Impulse (The Lightship Chronicles Volume 1) by Dave Bara: Book Review

Impulse by Dave Bara
Published by Daw Books, 2015
Price in hardback: $24.95
Ebook: $9.99 

Lieutenant Peter Cochrane of the Quantar Royal Navy has just lost his first and only girlfriend in an attack by unknown assailants on the Lightship Impulse. Why the ship was attacked and who did it are questions Peter will have to investigate as the Impulse is being sent back to the same exact spot in space under the exact same conditions to try to bring on another attack.....uh, hold it, you might be saying....ok, your ship got attacked at such and such a place and you're going right back into it knowing that you're going to get attacked again? Yep, this is exactly the kind of logic that makes this such an awful book. Peter's ship hardly takes ANY precautions at all in a weird attempt to replicate the attack. Doesn't make much sense to me. Oh, and did I mention that the Impulse was damaged by a "hyperdimensional displacement wave"?  What the FUCK is that? Is this the 1930s?

There's a lot of backstory breezed over in relatively light exposition about Quantar once being part of the "Corporate Empire" until it revolted and battled against it in a war. It all got a bit convoluted at that point with another entity called the Sri also being involved in the war, who pretty much sound like the Borg from Star Trek. And Earth has become some sort of holy Mecca ruled by the Church of the Latter Days (are they Mormons?). The Empire gradually fell apart and planets became isolated from one another after losing light speed capability knowledge...until Earthmen, now called "Historians", arrived on Quantar about 10 years ago. They came offering lost knowledge decades ahead of current Quantar science, especially the ability once again to travel between worlds in Lightships. Earth has now entered into an alliance with Quantar and another planet, Caranthia. All three of the alllies worry that the attack was carried out by the Empire, which hasn't been heard from for over 150 years.

I have the sneaking suspicion that this book is the kind of scifi those dumbasses rigging the Hugo Awards want to see more of. Stereotyped and unimaginative novels that hearken back to the "Golden Age" of scifi when you just made up jargon for the tech and laughed at the words "world building" and logic. Where to start with this book?

First of all, the main character, Peter Cochrane, is a complete and fucking utter idiot. He constantly puts his shipmates in danger by blowing up stuff and making spur of the moment plans that have more chance of killing his friends that saving them.  He also tries to make rash and hasty decisions even when he doesn't have to. He is also seriously suffering from ADD. At one point in the book, Peter is before an ancient keyboard that has undecipherable symbols on its keys. Instead of waiting for a Historian that will arrive minutes later who actually UNDERSTANDS the symbols, Peter is like "omg, I can't wait any longer" because he's hyper and just starts hitting random keys, starts an atomic reaction and puts the lives of his crewmates in danger AGAIN! It's pretty ridiculous what the author makes Peter do. It's almost as if Bara knows his book sucks and is making up pressure situations just to artificially create suspense when there actually is NO cause to have suspense. It's like people tell Peter "whatever you do, do not push that red button!" He pushes it EVERY FUCKING TIME!

The worldbuilding in this book was absolute shite. Bara went over the history in little snippets many times, but I never really understood it exactly. Was there more than one Empire? What exactly were the Sri, and when did Earth fight against them, and was Earth PART of the Empire...and which Empire??? There was a First Empire...and there was a Corporate Empire? Were they one and same? And which attacked the Impulse? Was it the First, or the Corporate?

And back to the characters for a moment. Besides Peter...actually, Peter too....All the characters remained faceless to me and had no identity. I couldn't like or dislike them because they simply weren't deep enough. They were like the teenagers in Friday the 13th films. Unfortunately, the plot was so infantile it was no help in propping up these characters. All that comes out of their mouths are cliches. Me Strong Man, Me Must Go Adventuring. The romance elements in this book were so maggoty it made Anakin/Padme Star Wars scenes look like porno.

On the inside book jacket of this novel, Bara is compared to Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Frank Herbert, and other scifi legends. Talk about spinning in their graves. This book was awful. Avoid at all costs. I am definitely quitting after volume 1 of the Lightship Chronicles

My Grade: F