Duel in the Dark Audiobook By Jay Allan cover art

Duel in the Dark

Blood on the Stars, Book 1

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Duel in the Dark

By: Jay Allan
Narrated by: Luke Daniels
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About this listen

A new adventure by the author of the best-selling Crimson Worlds and Far Stars series.

The Confederation has fought three wars against the forces of the totalitarian Union. Three generations of its warriors have gone off to war, held the line against the larger, more powerful enemy. Now the fourth conflict is imminent, and the Confederation's navy is on alert, positioned behind the frontier, waiting for the attack it knows is coming.

The battleship Dauntless has spent the past 10 months patrolling the border, deployed far forward of the main fleet, a forlorn hope, an advance guard positioned to give the warning of invasion. But no attack has come. Her crew is exhausted, and the aging battleship needs maintenance. With the fleet mobilized and the forward bases overloaded beyond capacity, she is sent clear across the Confederation, to a planet along the quiet and peaceful far frontier. Her crew is looking forward to a rest, and Dauntless herself is scheduled for a long-overdue maintenance session.

But the quiet frontier isn't what it seems, and when a distress call is received from one of the mining colonies on the edge of Confederation space, it falls to Captain Tyler Barron to take Dauntless forward, to find out what is happening, and to put a stop to it.

Barron and his crew have their ship - and each other - but they can expect no other help. Suspicion is strong that Union deceit is at play, that the attack is some sort of diversion intended to draw Confederation forces from the disputed border. The orders are clear. No ships will be transferred from the prospective battle line. Stopping whatever is happening on the rim is Barron's responsibility and his alone.

Barron is the grandson of the Confederation's great hero, the father of the modern navy. His family name has always carried privilege with it - and crushing responsibility. And now he must prove that he has inherited more from his famous grandfather than name and privilege. He must face the enemy and win the victory before the Confederation is caught between two enemies and destroyed.

©2016 Jay Allan Books Inc. (P)2016 Audible, Inc.
Fiction Military Science Fiction Space Opera Space War Transportation

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Not bad, if only tactics, timing and technology we

Not bad, if only tactics, timing and technology were actually applied to the story...but I'll keep reading the series...

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11 people found this helpful

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The story was good, but very predictable

When you have read as many "good vs evil" books and seen as much scifi as I have, a predictable plot is annoying.

That was ok here because it was a good, well written story in spite of this fact.

What really grated on my nerves was Allan's choice of having all military persons, no matter whose thoughts within any of the four cultures' militaries were being presented, used the word "comrades" in the narration of their thoughts to identity their fellows in arms. This wouldn't be a big issue if he hadn't used the term dozens upon dozens of times.

For four cultures so different and with such lack of knowledge about each other, it seemed like a very obvious bit of laziness within an otherwise good book for him to use that term ad nauseam. It cheapened the book for me.

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3 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars

Should be shorter

Jay Allen is a good story teller, but needs to expand his vocabulary. He tends toward redundancies which come off somewhat preachy with repetition. Many phrases, even paragraphs, are repeated almost verbatim. He relies too much on trite wording.

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1 person found this helpful

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Lived it!

my only concern is why do all the crew on the conrad's side sound like their from the deep part of the south.

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  • Overall
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    4 out of 5 stars

Not the best not the worst

An ok story if your don't think to hard on the overall characters and story continuity.

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  • Overall
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Sold

I am glad I bought this book. I will listen to all in the series.

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Fantastic book

I was a little slow to start enjoying it, but the longer I listened the more I was drawn in. by the end I was fully and emotionally invested.

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  • Overall
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    3 out of 5 stars

Similar to many other plots

Luke Daniels is a great narrator; here, however, his female voices were uncertain. It was hard to remember that the 3 women in the story actually were women because they didn't sound like women.

There are some space opera tropes that need to end now. All are present in this book:
1. The use of old Roman/Latin names for military titles and people's names. We rarely use them now; do you think a thousand years in the future people will have reverted to them?
2. The name Kat for a female ship captain. There seems to be some attraction male authors have to this name, as if it makes her both sexy and strong at the same time.
3. The name Dauntless for the main ship. Seriously, every single space tale has a Dauntless.
4. The fact that a warrior people who value honor over all and never surrender, never retreat are always the bad guys.
5. Ship captains who read history, sometimes (but not here) from real paper books and using real eye glasses. Let's leave that one with Kirk and Picard.

Actually the reading of history may be a valid literary symbol, so maybe #5 isn't so bad after all. In this story, it implies that we will continue to repeat our mistakes because no one does read history. This was the most interesting aspect I encountered, yet it was subtle and easily missed.

This story presents 3 civilizations, the Alliance, The Union, and the Confederation. Only 2 of them end up being important in this part of the saga. It is hard to know who is who, especially when the Marines are trying to take a planet and are met with strong resistance. We don't know whose Marines they are, and which side the planetaries are on. This fight should have been one we cared about and cheered for, but it never caught interest. This is a shame because most Marines stories are real chest-thumpers.

It was also difficult to know who was to be the hero and who the bad guy. This was confusing, but actually quite true to life since every soldier on both sides is the good guy to his mother and his comrades. And it allowed us to mourn the defeat and death of the enemy.

There were only 3 people we really cared about, Captain Kat, Captain Tyler Baron and Sam. It took a long time for us to choose which captain to root for. If that was the point, it is so subtle, and so thinly developed for most people to care about, and just causes confusion. There was some real emotion there, and some sincere reflection into motivations, duty, honor, and courage. Those provided the morals to the story. The action was pretty good at the end, the actual duel in the dark. However, this book does not captivate me enough for me to read the next installment.

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16 people found this helpful

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cant get to play. audible support spent 2 hours tr

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

cant get to play. audible support spent 2 hours trying to help and gave up creating a ticket for advanced support. still waiting for the call back.

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Tension built perfectly

Then at Allan has started his series with a perfect wire under tension. It’s like slow motion, watching the splits and grays and brief periods of calm before total collapse . Once I started I couldn’t stop.

This book was everything I wanted in space combat, and I can’t wait to start the next one.

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