The novel “The Lost Fleet: Relentless” by Jack Campbell was published for the first time in 2009. It’s the fifth book in The Lost Fleet series and follows “The Lost Fleet: Valiant“.
Captain John “Black Jack” Geary has to make an even more difficult decision than usual because his fleet is approaching the border with the Alliance and he doesn’t have much choice in choosing a route. This means that the enemy will most likely be waiting for his now-depleted fleet.
Eventually, Geary decides to set course for the Herado system because the information available to him indicates that there’s a Syndicate prison camp. In addition to finding some resources for his fleet, he hopes to free more Alliance soldiers. At the same time, he must continue to watch his back from the saboteurs who are hindering operations in the fleet.
“The Lost Fleet: Relentless” continues the military science fiction series The Lost Fleet which forms one big story in which what remains of an Alliance fleet that, after a severe defeat, tries to return home. The Alliance fleet faces new difficulties during a long journey that can’t take place in a direct path to avoid enemy traps.
In the fifth book of the series, John Geary is finally close to completing a seemingly impossible mission but the last phase of the journey towards Alliance territory is also the most treacherous. “The Lost Fleet: Relentless” offers the resolution of some parts of the story and, although it continues to show some flaws, it seemed to me in some ways the best of the series.
In the previous books, the plot included soap opera digressions far too often for my liking. Co-President Victoria Rione and Captain Tanya Desjani continue to be cold towards each other and John Geary struggles to manage his relationships with the two women but in “The Lost Fleet: Relentless” their interpersonal relationships definitely take a back seat. The plot focuses much more on the dangers that come from enemies, including the internal ones. That’s a situation in which you can feel a growing tension, also considering the fact that the enemy can concentrate many of its forces in a few systems on the borders with the Alliance.
The structuring of the various books in the series ends up not being very balanced. The parts about the interpersonal relationships seem made to lengthen a series that could easily have been concluded with one less book. On the other hand, “The Lost Fleet: Relentless” offers a really quick conclusion to a couple of subplots that could have been better developed with more room in the previous books.
“The Lost Fleet: Relentless” has above all the positive aspect of being focused on the military science fiction element. The space battles with the complications due to the large distances among the spaceships involved, even in the same fleet, are the best part of the series. In this book, there’s also the attack on the planet that hosts the prison camp and the strategy is very different, so there are different types of battles.
Everything is ready for the grand finale of this series with the return of John Geary to a home he hasn’t seen for a century and has changed a lot, also due to the war. “The Lost Fleet: Relentless” still leaves some important points of this great story open for the last novel with the hope of having some surprises in a saga where frankly the twists are not that unexpected. If you have already read the previous novels, it’s worth continuing to reach the end.
