The Grand Senate controls the Terran Federation, but is hopelessly
corrupt. When one of the Federation's admirals leads an attack on
Earth, he is just barely beaten back, and so his forces need to be
suppressed…
So yes, this is blatantly the late Roman Republic, plus
hyooooge space battles. One of our main viewpoint characters, indeed,
is Marius (sic) Drake, who's been recalled to Earth after long
campaigns against enemies at the Rim, and finds himself all too
suddenly in command when the attack decapitates the command structure.
And of course for the David Weber fans there are plenty of space
battles with thousands of ships. (In fact this reminds me a little of
the sort of thing Glynn Stewart would start the next year with his
Castle Federation series; both writers have the knack of keeping the
human face of the battle in the foreground, rather than just
enumerating contests of attacks and defences.)
The background of the universe has some solid elements but is not all
it might be. This Federation is paranoiacally human-first, and aliens
are typically swamped with high tech gifts that solve all their
immediate problems but kept in subjugation on their own planets; that
works quite well. But the Conservative Faction in the Grand Senate is
mindlessly pro-capitalist as the companies plunder the outer planets
to keep money flowing to Earth, the Socialist Faction is mindlessly
communist (in the traditional mil-sf style in which anything less than
vicious struggle for every element of your daily life is considered
weak and emasculating), and everyone's more interested in the latest
scandals and in assassinating anyone who might be perceived to
threaten their power than in actually ruling. Yes, of course this
can happen, but it's frankly dull, as if people from the present day
had been handed a sack full of toys and been jumped two thousand years
into the future; if this is all humanity can achieve, I found myself
thinking, what is the point of any of it?
Meanwhile, I found myself frequently distracted by Nuttall's naming
choices. It's not just Marius; his mentor is Professor Kratman,
presumably named for Baen's tame Nazi apologist. We have officers
called Harrington, and Suzan Bones, and Weber, and a marine called Elf
clearly borrowed from Schlock Mercenary. We have warships called
Rose Tyler and Donna Noble and Kimball Kingston (sic), worlds
called Delta Bannerman and Boskone and Bester and Farnham, a Zathras
Sector, a fanatical political officer called Scudder… with all this
going on, I ended up repeatedly wondering why the rebellious Admiral
Justinian was called that, since none of the historical examples of
that name really fits into the late-republic history.
Naturally, the course of events can be broadly predicted; there's no
real suspense over just what will happen, only when it will and what
exact form it will take. And given Nuttall's clear intent to provide a
political parable, I don't expect anyone to come out of this series
looking good or living happily.
"My enemy is devious. I miss Admiral Parkinson. Perhaps I should
have thought of that before I killed him."
There are signs that Nuttall is breaking out of the mil-sf
straitjacket in places, but I suspect it'll take the rest of the
trilogy before those are resolved. I did enjoy this first book in
spite of its problems, and I'll at least give the next one a try.
(Recommended by Peter Edge.)