This is a fun summer read full of space battles. Get this from your library. Have them buy the whole setoff 14 books. I came across this audio book by accident. I was look for The Expanse from SYFY Network. This story has it all , experimental warship, young ne'er-do-well officer thrust into the captains chair, an implacable enemy threatening Earth, and Spiral Arm, and a quest to get back to Earth before time runs out to save it. This Star Blazers the novel. If you read this or listen to it you won't get high minded ideas, or deep social commentary. You however have good time with the action and the characters.
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After half a dozen books, the Aurora is finally back at full strength and on the way home. Their adventures in the Pentaurus Cluster were pretty cool, but it's about time to move on. All things considered, it was a crazy journey, with a black hole and a centuries old lost colony ship. A thousand light years in a book.

One thing that has been a little crazy this entire series but really comes to a head is that Nathan was charged with bringing the Aurora home. I don't begrudge many of the decisions he made to make new allies and gain new technology, but the number of times he delays and/or risks the irreplaceable Aurora and her crew is maddening.

And then after finally getting home... well, there's a reason this is only book 7 of 15. I just hope that it doesn't take them as long to refuel as it did to fix up the ship the first time... ( )

I recognize the importance to the series for this one, but I feel that the "jump, wait, jump" was really repetitive and wasn't very good. That being said, it really does hook you into the next one... ( )