Earth Strike: Star Carrier

by Ian Douglas

Paperback, 2010

Status

Available

Call number

813.54

Publication

Harper Voyager (2010), 368 pages

Description

There is a milestone in the evolution of every sentient race, a Tech Singularity Event, when the species achieves transcendence through its technological advances. Now the creatures known as humans are near this momentous turning point. But an armed threat is approaching from deepest space, determined to prevent humankind from crossing over that boundary - by total annihilation if necessary. To the Sh'daar, the driving technologies of transcendent change are anathema and must be obliterated from the universe - along with those who would employ them. As their great warships destroy everything in their path en route to the Sol system, the human Confederation government falls into dangerous disarray. There is but one hope, and it rests with a rogue Navy Admiral, commander of the kilometer-long star carrier America, as he leads his courageous fighters deep into enemy space towards humankind's greatest conflict - and quite possibly its last.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member dalai-lt

I should have checked the reviews. If you like detailed battle descriptions, get high on military jargon and weapon specs, cry on self-sacrifice and get moved by displays of camaraderie then you'll probably like this.

Otherwise the plot is thin, the politics are superficial (present only to get in

the way of the military geniuses) and the characters could have been robots, if they were not infuriatingly model soldiers that only exist in this kind of literature. While he did try to go for some realistic physics, the close dogfights don't exactly signal hard sci-fi.

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LibraryThing member gregandlarry

Too many fight scenes and not enough character development. There is nothing really that draws the separate characters together.

LibraryThing member skraft001

Almost abandoned as got tired of the battle sequence. It got better so stuck with it and got better with the second battle at the end. Doubt I'll read any more in the series though.

LibraryThing member Cataloger623

Hardcore military science fiction. As usual with military science fiction Earth has been threatened by an alien star empire. The book uses this crisis to explore the concept of humans merging with machines and the danger of humanity becoming another species. Ian Douglas explores this theme through

the eyes of a Prim a person who has chosen to reject merger of man and machine which by this time in history have become common.

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LibraryThing member ConalO

This review will be for the complete first three book arc of this series. This novel reminded me a lot of the Jack Campbell Lost Fleet series as there was lots of space battles with ship to ship action. In this series, humans are fighting multiple alien species and not other human groups and for

the most part are behind them technologically but the author makes up for this in the tenaciousness of the human fighting spirit. The author also does a pretty good job in fleshing out the multiple main characters and well as building a nice universe to tell the tale in.

I really enjoyed this whole series and look forward to reading more in the followup series. 4 stars for a fun read. Recommended for any fan of space navy military sci-fi.

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LibraryThing member ronploude

I accidentaly read this book twice. It wasn't in my library listing, so when I read the description on Amazon, I secured another copy. About a third into the book, I recognized enough passaged to know for sure that I had read it before. Despite that, I persevered because I was fully enjoying the

second read.

The main character is a spacecraft fighter pilot from the slums who doesn't feel that he belongs in the space navy. He longs for the life he had in the slums, one where he was a respected member of a gang and had a wife that he loved. After numerous space battles with an alien invading force, he goes back the slum and realizes that it's no longer for him.

He then devises a tactic that totally defeats the alien fleet and is then fully accepted as a leader and respected member of the space navy fighting force.

To summarize, Earth Strike: Star Carrier is a coming of age type of book in a fast action space opera environment.

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LibraryThing member texascheeseman

Star Carrier: Earth Strike
Author: Ian Douglas
Publisher: EOS/Harper Collins
Publishing Date: 2010
Pgs: 357
Dewey: PBK F DOU
Disposition: Irving Public Library - South Campus - Irving, TX
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REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Summary:
Man has reached beyond his

cradle. As humankind approaches a technological singularity, a transcendence, an alien species that they’ve traded with is revealed to be part of a larger empire. An empire which does not want any species reaches transcendence for beyond that lies death. The Sh’daar and their underlings the Turusch are beating the Humans back across the stars. But at Eta Bootis IV, a human Marine base has captured two Turusch, the first to fall into their hands. The Star Carrier America and her Task Force are to relieve the Marines and pull them out with their prize. Their secondary mission is to pull as many of the colonists off the planet as possible. Tertiary, tear the enemy fleet apart. When elements of the Turusch fleet escape, the fear is that they will reprovision and come after them again. Earth is on their shopping list. The enemy fleet is inbound. All hell is about to break loose.

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Genre:
Hard Science Fiction
Space Operas
Science Fiction
Military
Aliens

Why this book:
Space warfare, fleet action...I’m there.
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Favorite Character:
Equal parts Admiral Koenig and Lt Gray.

Least Favorite Character:
Spaas, Collins, and Quintanilla...they’re all plot roadblocks.

Favorite Scene / Quote/Concept:
The shadow swarmer, carnivorous leaves are awesome creatures.

Meh / PFFT Moments:
Gray’s PTED diagnosis is circuitous. If he had such a thinking they would’ve found it a long time before Mufrid based on his backstory.

The arrogant squadmates are an overdone cliche. Those characters are cardboard. Better if they had been jettisoned and allowed to be casualties or had the full ramifications of their actions come home to roost in a court martial.

Quintanilla, the fleet political officer, is the same kind of character as Spaas and Collins.

The Sigh:
Why doesn’t anyone ever write a Political Officer who has an ounce of common sense and sees himself as part of the crew before seeing themselves as an overseer, equal or superior to the command structure on the boat.

Wisdom:
I like the “you can’t go home again” aspect of Gray’s story. He’s grown and changed. And in the same way that he said Angela wasn’t the same person after she had grown and experienced all that stuff that they implanted in her brain, he too grew.

Juxtaposition:
The misdirection that Admiral Koenig sees in the Turusch attack on the Solar System should have been seen by everyone.
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Pacing:
The flow and action are great.

Last Page Sound:
If, like me, you are a space warfare, fleet action junkie, you’ll enjoy this. Felt like both Dunkirk and Midway. Well done.

Author Assessment:
I’m reading more.

Editorial Assessment:
Well edited.
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LibraryThing member lyrrael

After thirty pages of flash-backs and info dumps, I gave up when the Admiral sent a twelve ship fighter squadron to attack an enemy fleet at light speed and didn't follow for eight plus hours. Uh-huh.

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