Foxxy 's Reviews > First Flight

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.


First Flight is the first books in the Federal Space series. It follows Flight Lieutenant Mason Grey of the Federal Space Forces as the universe deals with the arrival of an advanced humanoid race know as the Ascendency. The Ascendency has a simply goal, rid the universe of an inferior space going race.

While reading I found that this novel was a fairly standard military science-fiction book with elements of Ghost in the Shell, Starship Troopers, and the Vorkosigan Saga. In general I did enjoy the story and appreciated that balance the author struck between world building and plot. There is a contained story in this installment that sets up our main character for the series and their primary motivations. The world building is also well done. I never once felt like I was reading an information dump and the details of the world needed to be puzzled out.

I did have two things that bothered me and prevented this from being a five star read. The plot really dragged in the middle. I understood the point of the mid-novel side plot, but to me it didn't add enough to the story to really justify its existence. In addition, the book suffers from the same problem that Star Trek does. The same three characters are doing everything even though there is a whole ship of capable people.

Book 2 is already out, so I'll be curious to see how the story moves forward at some point in the future.