Starfire a Vince Lombard Story by Mike Lee

Humanity has expanded its realm out to thirteen systems and is reaching out for number fourteen.  This time, there has been a series of events that may halt that progress before it can be fully realized.  Valuable assets are missing in the new system and the government wants answers.  Can Captain Vince Lombard of the Galactic Marine Corps bring those answers to light?

This is a military/space-travel story with a bit of a difference.  In most cases, we are granted access to what's going on through the eyes of a futuristic Navy.   In Starfire, we see the story from the perspective of (as we called them ) the grunts, the ground pounders or the basic Marine rifleman.   It's through the eyes of Captain Lombard, the commander of a company of Galactic Marines on the fringes of human existence in space.  It's a nice break from hearing about propulsion systems, astronavigation or the trials of commanding a ship in space and keeping it in one piece.  This time, we get to hear from a guy whose job it is to break ships into many pieces from time to time.

The story itself has a nice flow and good pacing.  There is plenty of action while still not being overdone.  Any hand to hand fight scenes don't feature superhuman feats of strength, ability or daring.  Scenes using the advanced weapons of the future don't come across as a demonstration of their many features.  It's apparent that Mr. Lee did his homework at least a little when it came to how employ Marines aboard a naval vessel.  I only wish he would have paid more attention to the rank structure and a few more traditions of the Corps.  Many countries have adopted the use of a corps of marines as we did from the British so, much of what I hoped to see but didn't, is somewhat universal.  Honestly, though, it's not that big of a deal and didn't distract me from the story at all.

The characters in this story are developed well enough.  There are some uni-tasker characters (they have only a single limited use) and a few Redshirt types but, this is a story that is really hyper-focused.  We don't get bogged down in a lot of back or side story.  That also means we don't get a whole lot of insight to some characters.  This is, however, the beginning story of a series so, we can always hope to see more of some of these characters in later books.

This is a very entertaining story told from a seldom used perspective.  The result of the excursion of these Marines whets the appetite for the books that follow.  There is, of course, some very violent scenes, a bit of harsh language and the suggestion of adult relations so,  this book is pretty PG13.  It's not so harsh that I wouldn't allow my 13 year old to read it but, I would be ready to answer a question or two if he did.