Starfire

Vince Lombard #1

by Mike Lee

A story of a young G-Marine who is facing a Board of Inquiry after attacking an Alliance Starship. The Captain is given an impossible mission, find out what happened to the AMS StarFire, the Alliances' newest and deadliest, war ship. The AMS StarFire has a crew of over 3,000 men. Captain Lombard is given 50 men and sent on his mission. Find out why he is now facing a Board of Inquiry over his actions.

Genres: Science Fiction, Audiobook, Space Opera, Military Science Fiction, Military Fiction

229 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 11, 2011

About the author

Mike Lee lives in Englewood, Colorado, and practices psychotherapy there. He started writing in graduate school, occasionally being printed in local newspapers such as the Rocky Mountain News. He began writing fiction in 2007, as a hobby. Horker's Law is his first novel.

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished this very well written ebook. I don't believe that I have ever read a book quite like this one in a long, long time. It is a story about a Board of Inquiry that should never have taken place. I very much enjoyed the attitude of Captain Vince Lombard who faced this very personal ordeal. He seemed to be the consumate professional throughout this entire story. He represented his unit and the G-Marines very well. His time in solitude would have been very hard since he was a G-Marine accustomed to being around other G-Marines. That solitude would have been the hardest part of the Board of Inquire procedures.

I really enjoyed the narration of the actions aboard the transport/lander and then aboard the Starfire. There is a good description of the young Captain's interaction with his Platoon Sergeant. Some would think it was too informal, too much of the Captain letting the Sergeant make all the decisions but they would be wrong. Captain Lombard was doing what he had learned through years of experience, he was getting advice from an experienced NCO and weighting it with his own to come to the best decision for his unit. No officer can ever think of everything especially during heavy action. And any officer that doesn't listen to his NCOs won't be a very effective officer for very long. For the most part, this story told it like it happens. You plan for one thing only to have something else come up. I don't think the author wrote enough about how truly scary this entire episode on-board the StarFire would have been. You can still be brave but you can and should be sacred when facing the odds this unit faced aboard the Starfire.

I didn't like the outcome of the book. But, just because I didn't like it doesn't mean it wouldn't have truly happened that way. Senior Commanders do not like to be embarrassed. They certainly don't like big decisions they have made shown to be wrong. Their decision to get rid of Captain Lombard had nothing to do with the good of the service. This is done more often than you think. If senior commander in the military decides he doesn't like someone, for whatever reason, that officers career is over. I don't care whether the officer is directly under the senior's command or not. I've seen it done on many occasions and have questioned it too many times only to find my own career terminated before I was ready. Luckly, Captain Lombard got to go out with a lot more fan fair than most officers. It was great to read that part.

This is a very good book. There are some editorial mistakes, i.e., missing words or mis-used/spelled words, but they didn't hinder the reading. If you like military science-fiction, this is your type of book.

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of this novel is really dry with the plot of a first-person shooter video game. The rest then is a really boring and pointless board of inquiry. A lot of the writing is a litany of procedures that lacks any kind of narrative tension. It really needs another editorial pass too as there were a lot of typos in the text.

That is all.

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

This could have been way better. It was still a good read but too many open questions remain...

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Got bored with all the details, though it started so wonderfully. Gave up at 10%.

[Darius Kohan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Poorly written, even for kids, author should find a better career. Not new or interesting. I love sci fi, but I had to speed read to finish book.

Not worth reading,boring,not imaginative, poorly written, don't bother wasting your time. Author needs to find a better career. I love sci to literature, but not this one.

[Johnny Le Bon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was going to give this book a 4, as I felt there was too much exposition. But the ending put it over the top to a 5!
Not too obvious that there could be a sequel but left just enough room to ease into another book.
Kudos to Michael Lee!

[Br1cht · Rating 5 out of 5]

Severely under-rated gem of a book, reads like a mix of the Bourne books and classic Mil Sci-Fi with some damn good flow in his prose.

If you want some good entertainment this is for you.

[MJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leadership

Well written. Engaging. Character development reeled me in. I felt close ties to the entire mission crew being a retired military veteran.

[Kevin Hawkins · Rating 2 out of 5]

I never do reviews, but this one sort of needs one. The story and universe has a lot of potential - it has enough potential to be the basis for a movie. In fact, I enjoyed the story for what it is, and aside from the military bravado that became tiring the book is pretty good for a light sci-fi read. Of course, I would have appreciated more depth to the characters and the story, more plot twists (it was fairly predictable), more answers to things left undone (what DID happen to StarFire?), etc. I also would have appreciated less military orientation. There was much more interesting stuff going on and things to explain than just the military action.

While the story was decent any good it brings practically gets destroyed with the writing. Lee, please get an editor next time and stop trying to get fancy with commas. Grammar and sentence structure were atrocious and at times so bad that I couldn't understand sentence intent. Whenever the story started to ramble I skipped paragraphs - not because of the rambling but because the simple act of reading the ramble became too much of a struggle.

I'm giving 2 stars out of balance. 3 for the superficial but high potential story and 1 for the writing. If you're looking for some quick, military oriented sci-fi then this book might do well for you. If you want something epic then look elsewhere.

[Scott Toney · Rating 5 out of 5]

StarFire is such an excellent read. This is the first book I've read by Mike Lee, and though it is the prequel to Fey., one of his earlier works, it is such a wonderful stand alone book as well. The depth of Vince's character is fantastic and Mike does a great job of using just the right amount of description and world building to fully immerse us in this well plotted Space novel. As I read I was reminded of another of my favorite authors, Tad Williams. Tad writes mostly Fantasy and not Science Fiction, but the qualities of his and Mike's work are at the same level and I am excited to purchase Fey. soon and continue in this realm.

If you are a fan of Science Fiction or Fantasy, then this is the perfect read for you.

Full disclosure: I'm aquainted with Mike Lee by mail, since we both promote books through the same web sites. But I liked this a lot, so I reviewed it anyway, though he did not ask me to.

[Wayne Palmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is the story of what happened to the star ship ‘Starfire’ and is a prequel of the book by the same author, ‘Fey’. Starfire is a solid scifi space battle with sufficient detail to be interesting and with characters that you are happy to follow their story and with sufficient character flaws to be interesting. Because it is a prequel it does not explain the underlying reason for what happened to Starfire and as such this is the only drawback – though I do acknowledge that to do so would not necessarily be appropriate in the context of Fey and future sequels. Given this the book can stand alone as a solo read and does not force you to rush out and buy Fey – which is why I give bonus points for the author as I am now so over sci-fi writers continuing their single story over multiple volumes. Sorry for the rant, low caffeine levels and probably far too much sci-fi over the summer holidays.

[Gr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Listened to the Audible version. StarFire is a good military ScIFi novel with enough detail and solid character development that will retain your attention. It contains sufficient links to military history, command structures, and politics to make the story a plausible future. The main character is honorable and likable, a Marine who is loyal to his men. On the down side, a good portion of the novel is read from a dry first-person account with breaks looking back at an incident from a board of inquiry. A lot of the narrative is a litany of procedures that fails to build plot tension and I found portions of the novel a bit dry. The narration was good but not great. It appears that this book is a prequel of a book by the same author, ‘Fey’, as the main character is featured in that book, although Audible does not show this book as part of a series. Overall, not bad.

[Kelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best military science fictions I have read. I do think that the oxygen problem was contrived. (Personal rant: Because of human nature there should be blatantly obvious to all around you warnings if your space suite is running out of oxygen. None of their men thought to hand them such a vital supply?) If it had not been for the fact that I loved every thing else this book would have lost me there. Over all I want more of this world. I want to go back and see how things work out for all the character and find out what happened to the ship to turn the crew into a hive type mind.

[Kristian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly good. I read this on a whim. Glad I did. Has some editing issues [it's a self published book]. It's a quick engaging read. The story centers around Vince Lombard a Marine Captain asked to take on a dangerous mission both in terms of physical danger but also political danger. The first half of the book centers on the mission. Which is action packed. The second half is focused on the political repercussions. I found, by the end of the book, I really cared about the outcome to the main character. This is not going to win any writing awards, but it is several steps above the typical self published book.

[H (trying to keep up with GR friends) Balikov · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good concept, well executed. Lee's protagonist is a space Marine captain who is facing a military board of inquiry for actions he took on a "secret mission" to locate and learn why the Navy's newest battleship had gone missing. The story is told in a present/past alternation that works well.

Lee has created a human future that needs a substantial military presence. Like some of the best writers in this genre (see Elizabeth Moon, John Scalzi), his knowledge of the military mindset and procedures makes the story "realistic" and his Captain Lombard sympathetic. Not too techy or icky, Lee walks a nice line with his action and his military politics.

I read this as a Kindle e-book

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure why I picked this up but it turned out to be a decent beach read. Aside from BSG and the occasional Stargate, I don't usually do military sci-fi. This one is a (Galactic) Marine saga. A lot of things didn't get resolved (like what really happened on Starfire), which was kind of annoying and it needs some decent copy editing. And it turned out that Vince's platoon had all the people with the right skills conveniently. But it was fun and a good break from my usual reading.

[Jasoches · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent book. I found it as a cheap Kindle deal. I liked how clean it was, which is a difficult thing to do for a military book. I have a hard time reading a book that has grammar and spelling issues though. By the time a book gets to the reader it should be perfect in that regard, even if it's a Kindle only book.

[Strahd · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book to test out an ereader app on my phone. It was 99cents, and i figure no loss if its not good.

It was fantastic. I plan to recommend it to my friends, and is officially one of my favorite books.

I read it in one day, because i just couldnt put it down. It has been years since that has happened.

[Ziv Unger · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fast-paced and entertaining read, though I wish Lee had offered more in terms of explanations for the various mysteries he introduced. I understand that this being a prequel, perhaps he didn't want to spoil the next book - but it did somewhat lessen my enjoyment. Overall though - a very promising introduction to a new scifi author for me, and I'll be picking up Fey to read more.

[David Harlan · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you like solid world-building; if you like some credible military action; if you like your characters believable and human; if you like a good mystery in your sci-fi, this is a book for you. I recommend this to anyone who reads sci-fi.

[Dave]

Very good sci-fi detective story. A lot of well developed characters that were believable.

[William 'billy' · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining, light, military sci-fi.

[Derrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing, fun read. Was like reading a movie. Books like this inspire and motivate me to want to write my own. If you don't want to read a regurgitated Sci-Fi novel, I highly recommend Starfire.

[Louis Mynhardt · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun light military Sci~Fi

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enjoyable book. Will probably read the next book.

[Trina Beatty-Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five Star

I hope we see more of Vince Lombard . . . both books 1 and 2 are phenomenal ! !