Ark Royal (Ark Royal I) – Christopher G. Nuttall

The Ark Royal is the oldest starship in the Royal Navy. A relic of the past, still ostensibly on active duty but in reality parked with most of her systems shut down with a caretaker crew. Her captain is a drunk and most of the crew consists of those whose careers took a wrong turn. After a surprise attack by previously unknown aliens, however, Ark Royal is reactivated, rearmed and re-equipped with starfighters for a desperate delaying action.

While the premise is decent, the telling is not. The characters are cardboard cutouts, lacking any traits that might make them interesting. The story is littered with boring infodumps. A lot of telling and not enough doing as the logic of conflict with the armaments at hand is explained, and any uncertainties expounded on at length, as if to ensure that the reader will be able to judge the arduousness of any subsequent action.

I didn’t even make it a third of the way through before I gave up.

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