Ascendant: This is some really good military sci-fi.

Ascendant (The Genesis Fleet, #2) by Jack Campbell
My rating ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ out of 5 stars

A young fleet officer and a Marine stand together to defend their colony in the continuation of the powerful and action-packed Genesis Fleet saga from New York Times bestselling author Jack Campbell.

In the three years since former fleet officer Rob Geary and former Marine Mele Darcy led improvised forces to repel attacks on the newly settled world of Glenlyon, tensions have only gotten worse.

When one of Glenlyon’s warships is blown apart trying to break the blockade that has isolated the world from the rest of human-colonized space, only the destroyer Saber remains to defend it from another attack. Geary’s decision to take Saber to the nearby star Kosatka to safeguard a diplomatic mission is a risky interpretation of his orders, to say the least.

Kosatka has been fighting a growing threat from so-called rebels–who are actually soldiers from aggressive colonies. When a “peacekeeping force” carrying thousands of enemy soldiers arrives in Kosatka’s star system, the people of that world, including Lochan Nakamura and former “Red” Carmen Ochoa, face an apparently hopeless battle to retain their freedom.

It’s said that the best defense is a good offense. But even if a bold and risky move succeeds, Geary and Darcy may not survive it…

So far I am happy that I picked up the book series. I liked the first book, Vanguard, in the series and this one, the second book in the series, was actually really good.

Geary and Darcy is back in the saddle after the incompetent Earth officer that the equally incompetent politicians put to run their “navy” got his ship and himself blown up by the bad guys without even firing a shot back. Unfortunately the asshat took half the Glenlyon space force with him so now Geary, and Glenlyon, has a bit of a problem.

Luckily Geary is every bit the hero we expect him to be and now he has also developed a healthy distrust, not to mention deafness, when it comes to the asswipe politicians trying to run the show. This is actually my main gripe with these books. I am so tired of useless, incompetent and downright stupid politicians. There’s enough of these scumbags running around in real life. I do not need to have them in my books as well. It is a small consolation that the ones in these books are not downright evil (yet) but just as incompetent and detached from reality as you would expect from a politician.

Apart from that it is a great book. Good characters, good interaction between them, very likable and competent main protagonists, quite good story and it is well written. Jack Campbell is not exactly a newbie author and it shows.

The best part of the book though is the action. It is very well done. As usual I do like the space action best but the ground pounding (can you call it ground pounding when it is marines slugging it out on a space station by the way?), mostly done by Darcy of course, is very readable as well and there is quite a lot of both.

I will, of course, not hesitate to pick up the next book in the series and I really hope that the story continues in the direction I hope. In particular I hope that Glenyon and their new ally Kosatka get their priorities right so we get to see a bit more actual space navy action. One or two ships in the entire navy is a bit sad after all.