The Black Sheep

A Learning Experience #3

by Christopher G. Nuttall

The third stand-alone book in A Learning Experience ... In the wake of Earth's collapse into chaos, Captain Hoshiko Stuart made the mistake of speaking her mind - and was exiled six months from Sol to a naval base in an unexplored and uncontacted sector. Placed in command of a single squadron of starships, she expected nothing but boredom. But when she discovers an alien race threatening to exterminate all other races within the sector, Hoshiko and her squadron are drawn into a war to stop them, even if it means forging an alliance with aliens who may themselves become a threat to humanity and building an empire that may alienate her from her family once and for all.

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

406 pages, Paperback

First published November 16, 2015

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite good!

[Jean · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is book three in the Learning Experience series. Our protagonist, Captain Hoshiko Stuart, spoke her mind and is now exiled for six months from Sol to a naval base far away in the unexplored sector. She is in command of a single squadron of Starships. They discover an alien race threating to exterminate all other races. She joins some other alien races to defeat them. Of course, she makes commitments and agreements beyond her authority but they are a long way from Sol and the seat of government.

Our hero is a likable character with courage and honor. She is sort of like David Weber’s character Honor Harrington. The book is well written and the pace is fairly fast. Nuttall creates some interesting and extremely likeable characters. Most often he has strong women in his stories and in this book as the lead character. I like that Nuttall did not do a lot of rehashing background from prior books in the series. He did just enough to trigger recall of the history of a situation or person. This is a good action packed get- away- from- it- all space opera.

I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. The book is almost 12 hours long. Christian Rummel does an excellent job narrating the story. Rummel is an award-winning audiobook narrator.

[Per Gunnar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a rather enjoyable adventure set in the A Learning Experience universe by Christopher Nuttall. The book is pretty much freestanding although it helps if you have read the previous books. It is also somewhat different from the previous books in that it does not focus so much on the original “learning experience”. The Solar Union is firmly established and this is more of a classical beat-the-invading-aliens kind of an adventure. It is a good adventure but it lacks a bit of the originality that the first books had.

This book introduces some new main characters and starts by spinning itself off from the core of the previous books by sending our hero to a naval base far away from Earth and the rest of the Solar Union.

Naturally this backwater outpost where are hero are supposed to be “disposed off” turns out to not be so calm and quiet as expected and things heat up rather quickly.

The story is fairly linear. Sure, there are the usual misfortunes and setbacks during the campaign but the core of the story is the, not so uncommon, one of encountering big bad aliens, build up your forces and then it is … clobbertime. It might not be the most original one but it is one that I like and, not surprisingly, it is well written as is generally the case when Christopher Nuttall does the writing.

The main hero is a quite likable character, there are not too many political dumbasses or otherwise annoying people on the side of the good guys and there are plenty of good fleet action. I would say that readers that liked the Honor Harrington and Kris Longknife books probably will like this one quite a lot.

[Beach Bum · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vaguely interesting

Each of the books in this series are really unrelated to each other, but set in the same created universe, as such each can be read independently and that's a pity, as each book could benefit from references and characters from the earlier books
This one revolves around a ships captain being punished by being sent to a planet, 6 months travel from earth and as a result being given a wide remit.
It has its moments, but lacks any feeling of purposefulness. Half the time I kept thinking "And......."
I'd like to think future books build on the earlier ones, but I doubt it. I'll stick with it as a series, but there is a lot better out there

[Grep · Rating 2 out of 5]

For the audiobook:

I'm done, this is boring. I had high hopes 2 books in, but Nuttall has beaten those hopes out of me one superhuman female Snoo Snoo sex scene at a time.

That's not fair, that was actually funny and entertaining, unlike almost all the space battle scenes and aliens. It's just pedestrian and didn't need to be 11 hours long.

Really, the news clips from earth that pepper the book are the most entertaining bits from this universe. Stop while you're ahead fellow listeners, life's too short for mediocre books.

[Warren W. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book!

I have truly enjoined this series. It developed so lifelike that I found myself wishing it were true! From the sci-fi side to the political side it was non-stop fun! It is refreshing to know that there are some living in a Nanny State that gets it and how dangerous the PC politicians are! Well done, Christopher!

[J. Rice · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the first two books in this series and have read both of those more than once, I stopped reading this book about a quarter of the way through. I didn't like the characters and felt that the story was dull. I might go back and give it another try later, but for now, I'm done.

[Steven Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

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Xxcxxxccccfdxcc cxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx5555666yyyytyyyyy6yyyyy I hate this compulsory review process. I'l stop buying these if I have to write a review before being allowed to read the next book

[Kenneth A. Nakamura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read

This is a nice addition to the series. It kind of throws me how it jumps ahead as far as the main character being the descendent of the first book. I would have liked more character growth.

[Cynthia Slaughter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Military space opera

A descendant of The Stuart's makes an controversial comment in the media, putting her commanding officer in an uncomfortable position. The solution? Put her in charge of a far distant outpost with generalized orders. What could possibly go wrong?

[Pepijn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I should have kept it to book one and maybe to book two. As in knowing my intrests. There there was still a lot of new things where atm it's only focust on war in space which after book 2 I was pretty full from

[john · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great story if ypu ignore the political rant

A great story with good charactors . If only his books werent half baked political rants . Buy it for the story

[Jess Crosby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Breaks off from the main story, trying to build an alliance of the younger alien species to fight back against the dominant ones.

[Ircel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Skip the Political Commentary

A good read in the unfolding Stuart/Solarian saga but skip the political commentary at the end. Let the work speak for itself.

[Travis Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story has developed very nicely! 👍🏾👍🏾

[Keith Glass · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unexpected new direction in a growing series.

Unlike most series, Nuttall's "Learning Experience" universe has only minor character continuity, instead, roughly following the Stuart clan once per generation.

Enter Generation 3. Captain Hoshiko Stuart, grand-daughter of Solar Union founder Steve Stuart, is given command of a squadron sent to an area of the galaxy, 6 months from Earth. And finds herself faced with an expansionist and utterly merciless race waging a war of genocide. Not just battles, but politics both interstellar and military.

I will merely say that Capt. Stuart most definitely takes the Montrose Toast to heart, for good or for bad. I'm waiting for the next book in the series. Luckily, as it's Chris Nuttall, the hardest-working man in SF, I don't expect to be waiting for long....

[Shane · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is hard to think of this book as part of a series. It is really another concurrent story in the same universe. There are passing mentions of previous characters and elements but it really does stand alone. With that established, this is good military style scifi. The characters are interesting if less than fully developed, the action is well paced but not overly detailed. This will never stand up as great literature, but it is a fun and fast read.

[Ron Towery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even family is not enough!!!

The saga continues and we learn that even family in high places can't save you from politics. The reader will see that even being sent to a place far far away can't save one from their own value system and choices. We also see that being in command is an extremely lonely place and victory comes with a price you 'd much rather do without.

[John Beslanwitch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great as Christopher always seems to do

Loved this third installment in this series. that he has many other series makes me wish there were a dozen clones to write each one, but since that is not possible I will just say virtually all of his series science fiction or fantasy are must reads

[Ove · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fairly standalone military scifi in the Learning Experience universe.