Hell Fleet

Sliding Void #5

by Stephen Hunt

HELL FLEET (Sliding Void book 5)

'Hell Fleet' is the 5th book in Sliding Void series. It's a completely stand-alone adventure, not directly linked to the first four books.

DESCRIPTION
Captain Lana Fiveworlds has three ghastly problems:

(1) Her beloved crewman Calder Durk's gone missing.
(2) She now has a daughter to bring up on the rickety free-trader ship, Gravity Rose.
(3) Said daughter's from a parallel dimension (and that's only the start of her strangeness).

Meanwhile, Commander Adella Vega of the Alliance navy - aka Hell-Fleet - also has three dire headaches:

(1) She's stuck at the dog-end of the galaxy on punishment duty with the Fleet's losers, thieves and pedantic pen-pushers.
(2) Large portions of her sector just went dark.
(3) Something big, bad, and particularly nasty is now heading her way.

Both their troubles are about to collide and multiply in the most horrific manner since the Vela Supernova Remnant detonated.

Sometimes, the future's so bright you better bring lead-lined shades. And a rail-cannon or three. Because Earth's best space opera series just met the page-turning universe of military science fiction!

Genres: Science Fiction

255 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 8, 2018

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Stephen Hunt is a British writer living in London. His first fantasy novel, For the Crown and the Dragon, was published in 1994, and introduced a young officer, Taliesin, fighting for the Queen of England in a Napoleonic period alternative reality where the wars of Europe were being fought with sorcery and steampunk weapons (airships, clockwork machine guns, and steam-driven trucks called kettle-blacks). The novel won the 1994 WH Smith Award, and the book reviewer Andrew Darlington used Hunt's novel to coin the phrase Flintlock Fantasy to describe the sub-genre of fantasy set in a Regency or Napoleonic-era period.

Reviews

[Julian White · Rating 4 out of 5]

A longish but fast-moving read. The Triple Alliance is threatened by an alien incursion by the Quazalrats, an amphibious race (frogs crossed with sentient velociraptors is the description given) with the ability to impact hyperspace travel. Adella Vega is stuck on punishment detail at the far end of Alliance space and somehow has to make it back to the Core with the forces and civilian traders that have washed up at Dark Viking Station. Throw in a Rear Admiral promoted well above his capabilities and the usual politics (the Unity) and she has her work cut out.

Shades of Hornblower and Bolitho (reflected in the choice of a quote from Nelson as an epigram) though not Jack Aubrey (inimitable!) Adella faces escalating problems as the Quazalrat fleet nears.

A full length novel rather than the episodic serial of the first book Hell Fleet features the return of Calder Durk but is essentially a stand-alone. There is a brief link into a (presumed) follow-up.

Splendid stuff.

[Bob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Space Opera/Science Fiction.Consortium navel fleet fighting invading aliens with overpowering numbers and forces. consortium nave captain assigned to a backwater scrap yard run by an incompetent vice admiral manages to put together a force from resurrected war ships to fight the invading aliens, but has to deal with the Admiral whose plans lead to disaster. There are other actors in the mix as well as the Captain fights her way back to the home worlds. An ok read as such things go.

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was pretty good. Told from the perspective of a new set of characters, but the original cast does make an appearance.

Much more on space strategy than the previous which was a fun change of pace.

Need more in the series...

[Eddie Mae Clendenin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sad sequel to fairly good read