Sci Fi book recommendation: Black Fleet book series by Joshua Dalzelle
Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2025 8:47 am
Just finished the first book, Warship. I could not put it down (well figuratively, as I listened to the Audible version).
If you're a fan of hard space combat Sci Fi with real world physics, this is for you. Like any good Sci Fi it only has two magical technologies, and then the rest of it is firmly grounded in real physics. There is a 'warp' drive. Ironically, the company that invented it in 2050 tried to market it as the T-Drive, but pop culture insisted on calling it the Warp Drive due to the popularity of a certain Sci Fi franchise
at the time. Unlike Star Trek, it has limitations, and cannot be used in combat. It just gets you between star systems. The other magic is a gravity field generator, also with limitations. Unlike Star Trek's gravity deck plating, this is a gravity generator that creates a field around the ship, and is too bulky to put in smaller shuttles or frigates.
Weapons are mostly ballistic: Missiles, rail guns, and there are lasers. But that's it. No magical shields: Ships are massive, with dozens of feet of armor and retractable weapons and sensors to protect them during combat. No faster than light comms (except for warp capable comm drones), no faster than light sensors, just radar and visual and IR telescopes. Maneuvering engines are fusion powered electromagnetic propulsion drives using argon as the reaction mass.
Everything is firmly grounded in Newtonian physics. Ships are capable of several hundred gravity acceleration, thanks to the gravity generator counteracting the thrust that would turn people into paste, but ships still take days to cross a solar system. Combat engagements take days or hours to setup, but the battles themselves last for mere minutes as the ships generally pass each other at high velocities.
The book is loaded with technical details on how things work, which makes a hardware nerd like me very happy. Command structure aboard ship is very much like modern navies, with the first officer managing the crew, via NCOs, and the crew in the lower decks generally have no idea what's going on in the big picture, nor do they need to know. I dunno if Dalzelle ever served on a naval ship, but it feels like it from his writing.
Dalzelle makes all his characters very real, with the normal collection of human flaws. The Captain carries a ton of excess phycological baggage. This particular ship is where all the misfits get sent.
The 2nd half of the book kept me on the edge of my seat. The combat is some of the best I have read since the Lost Fleet series or the Honor Harrington books.
I can highly recommend it. I just started the second book in the series.
Quote:
If you're a fan of hard space combat Sci Fi with real world physics, this is for you. Like any good Sci Fi it only has two magical technologies, and then the rest of it is firmly grounded in real physics. There is a 'warp' drive. Ironically, the company that invented it in 2050 tried to market it as the T-Drive, but pop culture insisted on calling it the Warp Drive due to the popularity of a certain Sci Fi franchise
at the time. Unlike Star Trek, it has limitations, and cannot be used in combat. It just gets you between star systems. The other magic is a gravity field generator, also with limitations. Unlike Star Trek's gravity deck plating, this is a gravity generator that creates a field around the ship, and is too bulky to put in smaller shuttles or frigates. Weapons are mostly ballistic: Missiles, rail guns, and there are lasers. But that's it. No magical shields: Ships are massive, with dozens of feet of armor and retractable weapons and sensors to protect them during combat. No faster than light comms (except for warp capable comm drones), no faster than light sensors, just radar and visual and IR telescopes. Maneuvering engines are fusion powered electromagnetic propulsion drives using argon as the reaction mass.
Everything is firmly grounded in Newtonian physics. Ships are capable of several hundred gravity acceleration, thanks to the gravity generator counteracting the thrust that would turn people into paste, but ships still take days to cross a solar system. Combat engagements take days or hours to setup, but the battles themselves last for mere minutes as the ships generally pass each other at high velocities.
The book is loaded with technical details on how things work, which makes a hardware nerd like me very happy. Command structure aboard ship is very much like modern navies, with the first officer managing the crew, via NCOs, and the crew in the lower decks generally have no idea what's going on in the big picture, nor do they need to know. I dunno if Dalzelle ever served on a naval ship, but it feels like it from his writing.
Dalzelle makes all his characters very real, with the normal collection of human flaws. The Captain carries a ton of excess phycological baggage. This particular ship is where all the misfits get sent.
The 2nd half of the book kept me on the edge of my seat. The combat is some of the best I have read since the Lost Fleet series or the Honor Harrington books.
I can highly recommend it. I just started the second book in the series.
Quote:
https://www.goodreads.com/series/293282 ... fleet-sagaIn the 25th century humans have conquered space. The advent of faster-than-light travel has opened up hundreds of habitable planets for colonization, and humans have exploited the virtually limitless space and resources for hundreds of years with impunity.
So complacent have they become with the overabundance that armed conflict is a thing of the past, and their machines of war are obsolete and decrepit. What would happen if they were suddenly threatened by a terrifying new enemy? Would humanity fold and surrender, or would they return to their evolutionary roots and meet force with force? One ship—and one captain—will soon be faced with this very choice.
Against incredible odds, Jackson Wolfe is determined to save humanity–and in the process, might end up saving himself.