Space Pirates aren’t supposed to exist. But apparently, nobody told them that. When Thomas’s first command is ambushed in space, only quick thinking will keep his crew alive.
*** A USA Today Bestselling Author! ***
One random pirate ship would be bad enough, But the truth is far more deadly. Multiple ships of unknown origin are striking freighters and kidnapping their crews.
Then the pirates turn their eyes toward the planets.
One man has prepared for this; Thomas’s estranged father, Admiral Nicholas Stein. Hero and villain of the last great war, he has spent decades preparing for the conflict he always knew was coming.
Now he and Thomas are all that stands between humanity and a ruthless enemy who will stop at nothing to control space - and from there, to enslave us all.
When not practicing hobbies which include sailing, constructing medieval armor, and swinging swords at his friends, Kevin McLaughlin can usually be found in his Boston home. Kevin’s award-winning short fiction is now available in digital form at all major ebook retailers. He writes fantasy in settings both historical and contemporary, and science fiction in both the near and distant future.
Accord of Honor is an excellent story. It has all of the right ingredients for a perfect space opera, in my humble opinion. So, why not 5 stars? Because it needs a proofreader. There are several misspelled words and grammatical errors. Also, there are quite a few sentences that have extra words, some so unclear I wasn't certain of their meaning. I know that I am a spelling nazi and that many people can breeze over this type of thing. But, I can't. They throw me completely out of the story especially if I have to guess the word or sentence meaning. Please note this book has been on my 'to read' list quite a while so there may be a new edition with corrections. I still recommend you read it just be prepared. And I enjoyed it enough that I have already purchased the next two books in this series.
Happy reading to you!
Disclaimer: I received a copy from the author and this is my honest review.
For some reason, this book caught my eye so I got it on my reading list and just finished it the other night. It's not an extremely exciting book although it does tell a pretty good story. I didn't think much of it was really reasonable and I'll go into that in a minute. One of the small problems I had with the book was that the chapter headings were in very tiny print compared to the rest of the chapter. I think authors should use chapter titles to let readers know who their talking about or when they are talking about. This book would switch between two characters, Nicholas Stein, Admiral (Ret.), USN and Thomas Stein, the Son. Most of the time, these two characters were at different places doing different things, i.e., they book had starships and were out fighting at different locations. When you jumped from one action scene in one chapter to another, it wasn't clear which Stein you were reading about. The name of the main character was show in very tiny print right under the chapter number and I think the author could have provide more info on the chapter right there. It was confusing as to who I was reading about until I got further along in the book. Again, this is a distraction that only I might have encountered. You might not find this at all.
Ok, back to the story. The retired Admiral Stein has made his mark on the world by becoming a very wealthy shipping magnate. After leaving the Navy as a hero, he used that notoriety to form a shipping company that provided services between the asteroid belt, Mars and Earth. Since his company was one of the very few that did this, space transportation was all his. Earth nor Mars were interested in running a government owned shipping program, so the former Admiral became quite wealthy. His son, Thomas, had just graduated from Harvard and was going through the process of learning the shipping business by running a small ore freighter out from the belt to Mars.
Thomas Stein was pretty confident in his captaining abilities and handling this freighter. It was routine run with a large amount of ore in the holds. Well, it was routine until his freighter came under attack! Through some creative thinking, he managed to out run these pirates and get his ship back to Mars Station. There he met his Dad who had heard about the attack and came to checkup on his Son. The fact that a space ship had attack another space ship was something of significant event in Earth/Mars space travel. A few years ago the Lunar Accord had been signed by all Earth nations which strictly forbid any and all weapons in space. So the fact that a group of pirates were operating armed space ships was a huge problem for everyone, every where!
Admiral (Ret.) Nicholas Stein did not like the Lunar Accord. He was very vocally in his disagreement of the Accord and did not hide his feelings. He had always warned those who would listen that the Lunar Accord left Earth. the Moon, and Mars totally unprotected from any spacefaring entity that first armed their space assets. No one would listen to his warnings. But, it was now too late. These pirates were operating armed spaceships and were highjacking freighters and turning them into more armed pirate ships.
What really caused a problem was when the pirates began throwing rocks (asteroids) at Mars! Without a way to interdict these rocks, Mars was left open to great destruction and huge loss of life. These asteroids struck with the force of an atomic bomb and dug great craters wherever they hit. If they were to attack Earth in this way, the death toll would be tremendous.
Could anybody do anything? Well, maybe the retired Admiral had been up to something that not everyone was aware of. It was time to bring his Son in on the secret R&D facility out in the vastness of space. Would his secret plans be enough?
As I said before, this was a good story, just not very exciting. I didn't buy the premise of the Lunar Accord. No one could ever believe that weapons wouldn't ever show up in space! There are weapons in space right now (in my opinion), but so far there's been no need for them to show themselves. Someday, though, someone will threaten something in space and they will suddenly show up. This story was about those pirates now showing up and everyone is under their guns. Secondly, the one person on Earth that really hated retired Admiral Nicholas Stein, was the next in-line for the U.N. Presidency which, in this story, enforced the Lunar Accord. That guy had a very strong beef with the Nicholas Stein since he believed he was responsible for the death of his wife! His persecution of the retired Admiral was pretty obvious that he was out for revenge! He was also slightly deranged, but so were a lot of the U. N. senior staff!
I'm not sure if I'll read the next book. I might if I see it pop-up on Amazon. But, that's just me. You should read it if you like a quick, simple space story.
Years ago, space development and the fight for resources caused a war between the nations on Earth, so that, after the war, an Accord was reached which put owning weapons, arming nations or spaceships was put under death penalty. War hero Nick Stein, who vehemently opposed this Accord, was ridiculed. Years later, a space freighter captained by Nick's son Tom is attacked in space on its way back to the Mars colony. With no weapons and no Armed Force with the exception of a very small one under the leadership of the U.N., how will Earth and its colonies in space be able to fight the threat? A good story, we with sympathetic and realistic characters, and a good plot, which will draw readers in from the start. However, in my opinion, the story would have gained by being a bit longer, to enable more depth to the protagonists and the story evolving. Events from the past were shortly explained, enough to get on with the story without losing the thread, but their impact on the protagonists, their effects on the current events were not sufficiently covered. For example, Tom, first time in a conflict situation of this extent, has to cope with a death of a team member under his command. His reaction was more like "oh what would Dad do - ah yes, go on with the mission". I think delving a bit deeper in his feelings in this instance, especially the first time it happened, would have given the book itself more character, more of the "oomph" that I was missing a bit. Other events evolving, especially with some of the side characters, would have been worthy of "fleshing out" a bit. The little bit of romance between Tom and Kel made me think it was thrown in as an afterthought, and again, after a short explanation of the cause of their separation, all of a sudden she's there - no talk about the past, about what happened and why. These are only a couple of examples, and I hope I have not given too many spoilers. The second thing this books needs is a very thorough editing session - there were numerous spelling mistakes, wrong words, missing words, which after a while became quite annoying. Although I seemed to have complained about a lot of things here, let me assure you I did like this story, and I would love to get my hands on the next one in this series. As I said before, it's a good plot, not bad storytelling, and the protagonists are diverse interesting.
A good start to a new series! Thomas Stein has completed his education on Earth and has returned to Mars to become a pilot for his father’s company. Nicholas Stein was once Admiral Stein who had seen the Luna Colony destroyed by a Chinese ship. In retaliation he sent the ship back to China and used its nuclear payload to destroy Beijing. At first he was hailed a hero but then a monster. One of the people who died in that attack was the wife of a politician, Shaunesey, who was full of revenge and was a leading figure in trying to destroy Nicholas. After these two events the Lunar Accord was made law. It decreed that no ship in space could be armed and that anyone breaking this law would be executed when caught. Nicholas was against the law as he could see it leaving peaceful ships at risk of a lawbreaker. The UN was the power on Earth and had two underarmed ships in orbit around Earth. While Thomas is captaining a ship carrying uranium to Earth he his attacked by another, armed ship. He manages to escape and get his damaged ship back to Mars where he learns that a number of other ships have gone missing. It looks as though Nicholas Stein’s prediction has come to pass. The situation is dire and Thomas and his father find themselves fighting for all of the Earth, for Mars and for all spacers while being labelled renegade for having armed ships! Really good space opera which even has a little bit of mild romance in it.
Kindle Unlimited, his books are space opera to magical to sorta history to LitRPG, and pretty sure they are all available individually/through ku too. FYI, yes I do binge read writers, unless give them 1 or 2 stars and sometimes 3. Obviously not the case here. Look at amazon writer page. Want a rundown of plot? Look at blurb; want more, read reviews, actually just go to reading the books.
Adventures of the Starship Satori: Omnibus 1 (Books 1-3) Book 1: Ad Astra Book 2: Stellar Legacy Book 3: Deep Waters (Starship Satori Omnibus) - Adventures of the Starship Satori: Omnibus 2 (Books 4-6) (Starship Satori Omnibus) 1 No Plan Survives Contact 2 Liberty 3 Satori’s Destiny
Blackwell Magic: Books 1-3 (Blackwell Magic Omnibus) Book One - 1 By Darkness Revealed 2 Ashes Ascendant 3 Dead In Winter Blackwell Magic: Books 4-6 (Blackwell Magic Omnibus Book 2) - 4: Claws That Catch 5: Darkness Awakes 6: Spellbinding Entanglements The Raven and the Rose: A Blackwell Magic Novella exclusive story not available retail stores set between “By Darkness Revealed” and “Ashes Ascendant”, offer in back of books of his
King of the Dead: Heroes, Swords, and Zombies - Queen of Demons: Heroes, Swords, and Zombies
First, when the narrative changes POV there isn’t a strong enough indication for a few *pages*. Chapter 5 is suddenly a different voice and it is not clear until the POV character starts talking about missing his time in the military that you really understand it’s a new narrator.
Second, if they are breathing liquid, how is he suddenly “hoarse”? The entire decision to use oxygenated liquid to offset acceleration pressure is flawed and poorly understood. Subvocaliztion requires operational vocal cords which is impossible using that method, therefore communication is out. Plus, the weight of the liquid at high-gees will not making breathing possible, it will make it harder. It may even tear the lungs loose in their bodies.
I am going to continue reading, but this is bad ‘science’ for a science fiction novel.
"Some place far away." Clearly and simply written, Accord of Honour is an easy to read and visualize space saga. Some years after the passing of an earthwide accord which prohibited, on instant pain of death, any space craft to carry weapons, several ships are attacked by heavily armed pirates. It seemed that nowhere would be defensible against this aggression. But one man and his friends had been secretly preparing for just such a possibility ...
An interesting story line, writing which is explanatory without becoming over technical, and characters who, though not full three dimensional, are at least taking on the beginnings of a life of their own. This is a pleasant non taxing military S.F. read
This one came recommended by one of the many Amazon marketing emails, and I am glad I paid attention. This is a good first book of a new (to me) series, and is a realistic military-based science fiction novel. The future tech isn’t too over the top and is believable, and the author does a nice job of getting to know the characters and making you feel as if you are right there in the action. I picked this up for free with my Kindle Unlimited subscription vs. its normal price of 99 cents and certainly received more than 99 cents worth of entertainment value. If you like military-based science fiction, I would recommend giving this one a try.
Interesting story. It's scifi, so it automatically gets a plus from me for that. :) It's your typical solar system in trouble story, only this one is because of humans fighting humans. Not new you say? Of course it isn't, but it's all handled very well, and without giving away any of the story, I'd have to say although the one behind it all didn't surprise me 100 percent, it was not the person at the top of my suspect list. Good story, even if it did have too much political intrigue for my tastes.
We have an author who's staying within the solar system. A war to end all wars resulted in an edict that anyone carrying weapons into space would be put to death. One old admiral knew that was a mistake, and decided to develop a peace keeping force. Meaning he brought weapons into space. He kept it hidden until a pirate group also brought weapons into space for nefarious reasons. Guns started blazing. Politics did its contrary thing, and the enemy was revealed.
This is a solid great story with good characters and plot lines. The story moved along at a good pace keeping this reader interested. The space battle scenes were good and the characters engaging, but needed a little more details, i.e. Looking forward to the next book of what I am sure will be a great series.
A gripping story that will keep you turning pages after page. Great characters with realistic situations and lots of action and adventure. Space battles galore and because it's not set to far in the future, it's very believable. I look forward to the next one 😀
An accord, an outcome that is foreseen by one man. Really good story, I liked the POV being switched between father and son. This has the making of being a great series.
What a thrill ride! Lots of space fights, political tension, space physics, all set in a near-future that is all too believable. Helping keep the tension high was the family drama between a father and a son. Couldn't put it down, and will definitely be reading the sequel!
I picked this book up on KU for something new to read. I have found a new author and a new ongoing story that kept my interest throughout. Great characters so far. I will enjoy watching them evolve and the story unfold.
Well written, good characters, shame about the plot. The story would have worked if it had been written in the 1960's. But in the age of renewable energy and the known abundance of Uranium, to say nothing of Thorium it no longer works.
Strong SF by an author who knows how to engage a reader. Strong story, excellent characterization, reasonable science and tech. Off to download the next in the series, and looking forward to the other series by this author!
This was a really enjoyable read! Very realistic, using science and technology we already have, and creating a near future story. Read it in one sitting, couldn't put it down. If you want a good sci-fi read, pick up this series!
From the very start this book is full of action packed adventure. With each new plot twist the excitement grows. I really liked the characters and found them easy to identify with. This is an excellent book and I highly recommend it.
Twisting and unexpected, but logical, characters that effect the arc of the story. Well written with excellent character development and interactions. Thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.