here
Prized
The Wild Ways
Kris Longknife: Daring
-- Books abandoned rather than completed in 2011 --
February
Sing the Four Quarters, by Tanya Huff
August
Fuzzy Nation, by John Scalzi
October
Gamestorming (gave it to a co-worker)
-- Books Still in Progress --
These are books that I haven't totally given up on, I've just... put them aside... for now.
The Brand Within
If You Don't Have Big Breasts, Put Ribbons on Your Pigtails
Swords and Dark Magic
Battlestations
Wise Man's Fear
