To Honor You Call Us – Great space adventure a’la Master & Commander in space

To Honor You Call Us (Man Of War, #1) by H. Paul Honsinger
My rating: 9 out of 10 stars

The Terran Union is engaged in a vast interstellar war against the Krag, ruthless aliens intent on exterminating humankind. In 2315, the wily Max Robichaux is given command of the USS Cumberland, a destroyer with state-of-the-art capabilities but a combat record so bad, she’s known as the “Cumberland Gap.”

Capt. Robichaux’s first mission: to take his warship to the Free Corridor, where the Krag have secretly been buying strategic materials, and to seize or destroy any ships carrying enemy cargo. Far from the fleet and under enforced radio silence, Max relies only on his determination and guile…and the support and friendship of his chief medical officer, the brilliant Dr. Sahin.

Because even as he deals with the ship’s onboard problems and the stress of carrying out her risky assignment, Max and the doctor discover that the Cumberland and her misfit crew are all that stands in the way of a deadly Krag attack that threatens to end the war—and humanity—once and for all.

A far-future story in the tradition of “ships of wood, men of iron” novels, To Honor You Call Us and the Man of War series combines the adventure of exploration, the excitement of war, and the dangers of the unknown through the eyes of a ship and her crew.

This is a book that I stumbled on via various recommendations on Goodreads & Kindle. I am glad I did pick it up. It is a great book. Just my cup of tea. It is a very enjoyable space adventure about two main, rather heroic, characters that quickly form a bond and proceed to, not only get the USS Cumberland back in shape, but also to save The Terran Union. At least temporarily since this is just the first book in what I hope vill be a reasonably long series.

The book is very well written and you really come to like the various characters, at least the ones that are meant to be likable. The science is quite acceptable. I was a bit put off at the start when they started to make combat with cutlasses and such archaic instruments. It reminded me about Tour of the Merrimack, a series which I read because I wanted to finish what I started but was never really very impressed by. It did not turn out to be as bad as I thought though and the space combat is quite well done.

Sometimes the book can be quite humorous, often due to the way the author word things but also due to the friendly bantering and bickering between the various characters. It is written for an adult audience and there is none of this nonsensical replacing of certain words that a soldier on the front-lines would utter from time to time. That kind of language is sparingly used though and mostly the author is demonstrating his skills in using the language instead. I noticed that someone had written a review giving the book a one-star rating on Kindle claiming that the author is struggling with his sentence structure. That review is blatantly false and nothing but trolling as far as I am concerned.

This book is really a great adventure story in the same style as the old sailing ship adventure stories. I loosely refer to Master & Commander in the title but you can probably find quite a few other examples.

I was planning to dig into another book by Christopher Nuttall after I had read this one but I am afraid that I got so immersed in this series that I just have to read the second book in the series right away so, sorry Mr. Nuttall, yours have to wait a wee bit longer. I just have to see where this series goes now.