Alliance Stars

The Alliance Trilogy #1

by Michael Wallace

Captain Jess Tolvern of HMS Blackbeard is leading a Royal Navy expedition across long-dormant space lanes toward Old Earth when an alien fleet ambushes her battle cruiser. The aliens are Adjudicators, an ancient race whose ethos is to judge other species and reduce their survivors to a stone age existence.

Tolvern sends a desperate message back to headquarters and retreats with her damaged ship to friendly systems. By the time she returns, the aliens have already invaded Alliance territory with a powerful fleet of star fortresses and accompanying dragoon ships, trapping and laying siege to the allied fleet.

While repairing her ship, Tolvern cobbles together a squadron of damaged allied warships, former raiders, and the local survivors of an Adjudicator attack to drive off the alien fleet.

Genres: Science Fiction, Space Opera, Audiobook

393 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 20, 2018

About the author

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Reviews

[Kara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Alliance Stars (The Alliance Trilogy #1) disappointed me, despite terrific narration. While the story has a couple of strong women characters, this is space opera, not lesfic.

Although the story is the first book in a trilogy, all of the characters and the story follows on from seven earlier books, and I found myself late to the party after everyone else had been drinking. At first I tried catching up, then I realized all those drunk strangers were really not that interesting to me.

Given that this is the eighth book featuring the players, I’m disappointed at how cardboardy their personalities were. Pompous self-serving bureaucrat: check. Wise and respected commander sidelined by injury: check. Ambitious junior officer: check. Gruff experienced commander: check. Woman insults officer only until she beds him: sheeesh and check. Mysterious aliens, pretty much stolen directly from the final seasons of Star Gate: check. Lots of space action: check.

Well, despite getting lots of checkmarks, and terrific narration, I never found myself caring much about the battles or the characters. It was free on Hoopladigital, but I’m not in any hurry to continue the trilogy or to listen to the earlier seven books in the “Alliance Stars” universe. 2*

[Mike · Rating 1 out of 5]

Alliance Stars was a book I read with no prior knowledge of either author or his books so it was a gamble, one which was a failure. I "read" this as an audio book and the person reading it kept using old seaman's voices in places and there were times I thought I was on the high seas with ship names right out of history. The only one I think we were missing was a gallion. I couldn't make up my mind whether this was a bad book trying to be funny or a serious book badly written and in the end I think it was just bad. Ah well, if we all liked the same thing life would be very boring.

[Red Tide · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really bad

I must have added this review to the wrong book. I just finished the Alliance Stars and it was terrible. I did like some of the other books in this universe but not many and definitely not this one.

There are so many bad parts of the book I'm just reminding myself of the worst. I'm not even going to spend much time on the battles.

The aliens using humans was something I thought immediately and I don't usually foresee plot surprises. The dragoons are a weird label for a ship. Dragoons are medium cavalry and I could find no naval connection to the term when I looked. The barnacles get an explanation finally but too late and it sounds weak. The fleet commanded by a captain??? The admiral commanding a single detached ship??? A lieutenant given command over six warships commanded by captains??? A general pressured by a naval captain?? The admiral is referred to as captain Drake at least once. Are there not more than one admiral in this navy?

The war junks are fine, except that the have no serious offensive weapons. If these are serious warships, what gives? These are the Singaporean main warship? You can have sensors and weapons both. There are attack craft but no carriers, why? Why no provision for destroying an enemy capital ship that is being boarded? As I read the assault pages, I assumed that the boarders carried nuclear charges in case they failed. I was stunned that there weren't any with the boarders. Sloops are weirdly used in these books, though naval designations are always loose but sloops refer to lightly armed, fast scout ships not major warships. They actually would be what I thought the war junks are supposed to be.

The strategic situation is repeated several times but is impossible for me to envision because several nearby stars are referenced along with Persia but there isn't any distance measure not even in "jumps". 27th century medicine only has 21st century prosthetics but can regrow skin, muscles and nerves? The combat is described enthusiastically but it makes no sense from the engagement ranges to the uselessness of minefields. The writer can't visualize the battle he's describing either, I think.

The characters are nutso. They are carried over from previous books apparently but "Vikings" in space? To go viking (pirate) is the term, it's an activity not a culture and it doesn't make sense to add it to this eighteenth or nineteenth century naval metaphor. I hope I phrased that correctly. Are their ships supposed to be space longboats? To work that into the story logically requires a lot more thought and effort than the writer was willing to expend. I'm giving up on this universe. It had two interesting books but the rest are either boring or filled with weird tactics, strange naval structures and terminology from guns being knocked off their carriages to to an arbitrary weakness in the bottom of the ships!

I can't think which book, I originally wrote the review below for, after finishing a couple of books in this series, I have no inclination to look for it.

(I don't like to go five stars for any book but I had to for this one because the story is everything here and the ships and weapons are its servants not its masters.)

(I liked the characters and for once almost complained to myself that there were too many. I had no trouble following the adventures of these sailors from separate commands and the military background just became a given. I was totally involved in the character interactions and their responses to the naval/military circumstances.)

(I think the main characters were well developed and the background universe is awesome. The Fall is always a great start and here the writer is taking full advantage of the possibilities. Hundreds of systems cutoff from trade and with no central authority and no one sure what caused the breakdown, there is so much room for the series to develop naturally.)

(With the depth of these characters, I imagine that I will be just as involved in the next book as I was in this one and as quickly. Note to self, the major figures include female military leaders, alien allies and crew, various tech types and cultural planetary populations.)

Love aliens and will hopefully see more of them in other novels but not in this universe.

[Ru · Rating 3 out of 5]

This (and the series as a whole) was the literary equivalent of a B-movie: few surprises, formulaic, minimal character development, and often so cardboard you can see the screws holding everything together, but told at a rip-roaring pace with a real sense of danger and just the ticket for a bit of uncomplicated escapism. To my surprise, I found myself instantly downloading the next in the series (not so sure I would if I hadn't been on Kindle Unlimited, but that's not the point).

[Trike · Rating 2 out of 5]

There’s nothing new here, just some bog-standard Space Opera with your standard characters. It’s competent but not terribly engaging. It’s very much in the tradition of “Horatio Hornblower in spaaace”, which is fine if you’re into that sort of thing. I’ve just read far too much of this type of story over the years.

I might’ve bumped up the rating a bit if the aliens weren’t total ciphers. They act as forces of nature, which was ultimately unsatisfying because there was nothing to draw me into that aspect of the tale. Even a few more hints about them would’ve been nice, but that’s probably being saved for the sequels.

Although this says “book 1”, it’s set within an existing universe and some of these characters apparently have appeared in 10 (!!) previous novels. I should’ve looked that up before reading, which is on me, but it means I had no preexisting relationship with either this universe or these people. There isn’t any real explanation as to why the British empire exists into the far future, the backstory of which I assume is given in the numerous previous novels.

Added a lot of names to my list of spaceship names, but few of them were original, sadly.

[Mick Bird · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael Wallace uses his extraordinary imagination when writing his sci-fi thrillers and draws the reader into his world beyond the stars. An unknown ship, Unknown aliens, a new enemy no one knows about. Admiral Drake out of commission and Captain Jess Tolvern has to take command. This kept me wanting more. Alliance Stars is the first book in the Alliance Trilogy.

[Jas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alliance Stars is a new series and picks up a few years after Sun King, and the Battle for the remnants of Persia with the Apex.
This is the next evolution in the series, with the Apex having been defeated (for now) at Persia, Albion has decided to both consolidate its territories, but Admiral Drake wants to also strike out to look for old Earth, to find out what happened to their ancestors. There is a new Alliance now, one representing each of the human colonies that they have found so far, as well as their Hroom allies.
Things are slightly different in this book, Wallace has taken Drake and his Dreadnaught out of contention through some clever story writing, Drake is critically wounded and in stasis, and his Dreadnaught, as well as the Hroom fleet and the General, are stuck in Persia due to the collapse of the only jump point in or out of the system.
This leaves Tolvern in command of the fleet, much to the disgust of the pompous hood ornament McGowan, who spends more time making sure he is safe in rear guard actions, than actually getting involved in anything. If he was to be at the front of the pack, everyone would get confused and turn around, assuming they were going the wrong way.
Tolvern however is in good company this time, joined by not only some strong Scandian commanders, but an Albion plant on the Scandian ships who is to act as their liaison, Elizabeth Kelly.
The Scandian’s, Svensen and Olafsen are maybe not the best at strategic or tactical manoeuvres, however, what they lack in tactics, they make up for in brute strength, and when it comes to boarding actions, nothing beats a Scandian Mechanised Boarding party fully revved up and ready to go.
I think this is where Wallace has really shown just how great an author he really is, as we move through each of the different colony types, and see the differences between each of the different cultures, how the Scandian’s are so Viking like, exceptional hand to hand warriors, brutal in close up action with mechanised suits to give them an edge. The Singaporeans, who have had to hide for so long, and are now experts at cloaking and scanning technology. The Albionish, who with their King and royalty, are the leaders, producing the command echelon. And the Ladino, with their wild ways, keep everyone together. The Persian are new to the Alliance, having just been rescued from the Apex, and are only just recovering.
In amongst all of this are the Hroom, these amazing aliens, with such a complex culture and background and history, thousands of years older than humanity, and yet, still recovering from the sugar wars, and civil wars and the Apex slaughters.
Each of these colonies, races, beings, brings something to the table. Wallace has created this wondrous galactic map, with the colony systems mapped out, the Hroom, the known Apex, and a possible known area for old Earth. There is also a fair bit of unknown space. This has allowed him to build these amazing stories around each of the colony world, but also expand out into these new regions – towards Earth, into the Hroom and Apex regions, and to take back Colony area’s from the Apex and re-discover those colonies.
In this story, as Tolvern is trying to work out what to do with the issues of the Persia system, being cut off from those ships, as well as Admiral Drake being so injured, she must continue with her mission. During this time, they have discovered a damaged ship, with failing stasis tubes, and humans of an unknown background, in such poor shape from the stasis that they are dying. One of them they manage to talk to and find out they were fleeing their homeworld from the Adjudicators.
Tolvern and her alliance quickly learn that the Adjudicators are a sect that is almost religious in nature, following strict beliefs, rules and guidelines, and if a race or culture does not meet these standards, they are judged, and if they are found wanting, bad things happen – bad things in the way of something called ‘reduction’. If they a system is reduced, it loses most of its population, and technology, so that it can restart, fresh, purged of their sins.
Obviously, Tolvern and her fleet run into the Adjudicators, and are judged based on several things.
As you can expect, it doesn’t go well for them, and before long, Tolvern and the Alliance are fighting for their lives.
There is so much that happens in this book, it is just a full on story, looking at multiple aspects of the Alliance, their recovery from the conflict at Persia with the Apex and new defences, to the expansion out looking for new colonies and trying to find new Earth. There are all the old characters, plus several new ones, and Wallace continues to develop each of them, making sure that they grow with each book, some a little more than others, depending on their role, but each character gets just that bit better with every book.
The other great thing is that he has changed up the enemy, some series it remains the same, 10 books in, you are still looking at the same enemy, but Wallace has a Galaxy full of different things that challenge our Heroes, in different and unusual ways.
He keeps the mix of character development, dialogue and starship battles at a nice level as well. Whilst it might seem that there are a lot of battles in these books, there aren’t really. There are a lot of skirmishes, but there are only a few major engagements, and these are done with such gripping and stunning writing that you just can’t stop reading.
From the original Blackbeard, right through to this new Series, this is one of the most amazing series out there. It is like watching Master and Commander, but set in space, with elements of The Expanse, Battlestar Galactica and just to keep you on your toes Aliens. If you want to get into something totally brilliant and completely original, that you will just want to read and not put down – jump into this series, you won’t be disappointed.

[John Strange · Rating 2 out of 5]

“YOU CALLED me a dumb, smelly space Viking.” Svensen shrugged. “I’ve heard worse.”

So have I. The Audible audio book narrator sounds like a bemused librarian better suited voicing Harry Potter or YA romantic comedies to children than a military-themed space opera. She is tolerable but she always seemed an odd choice.

Maybe it's because Alliance Stars is a bland, uninspired story. An outnumbered Alliance fleet takes on an alien armada. The humans are equipped with space sloops, war junks, and Vikings. Their leaders are captains, admirals, insolent junior officers, and Vikings.

Many details are missing or lazily provided. It's impossible to tell where the climactic battle takes place. The Alliance had no clue the aliens (excitingly named The Adjudicators) existed despite burning down entire nearby human solar systems for decades. Interstellar travel occurs via wormholes to solar systems which The Adjudicators inconveniently shut down. All of this could be risen above if the characters were interesting. They're not. Although Sven, the space Viking tries.

I won't be continuing with this series anytime soon. It reads more like a novelization of a TV show episode than a life-or-death struggle for humanity's fate.

[Jamie Rich · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alliance Stars (The Alliance Trilogy, #1) by Michael Wallace

A decent example of Military SciFi. Action packed, lots of battle scenes, heroic efforts by the heroes. Massively evil bad guys. Twists and surprises. Not much in the way of character development really, the good guys are good and the evil, mysterious bad guys are bad. As usual, our band of heroes is out numbered, and in a terrible place with regards to getting resupply.
But it's a decent enough story to read all the way through.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

A boring pg 13 version of space opera mixed with old navy jargon.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a British-based story. Being an American, I can sometimes get confused with British terminology especially with their Admiralty stuff. I’m not exactly sure what constitutes some one in the Admiralty. I would have thought that it would only be comprised of Admirals, but no, our very capable Captain Jess Tolvern of the HMS Blackbeard appears to be part of the Admiralty, but I’m not sure why; nor doe it make any difference, I guess.

The HMS Blackbeard was scouting shipping lanes back towards Old Earth when they had come upon a derelict ship adrift in space and didn’t recognize it’s origin. At that time, Captain Tolvern took an away team to search the derelict to see if they could find where it came from and what had happened to it. During her mission, unknown ships came out of slip-space and began to attack the Blackbeard. It fought hard and managed to barely drive off the attackers, but only after suffering some serious damage. Admiral James Drake was commanding the small flotilla that consisted of the Blackbeard and several other support ships. When Captain Tolvern managed to return to the Blackbear, she found that the ships bridge had been pretty much destroyed. The Admiral had been miraculously recovered by one of the crew even though he had some sever and life-threatening burns. It should also be noted that Admiral James Drake was also Captain Jess Tolven’s husband!

So now she is in command. Apparently, and this is where I get confused, Captain Tolvern’s home planet of Albion had just recently fought and won a war against the Apex. Earth’s old colonies had lost contact with the home world and previous to the Apex War, had fought amongst themselves. They had to unite in order to stand against the Apex. So, in the current Blackbeard flotilla were ships belonging to some kind of old Earth Vikings, and an alien race called the Hroom. The Captain of the lead Viborg ship, the Boghammer, was Ulfgar Svensen and he wasn’t accustomed to taking orders from women. And to make matters worse, an Albion officer by the rank and name of Lieutenant Elizabeth Kelly, had been assigned as “liaison” to the Boghammer by Admiral Drake. While these “Vikings" were part of a new alliance, the Albions didn’t necessarily understand that when the Viborg gave their word to abide by an agreement, that’s what they did. They resented Lt Kelly’s presence on their ship and that caused all sorts of problems later on. It was interesting to see how this problem was worked out.

So, now HMS Blackbeard is trapped in a system with very little resources. The ships of the small flotilla have been shot up pretty bad and they do not know when this new enemy will return. And to make matters worse, it appears this new enemy knows how to collapse slip-gates and has done so to the gate serving the Persia system where about a third of the Albion fleet was residing. So, reinforcements are going to be very few and very short if they get any at all. What Captain Tolvern has now is what she will have to fight with the next time the enemy shows up. You can be assured that they will show up again and with a much bigger force.

Lots of good space warfare. A lot of it was confusing as is most large battles, but things got accomplished well and not so well. How Jess Tolvern handles the battles ahead of her is pretty remarkable considering she is also worrying about her dying husband. They have him in stasis right now, but much find a doctor and a facility that can begin his long recovery if that can be done at all.

I found the names of the ships and the different civilizations kind of confusing. I wasn’t sure if they were from Old Earth or were still trying to find it. I don’t know that it matters anyway, but wherever they are, it’s not in the Solar System. I’m not sure if I’ll continue reading this series; there’s just something that doesn’t appeal to me about the whole story. Still, I would recommend you read this first book and make up your own mind.

[Chrissi · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only reason this made 4 stars is the action in the book.
I grabbed this and jumped in blind- my preference. I never read a blurb.. I know I know .. anyways
So I jumped into a world that had me confused for a few chapters. It seems (yes if i read the blurb i’d probably have known) that this book is a continuation in this world. The characters have all been introduced and back stories given ugh...
Once I had sorted out what was where and who did what- I again got a tad lost with the explanations given for the systems and planets.. to be honest still not 100% on what goes where and what’s no longer there but meh .. I grabbed book 2 so I figure I will eventually work it out :)

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a good start to a new science fiction series – it hits all of the main points for me with good battle scenes, future tech that isn’t too far-fetched for me to conceptualize, and the author weaves a good tale that puts you in the middle of the action. I picked this up for just 99 cents during a Kindle promotion vs. its normal price of $2.99, and I certainly received more than $2.99 worth of entertainment value out of it. If you enjoy a military-based science fiction novel, I would recommend giving this one a try.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

Entertaining space listening 🎶🔰

Another will written fantasy world 🌎 space opera adventure thriller novel by Michael Wallace (The Alliance Trilogy book 1). The Blackbeard is the Alliance best ship searching for jump points but they are not available. Then the adjudicatories show up and the war begins both sides take heavy damage but the good 👍 guys win. Continued in book 2. I would recommend this series and author to 👍 readers of space opera adventure thrillers novels. Enjoy the adventure of reading or listening to Alexa read books 📚. 2022👒😇😮

[fred jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

An entertaining story but with a few issues and poor narration. I liked the ideas and the battles work well but I found the characters thin. The narration by Emily Beresford was quite poor, her delivery felt rushed and lacking in tension and her accents were average. I would like to read more just to see what happens but i am unlikely to buy more audios.

[John Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 1/2 Stars

Great characters, world building & action. Military sci-fi at it's finest. Start at the beginning of the first series & read them all. Start with Starship Blackbeard & continue on. Good stuff!

[Raymond Siso · Rating 5 out of 5]

An intriguing story which kept my interest throughout, looking forward to the next book.

This book captured my attention and kept it throughout the book. I look forward with great anticipation for the next book.

[Sandi Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jump points?

If you like SF as much as I do, you will
enjoy this bpok. and those that follow. Wallace is a great writer of characters, and you will
want to find out what happens to them next!

[iainascot · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad

Rather a well -written book, a little long winded but generally enjoyable worth obtaining the next book in the series

[Mark Baller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great science fiction fun read

[Sherron Wahrheit · Rating 2 out of 5]

High action war story about as interesting as 1970s car chase movies. It’s bad. But is it campy bad or bad bad? It’s a trilogy, so for me it’s a no, no, and no.

[C.S. Areson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like this though at first I wasn't sure.

[Noodle The Naughty Night Owl]

1/10: Couldn't get past the first few chapters; not for me.

[Star · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. Just too many spots where i was like wtf, this does not make sense for characters and the setting to be what they were and do what they were doing.

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice story, though the writing isn't up to the standards of Jack Campbell or David Weber, but if you're a scifi fan, it's certainly a worthwhile read. I don't think I'll listen to the audio version of the next book, as I found the narrator to be pretty limited in her ability to voice several different characters, and her speech patterns didn't always read sentences as they should have been voiced. I've been spoiled by very good narrators for the most part, and when I run into one that doesn't handle different characters well, it bothers me more than it probably should, but that's partly why I don't listen to nearly as much audio as I used to.
Anyway, the audio reading aside, I found the story to be a good one, just not told as well as it might otherwise might have been, but I fully intend to read more in the series, probably on kindle unlimited.

[C.A. Knutsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Space battles and strategies

If you like space battles and strategies this is a book for you. The Alliance fleet is damaged and the alien force is powerful. It doesn't look good for the Alliance.

[kim barnard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Couldn't put it down! Plenty action and story line movements to keep things from getting monotonous. Gotta get books 2 and 3!