It's nice to see someone who bucks the usual trend of military mavericks. Jack Campbell worked in the Navy and its influence on his work is obvious. The starship battles are well-designed with a focus on fleet action as well as real-world tactics (applied to space) like formation, training, and the importance of discipline. I think few books bother to treat the "enemy" characters as anything but targets so this was a nice change of pace. John is a person who comes from a more civilized time and is appalled by the treatment of prisoners in the present. Despite this, I very much enjoyed the setting and liked the focus on the laws and customs of war. One character assumes he's going to either get them all killed in a heroic attack or try to take over the Alliance. Tactics have degraded in the future to the point everyone just flies at the enemy and gets killed, he's constantly reminded of how awesome he is (while thinking he's not), and everyone who is skeptical of him is either evil or dramatically overreacting. It's not a bad premise, though I think Jack Campbell overdoes it. So much so that he is treated as the Second Coming when he is finally rescued, as well as the man who is to deliver them from the same enemy he "died" fighting so many years ago. Much to his dismay, he finds out his heroic last stand has been elevated to Davey Crocket at the Alamo/King Arthur levels of proportion.
DAUNTLESS (The Lost Fleet #1) by Jack Campbell has the premise of Captain John "Black Jack" Geary being a officer who has been stuck in stasis for a century.
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