The Myriad

Tour of the Merrimack, Book 1

By: R.M. Meluch

Narrated by: John Glouchevitch

The U.S.S. Merrimack was the finest battleship class spaceship in Earth's fleet, able to stand up against the best the Palatine Empire could throw at them, even able to attack and kill swarms of the seemingly unstoppable Hive. But nothing could have prepared the captain and crew of the Merrimack to face the Myriad - three colonized worlds in the midst of a globular cluster that the Hive had somehow overlooked.

©2004 R. M. Meluch (P)2017 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved. Recorded by arrangement with DAW Books, Inc.

Great performance. Great read.

Second time through. First as audio book. Great performance. Fantastic read. I own the series.

Promising high anxiety

Put this in the category of Star Trek genre fiction. Strong captain, smart augmented science officer type, and ethnic doctor. Plot is satisfactorily detailed with interesting distinct characters and backstory. Not to mislead, there are no Star Trek characters but there are close look alikes.

Plot is in line with a Star Trek type plot with a better detail. You might actually recognize a particular episode. Interesting alien culture, smattering of sex, and cute alien pet make appearances. Contains strong dose of philosophizing as you would expect in Star Trek ( maybe too much).

Could do without the trope of United Nations types too stupid to breathe and too arrogant to be sympathetic. Military fiction should be capable of acknowledging diplomacy is sometimes a good idea without losing veracity. The enemy in this piece is sufficiently mindlessly evil that you don't have to justify military action by vilifying non-military agencies.

Story is 3 stars instead of 4 for reasons that would be spoilers to relate. Simply climax depends on a twist I can't swallow. Science is mostly good but my pet peeve is equipment depending on a lever, centuries in future. Throwing more force at a lever will break the linkage, not force equipment to operate.