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Kelly Blake #1
Scout Force
The future looks bleak for wrongly cashiered, fighter pilot phenomenon Kelly Blake. His redemption comes as he is recruited into the elite and secretive Scout Force. Follow Kelly’s adventures as an officer in the Galactic Republic Fleet’s Scout Force, protecting humanity’s frontiers from human treachery and an onslaught by the expansive, hostile K’rang Empire.
- GenresScience Fiction
377 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2011
25 people are currently reading
35 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 17, 2012
This is a book I liked very much. Simple military sci-fi. Some good fleet action, only the odd idiot officer and NO stupid silly politics screwing the book up.
I hope the series continues in the same manner.
I hope the series continues in the same manner.
November 5, 2018
Wrongly cashiered from Fighter Force, Kelly Blake is recruited into the Galactic Republic's Scout Force, where adventure and excitement make up his new life. Kelly thinks he's just a regular guy. Circumstances prove otherwise, and his leadership and teamwork skills are more central to the story than is science fiction technology (techno babble). Interesting supporting characters are not merely background, but critical to moving the story along. The bad guys are a feline species called K'Rang and are every bit as interesting as the humans.
Some have complained about characters all sounding the same. Got news for you: military personnel DO all sound the same, in past, present and future. We have our own vocabulary, which makes this book far more authentic than others written by non-military personnel.
Rodney L. Smith's first book shows great promise.
Some have complained about characters all sounding the same. Got news for you: military personnel DO all sound the same, in past, present and future. We have our own vocabulary, which makes this book far more authentic than others written by non-military personnel.
Rodney L. Smith's first book shows great promise.
September 30, 2018
I got through about 1/3 of this book and finally gave up. Here's why:
When I read a book, I look for good writing, a good story, and good character development. If it's Military Science Fiction, I also look for an understanding of science and an understanding of military matters. So let's take them in reverse order:
Military Understanding Grade: A. The author clearly has prior military service/association and his descriptions of the military aspects of events and characters was well done.
Science Understanding Grade: D. From unbelievable physics to simply a lack of an appreciation for scale, the book wasn't sufficiently believable to allow me to "suspend my disbelief" and enjoy the story. As one example, the author simply doesn't seem to appreciate the sheer size of the galaxy. At one point the main character's ship goes "on patrol". They are patrolling an entire quadrant of space; a border with aliens that must be at least hundreds of light years in size, using detection devices not much better than exist today. To make it worse, in their patrol of this space that consists of trillions upon trillions of cubic kilometers, they just happen to arrive within a few hundred kilometers of a location where an enemy ship is lurking and spot it with their limited means. Of course, more bad guys arrive and just happen to pass within 2000 meters of the main character's ship! The disconnect is jarring.
Good Character Development Grade: C. The characters are simply flat or unbelievable. Not much more I can say about it.
Good Story Grade: D. The story was uninspired and seemed to go nowhere. More than anything, this facet of the book caused me to quit reading. I was simply bored. Maybe if I could have stuck it out beyond 1/3 of the book it might have gotten better. But then I would have succumbed to the bad writing.
Good Writing Grade: F. Overall, the writing was juvenile. The dialogue, in particular, was bad. The writer seems to not know that such things as commas, semi-colons, independent and dependent clauses, etc exist. Every single sentence is a short declarative or descriptive statement delivered without any nuance or passion. Even the main character's love life consists of him meeting a lovely woman and engaging in declarative statements about her looks followed by "dialogue" that consists of each character simply stating that neither wants a committed relationship followed shortly thereafter with sex. Don't worry, the sex isn't really described. Thankfully, because I can't even imagine how the author would express sexual matters in his short and dispassionate 5-10 word sentences.
So my advice to you: skip this one or at least read the 10% Kindle preview.
When I read a book, I look for good writing, a good story, and good character development. If it's Military Science Fiction, I also look for an understanding of science and an understanding of military matters. So let's take them in reverse order:
Military Understanding Grade: A. The author clearly has prior military service/association and his descriptions of the military aspects of events and characters was well done.
Science Understanding Grade: D. From unbelievable physics to simply a lack of an appreciation for scale, the book wasn't sufficiently believable to allow me to "suspend my disbelief" and enjoy the story. As one example, the author simply doesn't seem to appreciate the sheer size of the galaxy. At one point the main character's ship goes "on patrol". They are patrolling an entire quadrant of space; a border with aliens that must be at least hundreds of light years in size, using detection devices not much better than exist today. To make it worse, in their patrol of this space that consists of trillions upon trillions of cubic kilometers, they just happen to arrive within a few hundred kilometers of a location where an enemy ship is lurking and spot it with their limited means. Of course, more bad guys arrive and just happen to pass within 2000 meters of the main character's ship! The disconnect is jarring.
Good Character Development Grade: C. The characters are simply flat or unbelievable. Not much more I can say about it.
Good Story Grade: D. The story was uninspired and seemed to go nowhere. More than anything, this facet of the book caused me to quit reading. I was simply bored. Maybe if I could have stuck it out beyond 1/3 of the book it might have gotten better. But then I would have succumbed to the bad writing.
Good Writing Grade: F. Overall, the writing was juvenile. The dialogue, in particular, was bad. The writer seems to not know that such things as commas, semi-colons, independent and dependent clauses, etc exist. Every single sentence is a short declarative or descriptive statement delivered without any nuance or passion. Even the main character's love life consists of him meeting a lovely woman and engaging in declarative statements about her looks followed by "dialogue" that consists of each character simply stating that neither wants a committed relationship followed shortly thereafter with sex. Don't worry, the sex isn't really described. Thankfully, because I can't even imagine how the author would express sexual matters in his short and dispassionate 5-10 word sentences.
So my advice to you: skip this one or at least read the 10% Kindle preview.
March 8, 2012
“Scout Force” is the first installment of what was to have been a trilogy but has now grown into a quadrilogy…is that even a word? Rodney is a dear friend of many years but our friendship has no bearing on my review. Although sci-fi isn’t my genre of choice I truly enjoyed the book.
The first thing I have to mention is Kelly Blake is a tramp! He has three lovers on the go and has eyes for many more. There, now that’s out of the way I can get into the real premise of the book.
Kelly is reassigned to the Antares base in the wake of calling a senior officer on her poor choice during a mission. The move was supposed to be a punishment for Kelly but as it turned out it was a great career move that has enabled him to move up quickly through the ranks of the Republic’s Scout Force.
Tasked to patrol the border against attack from their enemy the K’Rang Scout Force finds themselves in skirmishes they easily win with minimal loss. The result is the K’Rang scheming to gather information to help them destroy the humans on the Tau Ceti and Armstrong Planets. It appears the K’Rang have been working with a traitor on Antares to garner secrets for the trade of Flames Stones that are a high commodity. Thus ensues a race to discover what the K’Rang know and destroy the K’Rang before they can put their planned attack into action.
The story is fast paced with enough sci-tech speak to thrill the fans and some humorous situations to round it out. I definitely recommend “Scout Force” as a book to add to your kindle device. You will find it hard to put down.
The first thing I have to mention is Kelly Blake is a tramp! He has three lovers on the go and has eyes for many more. There, now that’s out of the way I can get into the real premise of the book.
Kelly is reassigned to the Antares base in the wake of calling a senior officer on her poor choice during a mission. The move was supposed to be a punishment for Kelly but as it turned out it was a great career move that has enabled him to move up quickly through the ranks of the Republic’s Scout Force.
Tasked to patrol the border against attack from their enemy the K’Rang Scout Force finds themselves in skirmishes they easily win with minimal loss. The result is the K’Rang scheming to gather information to help them destroy the humans on the Tau Ceti and Armstrong Planets. It appears the K’Rang have been working with a traitor on Antares to garner secrets for the trade of Flames Stones that are a high commodity. Thus ensues a race to discover what the K’Rang know and destroy the K’Rang before they can put their planned attack into action.
The story is fast paced with enough sci-tech speak to thrill the fans and some humorous situations to round it out. I definitely recommend “Scout Force” as a book to add to your kindle device. You will find it hard to put down.
abandoned
June 25, 2012Just couldn't get into it. I read about a quarter of it and it wasn't bad; it just seemed like everything was a cliche -- just like a thousand other routine space operas. Nothing grabbed me.
December 28, 2012
a great read that reminded me of the greats from the 50's. The characters were well done and the setting was fantastically a realistic military structure. Overall a great book.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews