United Fleet

The Stardock Trilogy #2

by Sean Fenian

Four months ago, the Crickets — the Chhrt'ktk't, in their own language — had abandoned a mobile shipyard with a burned-out hyperdrive core in Sol system, as a decoy. They hadn’t told humanity about the decoy part. Then they had picked Alex Holder to operate it, simply because he happened by chance to be the first human they found who could — because that would make it a better decoy.

In perhaps as little as five years, the Khreetan would be coming. The Crickets hadn’t intended for humanity to know that, either.

Alex had those five years to build a defensive fleet from the spines out, recruit crews for his ships, and find enough humans who could reach full rapport with Cricket tech to command and control them — and get all of them trained to work together despite their national differences. All this, while at the same time he tried to share the Crickets’ scientific knowledge, distribute their technology where it was most desperately needed, and somehow still keep the peace.

Fortunately, he had help, and he was beginning to find more people who could fully link with Chhrt'ktk't technology.

But would it be enough?

First edition April 2024

© 2024 Fenian House Publishing

Genres: Science Fiction, Space Opera, Science Fiction Fantasy

365 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 28, 2024

About the author

Sean Fenian is a generalist and open-source evangelist who is tired of several decades of working in the information technology sector. He is broadly knowledgeable in many subjects, with a long-standing informed layman’s interest in physics and related science in particular. He has been an avid reader of SF and fantasy since his teens, and first became aware of, and began campaigning on, environmental issues in the late 1970s. He is proficient with weapons both ancient and modern, has trained in four different martial arts, and believes that understanding basic firearms safety is like knowing basic first aid, CPR, or how to use a fire extinguisher. He firmly believes that it is a basic human responsibility to treat all beings fairly and decently, and that the true measure of a person is how you treat others.

His past volunteer activities include educational historical re-enactment, marine mammal rescue, and handicapped riding therapy. He has been formally diagnosed on the autistic spectrum, but stubbornly persists in trying to understand people anyway.

He dreams many things. Occasionally, some of them become reality. But only occasionally.

Reviews

[Ed Clarke · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author writes well and he has some interesting ideas but... I couldn't finish this book due to his ideas about humanity. Perhaps if every head of state was a clone of Jimmy Carter then the book would be more believable but sadly they are not. The protagonist would have been assassinated within a couple of months by any number of countries.

Good ideas, well written but fatally flawed. At least he didn't add half a dozen voluptuous women/daemons/goats/etc with a fixation on sex with the main character but that doesn't save the book. Sorry -

[Gustavo Morles · Rating 1 out of 5]

Danger Will Robinson!!

You are in danger of wasting your time if you pick up this book. Aliens come and from their advanced science what we get is the cure for gingivitis. Stupid! Book is full of unforced errors, people from Argentina don't use Mexican swear words. Is Sean Fenian a 13 year old girl? The naive leftie viewpoint of giving all the advanced technology away for free is an insult to Robert A. Heinlein.

[Sgt Maj · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lots, n Lots, of dull Science, Lots, n Lots of Political FICTION

Yes, I know, this is book 2 -- as KU, I unfortunately view KU books as free...and they're not, especially considering my time and effort to read any book.

Book 1 was dull, boring and repetitive. The same 3-4 science points are repeated over and over...probably 1/2 the book.

The other half was getting schooled on a Lefty Democratic Manifesto of current, popularized political issues that we see daily in the news, media, etc. Just dial into our current elections.

I skimmed shamelessly to skip the slamming of inept government, greedy corporations, the rich, loss of ethics, unfair taxes and common sense -- seen that, been there. I was simply curious how 'we' were going to deal with inbound aliens who were highly probable going to be hostile. Especially with this plot and storyline. So book 2.

The political beat down continued...AND NO ALIENS, YET. Not quite so dull, but boring. Again, lots of skimming. Worse, No Character depth and there was no one I liked or I could embrace.

2 stars because I 'read' both books and sorry I did.

[John Hulet · Rating 1 out of 5]

This series has a lot of potential, but the combination of the author's need to drag the reader through detailed minutia just to show off his big brain gets tired. That could have been tolerated, but the 60+ year old divorcee who clearly has piss-poor people skills suddenly able to manage all the world leaders...come on. The Communist outlook on how technology is going to save the world and make everyone equal is just insulting. So many, much better authors have taken a shot at that particular theme and the result is almost always bloody.

Don't spend time on this series unless you actually believe that the government knows best and the rest of us should just follow along. There are much better options.... Ringo, for all his flaws, does a much better job of this with his Troy Rising Series....that take a complete different take, but at least it makes a little sense.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable, and Mostly Entertaining

The continued storyline in this second installment includes many pages of setup and design information for building the space fleet. Some of it feels like overload after many pages and while it strings the story along, it doesn’t always feel necessary. Many new characters are introduced and several story threads resolved as others are initiated. This book ends at a calm point, with a look forward to the next book.

[Raffe. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hyperbole

Just a fantasy of someone that sees no fault in people in general. Just specific stereotypical men. Believing people are capable to do anything they put their mind to. Not worrying about anything that could go wrong. Paradise is envious.

[Jim Gutzwiller · Rating 5 out of 5]

United Fleet (Star dock Trilogy Book 2)

Well this was a very interesting turn of events and was wildly entertaining at the same time! The author, has a very good grasp of what they are doing and proceeding to produce a very good storyline.
Book 3 should be awesome !! Everyone who likes a good story should start getting caught up and following.

[x x x · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fine

Good progression towards a human protection racket in space. For all of the philosophical arguments around merging religion, commerce, and other biased judgements; twill see next.

[Ismael Tiburcio · Rating 1 out of 5]

Drivel

Dude, this felt like reading an end of the fiscal year report...

So many strategic lapses. To much validation of the main character, no humor, your military characters lack depth, there's no one to push back on the main character.

Only reason I'll finish the series is to see what happens.

[Dragos Macelaru · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very nice story, but...

TOO nice! A 60-something man becomes the owner of an alien, super-powerful, extremely technically advanced, self-aware AI controlled spaceship factory; and everybody and every government wants this factory for themselves. And now the Kumbaya begins; the American government is helpful, all other governments except North Korea and Israel (!) are also helpful, he gets a 30-ish girlfriend (and she wants children!), there's an alien medical facility that makes him younger, tons of volunteers come to participate, all scut work is done by drones (except in bars and restaurants in the sky, where he has bartenders and waiters!), nobody sends any spies and there are no attempts to displace him. And he spreads all the helpful technology to the needy for free, including building the free energy, free food and free clean water facilities for everyone. And free medical care, of course. And, anything he dreams of is promptly built up by the friendly AI.
I'll stop here, my blood sugar is going up.

[Rita Schenck · Rating 3 out of 5]

military blah

Why is it that so many space opera novels turn into boring detailed lists of imaginary weapons? Sadly the United Fleet falls into this literary black hole. It compounds it with worship of military jargon. The story is strong,with good characters and plot but at least a third of the prose should be edited out

[Rick · Rating 2 out of 5]

plot interesting, but politically & fiscally superficial at best

Plot is interesting and story is basically good, but the author has trouble with believable political and fiscal concepts and occasionally goes off on rants based on little more than tired old woke-isms with little factual or logical basis.

[Mack Hucks · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed the first book and I was excited to start this one. However the socialist agenda he has in his writing has sucked the joy away. Sure, I also hate the money hungry elite. However once you force these company boards down you also put thousands of people out of work. Lets keep our politics out of SciFi so that everyone can enjoy.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

interesting but shallow

Politically, shallow. Technologically simple.
Can’t buy into “everyone getting along” on one side and everyone evil on the other side. Read the 1st two books. Not going to read anymore. Unable to suspend my disbelief.

[John McCue · Rating 2 out of 5]

?

Not bad on the science level. No understanding of basic world economics which renders a lot of the decisions ludicrous.

[Michael Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fenian has been writing self-published science fiction novels for a while now and he’s a pretty good yarn-spinner. He’s also a retired aerospace and information tech guy and that background comes across vividly in his writing. In fact, this is one of the geekiest, nerdiest books I’ve read in years, and engineering types and coders and fans of speculative physics are going to have a lot of fun with it.
So, it’s a few decades from now and the Earth is just going about its business when a very large fleet of alien ships appears in our solar system. (Humans can’t replicate their speech, so they come to be called “Crickets,” which is the closest we can come.) They say they’re engaged in a long journey, but one of their vessels, a truly huge starship repair facility, has fried its faster-than-light hyperdrive, and this is as far as it could limp, so the aliens have decided to abandon it and make a gift of it to the people of Earth. We can do whatever we like with it. Yeah, they could repair it, but that would require a total tear-down, which would take several years, and they don't have the time. Sorry, hey can’t hang around, they’re in a big hurry, places to go and things to do, ’bye-bye. And the Cricket fleet is gone again -- less the repair vessel and a a small accompanying ship to remove its crew and facilitate the hand-off, which will catch up later.
The thing is, the facility, which is really more of a twelve-kilometer-long mobile shipyard, is run by an extremely advanced general AI, and all control of the alien tech is based on mental interfacing. Almost anyone can learn to to that at a basic level (they say), but the necessary deep bonding with the AI itself -- which is required to actually operate the whole facility and in which one essentially becomes the ship -- requires a special innate ability and not everyone has it. In fact, it’s pretty rare, even among the Crickets. So the single ship that stays behind and sends out a horde of testing drones to try to find such a person among Earth’s population.
Enter Alex Holder (a retired techie not unlike the author in his background), who is varnishing the deck of his small house in rural New Hampshire when a drone appears and seems to be trying to communicate with him. Of course, the connection is soon made and Alex is rushed willy-nilly about the alien repair vessel and evaluated in depth. And suddenly Earth has the “rapport-controller” it needs to operate the incalculably valuable alien gift. And Alex, being the unusual sort of nonlinear person he is, accepts the responsibility of dealing with all that revolutionary alien tech a thousand years more advanced than what we presently have. And he has very specific ideas about how to do that for the good of everyone that the rest of the world isn’t necessarily going to like.
But, of course, there’s a lot more to the story than that. Why were the aliens in such a damn hurry, anyway? Why were they pushing the facility’s engines so hard that they burned them out? Just before they depart, one junior Cricket officer finds a way to bend his own orders to keep his mouth shut and lets Alex know that there’s an even more advanced and much more violently aggressive alien species on the Cricket fleet’s tail and they’re only five or six years behind. And the broken repair facility is intended not merely as a gift but as a distraction, a Judas goat (Not a spoiler, because we find all this very early in the book.)
This is the first volume of a trilogy, so the author takes his time exploring the possibilities of future tech in great detail and how a badly fragmented Earth might deal with it, especially when it’s controlled solely by a highly individualist caretaker -- though he’s a humanist and an optimist, too. There are various digressions in which Fenian shows off his generally broad knowledge and does it in a very entertaining and mostly believable way (if you accept the basic set-up). The second volume, United Fleet, continues the race to prepare Earth to meet the second alien fleet and to survive the encounter, and again, the author handles this in some quite ingenious ways. The final volume, A Line in the Stars, will be out late this year. And they’re all available at Kindle Unlimited, if you subscribe to that.

[Monty · Rating 2 out of 5]

This story sadly has to many of issues some of which are mentioned in other reviews.. Not all though, but I will not get into those either.

My end rating for this book in the audiobook format is as can be seen here 2/5. Mayhap if the narrator had done an exceptionally good job, I'd feel ok about rating this a 3/5, that is sadly not the case though and I personally consider the audio as a negative to an already borderline story.

- This Review is mainly for Audiobooks #1 & 2 -

The audio and narration is not very good. The flow is choppy with the narration speed changing in various non optimal ways. The narration was never to slow though - I think that's actually the only regular audiobook negative I wouldn't ascribe to this work. That said there are far to many actual negatives.
Here are a few:

1. The Narrator reading so fast he doesn't get the words out properly. I had to skip back and re-listen to parts several times.

2. At times the narrator doesn't slow down or come to a break between sentences or between paragraphs. This even occurs for places where one would expect a new paragraph to be due to a complete scene shift. At times there's even a sort of whiplash because at some of said scene shifts the sound/tone of the narration changes but there is again next to no perceivable paus. So one is treated to a double whammy of an immersion break.

3. There are various sound artefacts including minor breathing and throat noises, not to bad but still. Also in book one I think the narrator had a cold or something. These are quality issues that I personally think should have been seen to in editing.

4. I also perceived a few instances when the narrator used the wrong voice for things said. The possibility that there were more than the ones I reacted to I consider as probable since the ones I noticed, were shifts from male to female or vice versa.. Not long sentences but partial ones wherein for example three people are conversing.

[Will Knight · Rating 3 out of 5]

Note to self: I'll read the third book, just see it as more slice-of-life in space.

I liked this book, liked the first more, but the scifi took a backseat in this one a bit for my taste.

My main issue with the book is how america-centric it is the "united earth" message it tries to deliver. All of earth, but all government vignettes are US. All of earth, but the one government liaison placed in the stardock happens to be from the american government (and also the MCs girlfriend). All of earth, but the MC keeps meeting american vets to recruit. And so on.

A minor issue is how no one has problems or protests. I kept expecting the stardock personnel to have to deal with online protests, attempts to bismirch reputations by corporations, any type of groundside resistance to their space power and control of space. Nope, none of that.

And a mild disappointment is he recruits a diplomatic staff/single person, and we never get to see the diplomatic aspect of a new "nation" having to establish relations, embassies, deals, agreements with most of earth's nations. We got a north korea sucks when the ambassador gets rescued/recruited, and that's that. No politics, even simplified, really.

All that said, I'm actually enjoying the book. It's just "light" scifi.

[Gary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another stellar :-) performance. Sean Fenian continues to offer plausible reasons for the actions that take place. The human advancement in technology is slow and steady, and reasonable with an AI and a 3D printer.

We still haven't had alien contact, but everything is building up to that moment so far in this series.

There are two things I really appreciated that Fenian did. 1) The current fad in science fiction is to name ships with elaborate sentences. Fenian fell into this trap only once with the AI, but the rest of the time his ship names were logical and engaging. 2) In the romance department, Fenian would mention that the lovers kissed, then went to the bedroom where they did more than kiss. Then he moved on with the science fiction storyline. I really appreciated that he didn't feel he had to provide explicit sexual content. It's nice to be able to read science fiction without being subjected to soft porn. If that's what I want to read I can pick up a romance novel.

The ending was mehh. No cliff hanger. No closure. It was like he reached the word count for this book, so he just stopped mid-paragraph.

[Burt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyed very much. Book 2 of the series mostly focuses on the continued development of the United Fleet, including ships, technologies, and crews. This is surprisingly interesting, along the lines of The Martian by Andy Weir. We just begin to have a bit of action in this book.

Progress is made spreading advanced Cricket technologies to the Earth. Alex Holder remains focused on helping the most in need, bringing clean water, power and recycling to the most poor and disadvantaged parts of Earth. Not surprising, this angers some of the existing rich people and corporations that believe they should control the use of Cricket technology ... to their financial advantage.

United Fleet operates as an ideal society. Everyone is focused on creating the defense that will be needed in 5 years to protect the Earth from an aggressive alien race pursuing the Crickets. There is an absence of the things that hold back much of Earth's societies: politics, greed, sexism & racism, etc. The way the United Fleet operates is admirable, coming across as logical, nothing more or less than what is needed to get the job done: Save Earth.

I look forward to reading Book 3!

[Matthieu · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is terrible from end to end but it's funny to read so as to see how bad it is.
1) the author completely misses the point: we discover a world changing technology and many pages focus on seasoning food. You can cure any desease! Most of humanity would gith to get cured and you don't get many candidates? How stupid.
2) the author misses the scale: the MC is happy not to spend too much money on seasoning. You are SAVING THE WORLD! This is not the topic
3) Relationships with women are written by a 13 yo.
4) It has been written by an american with limited to no knowledge about other countries.
- French names are especially bad.... Exactly af is name of a US character was "Texan Lincoln-Roosevelt". Yes, it's that bad.
- the main negociator is a former ambassador from north corea... where you can become an ambassador when you fully support the dictator
- a complete lack of understanding of how the world works.

[Robert Dill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok

While I enjoy the premise, I don't think enough thought has been given to the overall picture. Alex is building a huge city in orbit. The focus has been upon military, food and a bar. With this city full of alpha males there are going to be clashes of personalities. You'll need laws, A policing agency, advocates for both sides and judges.
With the introduction of Egyptian and Jordanian troops you've opened yourself to the age old conflict of Islam and Christianity. You whitewashed that conflict with a few wrestling matches with a girl. You've also completely ignored England and I'm unsure why. Their navy ruled the world for centuries.
This and a few other issues blunted my enjoyment somewhat. I did enjoy it but it seems rather like a young teen story. The dialogue also seems stiff at times.

[Michael V. Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Series Continuation

Love this series! I very rarely read stand-alone novels anymore and enjoy the longer build-up and storytelling ability of a series. I started reading SF in 1957, and it is still my go-to genre. The author gets this story started quickly, and it is surprise after surprise with a strong development of the main characters. The tech is higher in this book because the author understands what he is talking about and is very knowledgeable of the politics and shortcomings of modern civilization. He has stated that this series could be longer, and I very much hope so, as the characters should have time to mature (especially Dreamer).More tech, please, more ships. Battles and ground with those Marines as well. Great read!

[Lori Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

a bit f a let down but still decent

As I commented on book one the romance was awful, I gave up counting the number of times “ my love” was used. The love story really ruined the book for me. Fake is the best way I can put it into words. It took up a third of the book, wasted promise. Also I would add the way humanity and countries respond are wishful thinking to say the least, completely unrealistic. But it’s not my story so I let it go. I liked the engineering, the theory of weapons, marine building. I still love the premise of the story, but will not likely be buying the third book as I don’t see it being more fleet based. Oh one more thing promoting people to capt just off the ability to be 3rd level is ridiculous and insulting to anyone that has seen combat.

[K O · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb Ideas on One World Earth Power

While at times the book bogs down in minutiae, overall it is an enjoyable read with plausible goals and perhaps some real-life applications.

How would you react to suddenly being given unimaginable power and only then learn you need world-wide help to enable the use of that power to in order protect earth?

To those whom much is given, much is asked. Alex Holder is one such person and as an “everyman figure he shines, showing off the best of humanity.

Could there be a day in the distant future where world powers would see the necessity and opportunity that working together on a global basis would benefit all of mankind? I don’t know but Sean Fenian certainly lays out that possibility. What do you think???

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very good read. It pulls together scientific thoughts from a number of sci-fi books and movies. The control factors of the level one two through three is a very interesting breakdown and how is built together the whole system of communication and development. This book was not as fast a read because it repeated a number of actual things. Each class graduating the next series of ships being put on the line. But nice Interruption was the 90 minute war that took place. I guess what I'm looking for is something that gives me a new thought a new place to go a different angle. I hope the next one I read pulls that together.

[jr weightman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Damn....

The only real complaint I have about this book ( and the preceding one as well). Is it can be overly wordy and too technical at times. I will freely admit to just plain not understanding some of the terms and such. In both the first and second books of this series. But I have enjoyed both very much ! And am looking forward to book number three. Though I somehow think ,that either this trilogy. Will be expanded. Or that there will be a second or follow-up series to this one. In which case I will happily and eagerly wait for !!!

So I can say that yes go ahead and take a chance on this book/series. I don't think you will be disappointed !!!!

jrwii

[Jc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of filler in this series

I like the premise.

The issue i have is that the characters often tell what happend previously in the book more than once. Often several times. The first book was particularly bad with it.

The other issue i have is that there is no real conflict over the course of the book. No popduction shortages or difficulties. Only one single conflict that is easily resolved.

At this rate the enemy species is going to show up in book 5 against 80 ships and lose because of the space mcguffin magic our MC has ploped out of his neurodivergent brain, but it turns out they are not that bad actually.

[DeCarlos Moore · Rating 3 out of 5]

It has potential

I've read both books and at this point I feel like the story is very unrealistic. Expected more conflict and resistance in the story. Very idealistic viewpoint that is hard to buy into because it's contrary to human nature.

Wondering why not expand into a space station or even build orbital defenses. Build a moon base and expand production capacity there...just a few pieces that I was surprised wasn't explored.

It held my interest as the bones are sound and I hope it's the build up to a decent story.

[Paul Vanderburg · Rating 3 out of 5]

The spice box is a lie

I won't call this a spoiler, as knowing this makes the book more enjoyable. The spice box is drenched in death flags. But it is only a spice box. Not a bomb, or a poison, or any kind of trap. The death flags are a lie.

Next, there seems to be a bit of hate towards all rich people. As a method of making the main character unique, it works. But I also found it unpleasant.

I also didn't like the romance. It felt too quick.

5/5 star book if these issues were corrected.