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Space Fleet Academy: Year One
Humanity chose to suffer. The alternative was extinction.
When genetic engineering nearly doomed the species, humanity made a desperate let the frontier do what nature intended. Harsh colony worlds. Brutal selection. Children dying on planets designed to test them. Two centuries later, the Mandate has kept humanity alive, but at a price no one is allowed to question.
Cadet Constantine Ramsey questions it anyway.
As a frontier colonist at Earth's Space Fleet Academy, Constantine keeps flinching at the hard calls, and finds himself being outperformed by the cadets who don't. Then colonies start going dark. Whole worlds, no survivors, no explanation. With senior classes rushed to the frontier, Constantine is thrust onto an unprecedented first-year team at the Inter-Colonial Games, the highest-stakes competition in human space. When catastrophe threatens all four colonies at once, he faces the choice the Academy trained him to make, and makes the one they never expected.
Some officers are made to follow orders. Real leaders are made to give them.
Start the journey today! Grab your copy of Space Fleet Year One, the first book in a new military SF series perfect for fans of Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, Old Man's War by John Scalzi, and Star Trek.
When genetic engineering nearly doomed the species, humanity made a desperate let the frontier do what nature intended. Harsh colony worlds. Brutal selection. Children dying on planets designed to test them. Two centuries later, the Mandate has kept humanity alive, but at a price no one is allowed to question.
Cadet Constantine Ramsey questions it anyway.
As a frontier colonist at Earth's Space Fleet Academy, Constantine keeps flinching at the hard calls, and finds himself being outperformed by the cadets who don't. Then colonies start going dark. Whole worlds, no survivors, no explanation. With senior classes rushed to the frontier, Constantine is thrust onto an unprecedented first-year team at the Inter-Colonial Games, the highest-stakes competition in human space. When catastrophe threatens all four colonies at once, he faces the choice the Academy trained him to make, and makes the one they never expected.
Some officers are made to follow orders. Real leaders are made to give them.
Start the journey today! Grab your copy of Space Fleet Year One, the first book in a new military SF series perfect for fans of Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, Old Man's War by John Scalzi, and Star Trek.
- GenresScience Fiction
312 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 26, 2026
About the author
Jon Del Arroz
88 books460 followersJon Del Arroz is a powerhouse in speculative fiction and comics, celebrated as "the leading Hispanic voice in science fiction" by PJ Media, and a #1 Amazon bestselling author whose works resonate with fans craving bold, unapologetic storytelling. His novels, like the swashbuckling steampunk adventure For Steam And Country and the space opera The Stars Entwined, have earned accolades for their fast-paced plots and richly drawn characters. He is a Dragon Award finalist and 2018 CLFA Book of the Year Award winner, as well as N3F Speculative Fiction winner for best graphic novel.
Beyond the page, Jon Del Arroz is a prolific journalist and cultural commentator, with incisive pieces in outlets like The Federalist and Fandom Pulse that tackle the intersections of pop culture, gaming, and politics with fearless clarity. His investigative work and YouTube livestreams have built a loyal following, offering a sharp alternative to mainstream narratives.
Beyond the page, Jon Del Arroz is a prolific journalist and cultural commentator, with incisive pieces in outlets like The Federalist and Fandom Pulse that tackle the intersections of pop culture, gaming, and politics with fearless clarity. His investigative work and YouTube livestreams have built a loyal following, offering a sharp alternative to mainstream narratives.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
April 23, 2026
I came across this book in a post by one of the authors in a Star Trek Facebook group. I forget which one. Apparently, Robert Picardo was snapping at him for his criticism of Starfleet Academy (SFA) and told him that if he didn't like it, he should create his own. So he did. Now, I love Robert Picardo but this lowered my opinion of him just a little bit (and Kate Mulgrew also, through her clapback was hilarious). It's not a good response to fan criticism. People have a right to express their opinions and it's only natural that long-standing fans would have strong feelings about it. The author posted screenshots of the exchange with Picardo and it was only about four weeks prior, which suggested the authors used A.I. to write the book. There's no way they banged this out in four weeks without help. I said so on the post, but the author didn't reply.
Still, I wanted to check out the novel, particularly since I have a number of misgivings about Starfleet Academy. I don't hate it, and some of the episodes are pretty good, but a lot of them are boring, too. I don't care for most of the characters and the show spends too much time talking about feelings and not enough time talking about actual Academy things. It's also feels nothing like the way Starfleet Academy was portrayed in prior shows and books. Namely, it seems like they pulled a few people off the street and are trying to teach them how to behave like adults. It feels rather childish, in fact, when it should feel like the best of the best are learning to be even better.
So is this book better than Starfleet Academy? Actually, yes. By a lot. Don't get me wrong, it has a lot of problems, which I will get to, but it hits on everything that SFA should have, but didn't. It has an interesting scientific theory about genetics that forms the basis of the premise, the Academy is highly competitive and extremely merit-based, and the story centers on how the Academy teaches its cadets to be officers and leaders, rather than simply teaching them how to behave like grown-ups. I really can't stress this last enough, because that is SFA's greatest failing. The whole show is about helping cadets learn to deal with feelings they should already be mature enough to deal with. There's none of that in Space Fleet Academy. Sure there are some feelings, but those are secondary. When they are addressed, it focuses on how to cope with stress, how to make hard decisions, and how to deal with failure.
Having said all that, it has a lot of problems. For one thing, I don't really buy the theory about genetics. That's fine, though, because that's not required for science fiction. While the writing was better than I expected, the book still isn't very well written. Most characters were not well flushed out until late in the story. Also, there is a major story breaking error late in the book. Without really spoiling it, I will say that it This is most likely the result of a rewrite that changed the confession, but missed a big section. Hopefully the authors can submit a revision, because this mistake is really bad.
I listened to the Audio book because it came free with my Audible membership. It was read by A.I. and was terrible. Almost every word had the wrong emphasis. Give me a few days and some equipment and I could record a better audiobook. However, it was still good enough to get through, so it was better than I expected.
Overall, I was surprised by this. Sure it was thrown together in a hurry and hopefully any A.I. use was limited to proofreading instead of for creative ideas, but I am actually interested in seeing what happens to these characters in year 2, which is really more than I can say about SFA.
3.5 out of 5.
Still, I wanted to check out the novel, particularly since I have a number of misgivings about Starfleet Academy. I don't hate it, and some of the episodes are pretty good, but a lot of them are boring, too. I don't care for most of the characters and the show spends too much time talking about feelings and not enough time talking about actual Academy things. It's also feels nothing like the way Starfleet Academy was portrayed in prior shows and books. Namely, it seems like they pulled a few people off the street and are trying to teach them how to behave like adults. It feels rather childish, in fact, when it should feel like the best of the best are learning to be even better.
So is this book better than Starfleet Academy? Actually, yes. By a lot. Don't get me wrong, it has a lot of problems, which I will get to, but it hits on everything that SFA should have, but didn't. It has an interesting scientific theory about genetics that forms the basis of the premise, the Academy is highly competitive and extremely merit-based, and the story centers on how the Academy teaches its cadets to be officers and leaders, rather than simply teaching them how to behave like grown-ups. I really can't stress this last enough, because that is SFA's greatest failing. The whole show is about helping cadets learn to deal with feelings they should already be mature enough to deal with. There's none of that in Space Fleet Academy. Sure there are some feelings, but those are secondary. When they are addressed, it focuses on how to cope with stress, how to make hard decisions, and how to deal with failure.
Having said all that, it has a lot of problems. For one thing, I don't really buy the theory about genetics. That's fine, though, because that's not required for science fiction. While the writing was better than I expected, the book still isn't very well written. Most characters were not well flushed out until late in the story. Also, there is a major story breaking error late in the book. Without really spoiling it, I will say that it This is most likely the result of a rewrite that changed the confession, but missed a big section. Hopefully the authors can submit a revision, because this mistake is really bad.
I listened to the Audio book because it came free with my Audible membership. It was read by A.I. and was terrible. Almost every word had the wrong emphasis. Give me a few days and some equipment and I could record a better audiobook. However, it was still good enough to get through, so it was better than I expected.
Overall, I was surprised by this. Sure it was thrown together in a hurry and hopefully any A.I. use was limited to proofreading instead of for creative ideas, but I am actually interested in seeing what happens to these characters in year 2, which is really more than I can say about SFA.
3.5 out of 5.
March 2, 2026
Interesting plot from Ender's Game
Really needs an editor
Lots of plot holes and broke the timeline at least once re compatibility results
I marked and noted many duplicated phrases and descriptions
Don't insult the reader
AI getting better, but...
Really needs an editor
Lots of plot holes and broke the timeline at least once re compatibility results
I marked and noted many duplicated phrases and descriptions
Don't insult the reader
AI getting better, but...
April 15, 2026
This is what Star Trek Starfleet Academy should have been
This was an awesome adventure and I can't stop thinking that if they adapted this story into what they were doing in the latest Star Trek series it would have been a complete hit. Excited to read the second book and - soon to be released - third book. Bravo to the authors!
This was an awesome adventure and I can't stop thinking that if they adapted this story into what they were doing in the latest Star Trek series it would have been a complete hit. Excited to read the second book and - soon to be released - third book. Bravo to the authors!
March 12, 2026
As promised by the author on his you-tube channel, He delivered story based on a challange given him by an actor on star trek academy to do better than what the current season of Star Trek Academy is offering. Space Fleet Academy far surpasses STA in all ways imaginable The story captures the essence of what star trek academy series should of been with strong character development and interactions dealing with diverse characters selected to the academy and are put through physical, mental and ethical dilemmas in competitons. the cadets learn that militarty leadership requires making life and death decisions while balancing the moral and ethical raminifcations for the betterment of mankind. The story is based on hard science -- population genetics as its basis where people are classified by their genetics strenghts ( NOT Enhanced). Star trek fans will love this book as the true alternative to the unforgiveable and utterly unredeamable story telling given in 10 episodes of Star Trek Academy which showed zero affinity to what a serious military academy is. I personally cannot wait until the following part 2 book is published later this month. It can only get better.
March 5, 2026
Space Fleet Academy: Year One is a very bad book. It's one thing to agree that Starfleet Academy is a terrible Star Trek show and awful piece of television. However, it's quite another for JDA's fans to prop this up as the 'saviour of Star Trek' - it isn't. This is some of the worst world-building, irrational plotting, and overt self-indulgent messaging I've read in fiction in quite some time.
1. The 11-Year Competence Gap
The book's premise hinges on a Geneva Genomic Initiative that allegedly killed 18,000 children before being shut down. The math here is baffling. For this to happen over an 11-year span, the scientists would have had to ignore a daily death toll of 4-5 children for over a decade. In any believable world, a medical trial is halted after the first few unexplained deaths, not to mention public backlash, parents revolting, scientists being sent to prison by year 2, among other things. Here, the scientists are written as cartoonishly arrogant idiots just so the traditionalist heroes have a reason to hate them, and the society and consequences make no sense. This is very poor world-building, and is not something we can simply suspend our disbelief about.
2. The Filtering
The Academy claims to be a filter designed to "serve the species," yet it boasts about a 25% mandatory failure rate for the top 3% of humanity.
Now, if you have identified the 4,000 most brilliant humans out of 124,000 applicants, throwing 1,000 of them away is intellectual sabotage.
A functional space fleet needs the brilliant people to calculate warp-folds and fix mechanical failures. By removing anyone who isn't a Warrior-Monk, the Academy ensures its ships will eventually fail because they’ve discarded their best engineers for not being "tough" enough - and this probably gets everyone else killed too. If they really were some kind of genetic risk, you force them not to breed - not get them killed (never mind the problem of how a lack of diversity in the gene pool would be very bad to begin with).
And if an individual was poorly suited to one of those harsh worlds, they could have been well-suited to a different one (gravity, radiation, atmosphere composition, temperature extremes, let alone mental differences). On a high gravity world, you need high bone density and cardiovascular strength. On a low-gravity world, a more agile build perform better. Flipping these officers to their respective worlds would be an utter waste of military resources, especially if they both ended up dead. Having someone die to a world/task they were unsuited for does nothing to make the species more resilient - their death was a net loss for the species' survival.
An intelligent species - like the humans in TNG-era Star Trek - uses a funnel, not just a filter: You take those 4,000 geniuses and funnel them into roles where they are most effective: command, pilots, engineers, xenobiologists, tactical officers, comm officers, philosophers, artists, researchers and inventors, etc.
In a nutshell, the world building and methodology here makes zero sense, even by its own stated goals. There is no believable spacefaring society that would operate this way - the premise is contrived solely so the author/Constantine can put up a strawman and moralize it later. This is NOT "hard, believable sci-fi" - it breaks down on multiple levels, even if you grant earlier premises (which you shouldn't - those 18,000 deaths is a real problem for this book!).
3. The Latin Cathedral Aesthetic
The setting is a jarring mix of high-tech holograms and Neo-Medieval stone columns. The insistence on Latin mottos (Per Aspera Ad Astra) and "Chapels of Remembrance" feels less like a military school and more like a Death Cult. It suggests that the authors aren't interested in how a future civilization would actually function, but rather in recapturing an idealized, traditionalist past.
It's performative virtue signaling - "I value traditional western aesthetics" rather than acknowledge the reality that stone is heavy, and that architects in the future would have functional reasons behind the materials they used when constructing monuments or buildings. The aesthetics and language would be a product of their own time period, rather than our own ancient past the author seems to value so much.
4. Deterministic Cruelty
The Admiral's speech... specifically the "no fault of their own" line regarding genetic rejection... strips the story of any stakes. If leadership and survival are purely "innate" or "genetic," then characters don't make choices... they just fulfill destinies. It turns the protagonist into a non-clogging particle in a filter rather than a hero we can root for.
5. The Acceptable Loss Posturing
The book mistakes sociopathy for leadership. The idea that dying serves the species ignores the reality of Specialization. A "hard" officer who lets a genius scientist die to prove a point about Darwinism hasn't saved the species... they've just made the ship 100% more likely to explode the next day.
6. Narrative Stasis
The first chapter suffers from a total lack of inciting incident. Instead of showing us the hardship the book keeps preaching about, we are treated to a travelogue of the authors' aesthetic preferences. The protagonist wanders through a memorial, meets a cadet to discuss an essay and stands through a long-winded orientation speech.
By starting with a "Wall of Names" and a lecture, the authors signal that the Message is more important than the Plot. It is "Starfleet" without the "Star" or the "Fleet"... just a lot of people standing in a stone hall talking about how tough and smart they are.
The Verdict: While Star Trek was built on the buy-in of a hopeful, specialized future, Space Fleet Academy is built on the buy-in of a cynical, wasteful past. It trades internal logic for ideological lectures.
1. The 11-Year Competence Gap
The book's premise hinges on a Geneva Genomic Initiative that allegedly killed 18,000 children before being shut down. The math here is baffling. For this to happen over an 11-year span, the scientists would have had to ignore a daily death toll of 4-5 children for over a decade. In any believable world, a medical trial is halted after the first few unexplained deaths, not to mention public backlash, parents revolting, scientists being sent to prison by year 2, among other things. Here, the scientists are written as cartoonishly arrogant idiots just so the traditionalist heroes have a reason to hate them, and the society and consequences make no sense. This is very poor world-building, and is not something we can simply suspend our disbelief about.
2. The Filtering
The Academy claims to be a filter designed to "serve the species," yet it boasts about a 25% mandatory failure rate for the top 3% of humanity.
Now, if you have identified the 4,000 most brilliant humans out of 124,000 applicants, throwing 1,000 of them away is intellectual sabotage.
A functional space fleet needs the brilliant people to calculate warp-folds and fix mechanical failures. By removing anyone who isn't a Warrior-Monk, the Academy ensures its ships will eventually fail because they’ve discarded their best engineers for not being "tough" enough - and this probably gets everyone else killed too. If they really were some kind of genetic risk, you force them not to breed - not get them killed (never mind the problem of how a lack of diversity in the gene pool would be very bad to begin with).
And if an individual was poorly suited to one of those harsh worlds, they could have been well-suited to a different one (gravity, radiation, atmosphere composition, temperature extremes, let alone mental differences). On a high gravity world, you need high bone density and cardiovascular strength. On a low-gravity world, a more agile build perform better. Flipping these officers to their respective worlds would be an utter waste of military resources, especially if they both ended up dead. Having someone die to a world/task they were unsuited for does nothing to make the species more resilient - their death was a net loss for the species' survival.
An intelligent species - like the humans in TNG-era Star Trek - uses a funnel, not just a filter: You take those 4,000 geniuses and funnel them into roles where they are most effective: command, pilots, engineers, xenobiologists, tactical officers, comm officers, philosophers, artists, researchers and inventors, etc.
In a nutshell, the world building and methodology here makes zero sense, even by its own stated goals. There is no believable spacefaring society that would operate this way - the premise is contrived solely so the author/Constantine can put up a strawman and moralize it later. This is NOT "hard, believable sci-fi" - it breaks down on multiple levels, even if you grant earlier premises (which you shouldn't - those 18,000 deaths is a real problem for this book!).
3. The Latin Cathedral Aesthetic
The setting is a jarring mix of high-tech holograms and Neo-Medieval stone columns. The insistence on Latin mottos (Per Aspera Ad Astra) and "Chapels of Remembrance" feels less like a military school and more like a Death Cult. It suggests that the authors aren't interested in how a future civilization would actually function, but rather in recapturing an idealized, traditionalist past.
It's performative virtue signaling - "I value traditional western aesthetics" rather than acknowledge the reality that stone is heavy, and that architects in the future would have functional reasons behind the materials they used when constructing monuments or buildings. The aesthetics and language would be a product of their own time period, rather than our own ancient past the author seems to value so much.
4. Deterministic Cruelty
The Admiral's speech... specifically the "no fault of their own" line regarding genetic rejection... strips the story of any stakes. If leadership and survival are purely "innate" or "genetic," then characters don't make choices... they just fulfill destinies. It turns the protagonist into a non-clogging particle in a filter rather than a hero we can root for.
5. The Acceptable Loss Posturing
The book mistakes sociopathy for leadership. The idea that dying serves the species ignores the reality of Specialization. A "hard" officer who lets a genius scientist die to prove a point about Darwinism hasn't saved the species... they've just made the ship 100% more likely to explode the next day.
6. Narrative Stasis
The first chapter suffers from a total lack of inciting incident. Instead of showing us the hardship the book keeps preaching about, we are treated to a travelogue of the authors' aesthetic preferences. The protagonist wanders through a memorial, meets a cadet to discuss an essay and stands through a long-winded orientation speech.
By starting with a "Wall of Names" and a lecture, the authors signal that the Message is more important than the Plot. It is "Starfleet" without the "Star" or the "Fleet"... just a lot of people standing in a stone hall talking about how tough and smart they are.
The Verdict: While Star Trek was built on the buy-in of a hopeful, specialized future, Space Fleet Academy is built on the buy-in of a cynical, wasteful past. It trades internal logic for ideological lectures.
March 26, 2026
What if humanity in the future discovered modern life was weakening the genome, tried to fix it with technology, and all the attempts failed. So instead they started drafting colonists and sending them out under conditions designed to pressure the populations and kill many of their children?
An interesting book, overall well done. It started as an attempt to clap back during a social media slap fight between supporters of the Starfleet Academy show and the author, a critic. The author disclosed he used AI to write the book and then cleaned it up. And that shows in one major event and the fallout, which other posters have covered in detail. I took the book down one star for that and because many of the characters were too cardboard until the last third of the book.
Also, the Academy here is a mash up of the Starfleet academy from the new show, AND a special forces type screening and leader training program, almost Ranger Lite. And the primary purpose for the officer graduates is to head up quite cruel, almost nazi, programs. Not pretend social media "Everyone who does not support the current thing is a nazi" but actually evil acts. The other purpose is to fulfill a more common military role.
An interesting book, overall well done. It started as an attempt to clap back during a social media slap fight between supporters of the Starfleet Academy show and the author, a critic. The author disclosed he used AI to write the book and then cleaned it up. And that shows in one major event and the fallout, which other posters have covered in detail. I took the book down one star for that and because many of the characters were too cardboard until the last third of the book.
Also, the Academy here is a mash up of the Starfleet academy from the new show, AND a special forces type screening and leader training program, almost Ranger Lite. And the primary purpose for the officer graduates is to head up quite cruel, almost nazi, programs. Not pretend social media "Everyone who does not support the current thing is a nazi" but actually evil acts. The other purpose is to fulfill a more common military role.
March 13, 2026
Enjoyed the journey of the characters. From the kid coming to the big city, to the space elves. Its a fun story just dystopian enough to feel real not so much that book is no fun to read.
I was reminded of some of the middle Honor Harrington books. Where she become a professor at the Academy working with cadets. This book has some of that feel, granted it also not long winded as David Webber books but also not as well written. The fact this is a functional military, trying to figure what does humanity look like in space, Space Fleet hits that the same note.
There is some plot stuff that feels like it need more polish. It really needs someone with fresh eyes that isn't the author to help edit and clean it up. It has the feel of 80% with the second rewrite needing one more pass.
That said A good start to a new series.
I was reminded of some of the middle Honor Harrington books. Where she become a professor at the Academy working with cadets. This book has some of that feel, granted it also not long winded as David Webber books but also not as well written. The fact this is a functional military, trying to figure what does humanity look like in space, Space Fleet hits that the same note.
There is some plot stuff that feels like it need more polish. It really needs someone with fresh eyes that isn't the author to help edit and clean it up. It has the feel of 80% with the second rewrite needing one more pass.
That said A good start to a new series.
March 16, 2026
An interesting concept, well rounded characters, and good story pacing, but the book is in need of some editing. There were two back to back chapters that had the protagonist leaving the same situation, but proceeding with different characters and different actions. It seems that the author was experimenting with two paths when writing, and didn't eliminate the unused path. There were actions referred to late in the book that we never read about in the text (the protagonist apologized for a kiss with the alien professor that we never read about). There were several other loose ends that an editor should have caught. Finally, the four academy competition seemed very Harry Potter-esque, but that is a comparison that is hard to escape. ... Still, it was interesting enough that I preordered the sequel for "year 2".
March 14, 2026
This is good enough that I will read the next book in the series.
The premise is interesting and entertainingly explored. In some ways it is similar to Ender's Game in that much of the focus is on the drama within a military academy. The main character is reasonably well drawn but some of the other characters, especially the ones in antagonist roles are weak. Towards the end there is a situation where characters change their positions too quickly and there is an admission by an antagonist character seems unlikely.
Overall, it's an entertaining yarn and definitely worth reading.
The premise is interesting and entertainingly explored. In some ways it is similar to Ender's Game in that much of the focus is on the drama within a military academy. The main character is reasonably well drawn but some of the other characters, especially the ones in antagonist roles are weak. Towards the end there is a situation where characters change their positions too quickly and there is an admission by an antagonist character seems unlikely.
Overall, it's an entertaining yarn and definitely worth reading.
March 28, 2026
Engaging sci-fi adventure
I enjoyed reading sci-fi adventures that keeps you engaged and excited to know what happens next. Well detailed written on the academy. The pacing can be slow at times but easy read to follow. Highly recommend this author and cant wait to read the next one.
I enjoyed reading sci-fi adventures that keeps you engaged and excited to know what happens next. Well detailed written on the academy. The pacing can be slow at times but easy read to follow. Highly recommend this author and cant wait to read the next one.
February 28, 2026
Finally a real Mil Sci-Fi story!
A mile ahead of the standard “Sy-Fy” and hit that spot that smart Sci-Fi is meant to.
I’ll not blather on more and will close this review with a full five out of five stars.
A mile ahead of the standard “Sy-Fy” and hit that spot that smart Sci-Fi is meant to.
I’ll not blather on more and will close this review with a full five out of five stars.
March 8, 2026
Very compelling concept and well written
This is a classic space opera and has the combination of relationship tensions as well as an interesting storyline. Worth reading.
This is a classic space opera and has the combination of relationship tensions as well as an interesting storyline. Worth reading.
March 8, 2026
good read
Great read. I am invested in seeing these characters grow over time and what adventures they will get into as they become officers.
Great read. I am invested in seeing these characters grow over time and what adventures they will get into as they become officers.
March 14, 2026
Jon Del Arroz, you had my curiosity, but now you have my complete and undivided attention
March 17, 2026
Jon did a great job with this book. I enjoyed it. Not my favorite book this year, but good.
April 9, 2026
Inspiring and warning.
The book addresses a real problem as science fiction of the best kind, while making the problem personal as well as civilizational. Highly recommended.
The book addresses a real problem as science fiction of the best kind, while making the problem personal as well as civilizational. Highly recommended.
May 12, 2026
Read by digital AI made this odd.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews