Started off a fun read, but quickly devolved into a very white America cold war mindset that I found too troubling. The good guys are part of the United Systems Alliance (USA, get it?) and good Christians. And for the bad guys we get corrupt Russians (with a legit Vladimir as head boss) and infidel-hating, women-raping Muslims. You set the book in the future and in space, see if you can't use some imagination and not settle on some cliche and troubling caricatures as villains.73 s1 comment C.T. PhippsAuthor 55 books623

AGAINST ALL ODDS by Jeffrey H. Haskell is a fantastic military science fiction novel that manages to stand above all the others in its genre. I have read a large amount of space opera and military science fiction over the years, especially indie, and only a small number stand up above the rest. I was really impressed by this volume and have gone on to preorder the next two books in the series, not even waiting for their Kindle Unlimited release.

The premise is that in the distant future, mankind has settled numerous star systems and created a large galactic community of feuding states. Jacob Grimm is a naval officer for one of these and ends up permanently tarring himself with the mantle, "The Butcher of Pascal." This is an unfair charge but one that the Navy very much wishes he would resign over. Refusing to do so because it would dishonor his family legally, Jacob resigns himself to being eventually cashiered out after a set number of years.

Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your point of view, Jacob is the perfect disposable pawn for a plot by the Navy to restore its lost prestige. Sending him out to the edge of civilized space, he's given a poor ship and demoralized crew. It is the hope of the Navy to spark an incident that will result in a conflict that allows them to rebuild their forces. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your point of view, Jacob does too good of a job and exposes just how corrupt things have gotten.

I won't get into any more of the plot, but I found it to be quite entertaining from beginning to end. Jacob is a very likable protagonist and a calm, sober, professional in a sea of incompetent idiots in the genre. He also has a supporting cast that is very well-developed, each of them having a reason for getting dumped on his starship in the middle of nowhere.

Despite how much I d Jacob Grimm himself, I enjoyed the characters more. People who are slightly more flawed and dealing with their own significant problems. The Fleet Admiral is willing to start an interstellar incident in order to save the Navy, but she's not wrong it may save millions of lives in the process. I also was very fond of Nadia, a tramp freighter captain who gets caught up in some truly repellent circumstances beyond her control.

The enemy states are familiar ones with the Caliphate of Hamid being a reactionary misogynist fundamentalist society and the Iron Empire being a neo-Russian expansionist dictatorship. It's basically Call of Duty: Modern Warfare in Space. I was pleased the author included non-Caliphate Muslims who aren't nearly the complete bastards that the rest of the country are depicted as. I was also interested in the character of Daisy, a Caliphate spy with very mixed feelings about her job, who I hope will show up in later books.

Jeffrey Haskell has an excellent grasp of action and there's several standout scenes. I will warn readers that the bad guys are human traffickers and there's one (offscreen) sexual assault that plays a role in the book. Still, I strongly recommend the book and will be picking up the sequels that are now available for preorder.grimm-s-war space-opera19 s Chip858 50

The five star are, well, wrong. This is a decent enough book, and anyone that enjoys HORNBLOWER IN SPAAAACCCEEE (ie David Feintuch’s Midshipman’s Hope et al, David Weber’s Honorverse books, Jack Campbell’s Geary books, etc.) will this - but the characters are cardboard thin and the plot the same. I’ll read the rest, as mild / fast brain candy entertainment - but doesn’t hold a candle to something Bujold’s Vorkosigan series.

Edit: Stopped reading series at (and DNF) book 3. science-fiction19 s Tilman G17 1 follower

3.5 Stars, What it says on the tin.

Overall, a fine read. Promises military Sci-Fi and delivers military Sci-Fi. Nothing transformative or particularly thought-provoking, but if "Military sci-fi" is what you're looking for, this isn't a bad pick.

That said, I have some (hopefully constructive!) criticisms:

1. I get that worldbuilding future tech and space ships is hard, but this setting suffers a bit from the "Star Wars"-problem where the spaceships are basically just WWII seafaring ships with some advanced clarketech artifacts glued onto them to make them go zoom and shoot big bullets.

This comes up in multiple places and the biggest small detail that completely threw me was this: there's a part of the story where the ship has lost power and people are afraid to open bulkhead doors because there might be no air behind the sealed door and opening it might suck them into space. At casual glance, this might seem reasonable, but thinking about this premise for more than a couple seconds raises all sorts of questions. For example, why aren't there purely mechanical indicators on each door that indicate a vacuum? Furthermore, why aren't the doors designed to be un-openable in case of pressure differential in the first place?! The doors on the ISS, which was designed over 20 years ago, already has doors this, and there's no reason that a future space navy (900 years in the future) would have worse doors than the spacecraft of the late 1900's.

Another similar situation was where the XO had to pull the plug on a server and it was specifically specified that it was attached magnetically and required a 10kg pull. This doesn't make any sense on a spacecraft. Why would you have a critical server that's so easy to accidentally unplug? Sure, 10kg sounds a lot, but on a ship that's capable of 100s of G's of acceleration, even the tiniest flicker in internal gravity would rip that plug right out of its socket. In a realistic aviation or naval environment, this plug would be screwed in place and secured in such a way that it is impossible to remove without tools and time. Large insulated bolt-cutters would be provided nearby to cut the cord in case of emergency.

2. The author engages in a lot of cliche.

The evil empire enemy is, surprise surprise, a traditionalist Islamic slave-empire who use nano-tech control collars to kidnap, enslave, and abuse women. The more direct antagonist is a Russian politician slash crime boss who's name is literally Rasputin. I mean, cliches are cliches for a reason (because they work and people them) but a bit of trope-subversion never hurt anyone.

3. Strokes the military a little too hard sometimes

Look, I get it. This is military sci-fi. Our guys are the good guys who are fighting the good fight against the bad guys with and honor and glory and duty and blah blah blah. The politicians who cut the defense budgets are obviously the villains and complicit with the slave empire people and oh woe is us whose military is shrinking year by year!

Now, it's not an unreasonable premise. It's easy to see how a prosperous society might grow complacent, weak, and lazy, to the point where they ignore threats and are caught flat-footed when military action rears it's head (topical example is Germany in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict) but the story spends a lot of time riding around on this message that the military needs to be made bigger, to the point where it seems that it's the main message the author is trying to convey. It's not subtle at all. 10 s Wendy Wallace370 4

I read a lot of books and usually rate them as good, very good and excellent. However, there are some which I consider outstanding and this book is one of them.

Aethon Books sent me this book as an ARC and I thank them so much for such an excellent read.

I devoured this book. It is full of action, fun, excitement, suspense, horror, heroes and just plain easy to read.

Poor Jacob Grimm. He previously had a bad time accused of being a butcher when a load of dead children was found in a ship he destroyed. Everyone seemed to be against him. However, he had saved his ship and other ships from being blown out of space by the three ships attacking them, but that didn't seem to matter to the press or the Navy.

He is sent to Zuckabar as temporary captain in charge of the USS Interceptor. However, Interceptor had been in orbit with no drive for three months and nobody had been able to find out where their drive was currently located. The ship was in terrible disrepair. The crew were lax and lacking discipline.

No-one told Jacob that he wasn't expected to succeed or that he was considered expendible. Nevertheless, he was not someone to let things get to him and eventually he and his crew save the day.

The author has written a devious ending to this book and I loved it.

It is part of a series but can be read as a stand alone book.

This is a book I highly recommend to anyone who s the space travel genre.7 s Daniel776 76

This was a fun read but on the other hand it's way to predictable. Nicely written but no originality. If you want some nice military space opera go for it otherwise keep clear of it.

Cheers.7 s Jackie249

Good read

I sat down 2 days ago to start reading this series, and although the book had a slow start, it captivated me.
Haskell did a good job with building the characters and creating some pretty exciting attle scenes....I the tactical intrigue.
On to the next book!5 s Scott SiglerAuthor 64 books4,144

I loved it. Taut storytelling, excellent characters, and impressive world building. 5 s Jason911

Against All Odds follows Lt Jacob Grimm, who at the start of the book, is a bright, up and coming Lieutenant, who makes a difficult decision whilst he is the Duty Officer of his starship during a combat situation, taking on what appears to be several pirate vessels that attack the convoy he is a part of. Grimm’s actions save not only his own ship, but those of the other ships, however, when they board one of the captured pirate vessels, it is full of dead children. The four ships used in the attack had been piloted by children as a terrorist attack and for propaganda.
Grimm of course is used as a political scapegoat, even though he did nothing wrong, due to the uproar over the situation that occurred. Most of the rest of the bridge crew either resigned or some, due to guilt, took their own lives (and it is here, that I should point out that this book has some very intense, powerful and graphic scenes of violence and abuse. It could be a trigger for some people, and it is most definitely an adults only book). Grimm, however, even with some wonderful nicknames due to his surname, would not give up, mainly due to the memory of his Mother, a former Master Chief who died under heroic circumstances. He is unfortunately only a Lt, and unless he makes Lt Commander, he will be mustered from the Navy.
Grimm continues on working, trying to work through the past, and just move on, and when it comes to the next promotion round, he is suddenly ordered to the Zuckabar system, and given a promotion to Lt Commander and put in command of a Destroyer – the Interceptor.
The Interceptor is a mess though, having been left in dock for nearly 3mths due to a missing part, and a dead CO, the crew’s morale is terrible, the ship is in disrepair and falling to bits as it has not been cared for, and of course, everyone knows who he is and his reputation.
As Grimm starts to try and put the ship and the crew back together however, he sets in motion a complex chain of events that will not only put him and his crew in danger, but the lives of everyone on the station, and multiple other ships and people as well.
Against All Odds starts with this intense opening scene, and then slows to introduce its main character, before launching into a series of fast paced, combat-intense, gritty and powerful sequences that seem to only get more powerful as each one unfolds. Just as you think things couldn’t get anymore captivating and enthralling, another event will unfold and you won’t be able to put the book down until you have found out what is going to happen.
The character work in this book is exceptional, Grimm has so much depth to him, as the scapegoat for a crisis that was not his fault, but at the same time, still feeling the guilt over killing all those children – even though it was at the risk of his life, and the life of hundreds of others. His emotional and psychological state are intensely realistic, powerful and gritty, as instead of losing control, he focuses using his mother’s memory to keep him balanced.
There are multiple other characters in this book (and I am not going to give spoilers), but they are all just extraordinary. There are some intensely powerful and graphic scenes in this book, and how the characters deal with them is handled very well. There is a good understanding of the psychological damage some things can do to a person.
The other really outstanding aspect of this book is the world-building, the science and combat sequences, which were all done exceptionally well, and brought the story to life around the characters. It is vitally important in this sort of book that not only the science, but especially the combat is done well, and from the very first space combat, to the first of what is a brutal combat sequence with the marines (and is just intense, you feel you are there with shots flying around you), Haskell does an extraordinary job describing these sequences.
Against All Odds is one of those books that you pick up, and realise that once you start reading, you won’t be putting it down for a while. (I suggest the Audiobook, at least you can walk around listening to it!). As the story starts to unfold, and moves from one intrigue to the next, intense combat, startling outcomes, and captivating storylines, you will be hooked on the tale of Jacob Grimm. This is easily one of the best Mil Sci-Fi books I have read all year, if not Sci-Fi books, it is one that is an absolute must read.
4 s Natalie Elizabeth78 1 follower

This book has such high ratings and I wanted desperately to love it. I love a series set in space! If I could give it more 2.5-2.75 stars, I would.

Pros: space! Underdogs doing heroic things. Galaxy travel.

Cons: it began to become VERY pro America Christian propaganda feeling. I understand that in novels dealing with battles and war, there are “good” guys and “bad” guys. This is a novel about space. It talks of people from varying planets and systems. Why were both of the bad guys in this book of middle eastern descent and Russians? The stereotypical American boogeymen. Come on. They weren’t even well written fully formed characters. The Caliphate spies and soldiers reference Allah and the more extremist sides of Islam. The Russians quite literally spoke of vodka and repeatedly said “da” as of to prove they’re Russian. Really? You couldn’t come up with just warring political factions? You had to write comically bad caricatures of real cultures? Then of course the hero is a Christian male. Who else to defeat the foreign bad guys?

The first half of the book was honestly great. I d it a lot. Then it progressively got bad. It felt the characters were rushed so half of them that you were intended to care about, were nobodies that didn’t matter if they died. The whole end battle was just a clusterfuck of sci-fi jargon, rather than a well written battle. A bunch of people you’re introduced to die, and it’s just “eh, well, space, what can ya do?”.

I had really high hopes for this and got let down.This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.Show full reviewread-in-20234 s Irredeemable Shag59 2

Found myself wrapped up in this military sci-fi book and couldn't put it down. The protagonist's journey was interesting enough, while not necessarily revolutionary. However, the author's writing style is what grabbed me and kept me pushing forward.

My only criticism is related to the nature of the antagonist governments. There good guys are clearly based upon the United States, and the bad guys are obviously based upon other 20th/21st century cultural stereotypes. If you can get past that (as I did), and you enjoy military sci-fi, then this book is highly recommended!

I will continue and read the next volume.sci-fi4 s Cmoore1,812

What a wonderful MilitaryScifi drama. Against all Odds is a fast paced full out adventure! It is guaranteed to keep you on the edge-of-your-seat throughout the entire book! This is the story of how Jacob Grimm's first military action, and what should've been his triumph became his shame, and why he was reassigned to a broken down ship. A political posting in order to make him a scapegoat, just in case everything went to hell! The politicians would already have their sox-puppet in place, so they could play out the blame game. However Jacob Grimm had other plans. He was determined to serve out his remaining time in the military, to the best of his ability and with dignity! And boyo, believe me when I say, all the odds were against him!!!
Despite the military aspect, this really reminded me of Nathan Lowell's work in the Solar Clipper series. It even has pirates! But mostly it really reminded me of the main character, of Ishmael Wang as he steps onto the Agamemnon for the first time, the worst ship in the fleet, and then has to work hard wrestling his crew into shape! And the similarities don't stop there! but I'm not telling you any more, you'll just hafta grab book to find out!
And man, Peter Berkrot's narration is exemplary!3 s Jon SvensonAuthor 9 books95

This is my first book by this author, and it's a doozy.

Jacob Grimm was on an Alliance ship, having been handed control while the captain got some shut eye. Hours later, small ships appear, firing at his ship plus the other three with them. Two ships are dead in the water immediately, all hands lost, while another is damaged.

Jacob makes the call to fire back, taking out most of the small fighters. That was the moment his life took a hundred and eighty degree turn.

Because inside the small ships were children. A media storm flares up, calling Jacob a butcher of children even though he'd done the right thing.

Skip ahead two years and he's working in obscurity on a repair station. But not for much longer.

What makes this book work are the varied political and military interests. I don't want to spoil anything so I won't mention them, but from the books I've read this year this one takes the prize as best military sci fi series. It's that good. There's tension, battles, mysteries, political maneuvering, and much more.

Highly recommended. 5/5*action-adventure military-sci-fi science-fiction3 s Danny Cannon122 3

The hero we needed!

This is one of the best books I’ve read in a LONG time. This is what it felt when I read the first book of ExForce. This is ExForce without the annoying AI. This is Galaxy’s Edge without the “special powers”. Grimm is the love child of Kirk and Pickard, but smarter. Are you tired of “stupid MCs”? Here is a guy you can root for!

As soon as I was done, I preordered the hardcopy.
There were several times where I’d be listening and my wife would come in to check on me because I’d yelled, “Heck Yeah!” entirely too loudly.
I am fully invested in the future of Jacob Grimm. Mr. Jeff Haskell, you hit a home run with this one, sir! Wow.
Just, wow.
Peter Berkrot absolutely nails the performance! I listen and read on Kindle and he definitely enhances the book with his reading. This…, I can’t say enough good about this!

I probably going to read/listen to this one a few times.
I recommend this very highly!3 s Norma3,441 10

( Format : Audiobook )
"The Butcher of Pascal."
After his promising career is torpedoed by the defensive move which saved lives but killed childfen, Lieutenant Jacob Grimm is sent to captain the Interceptor, an old Hellcat, now a wreck in orbit around the dockyard, Kremlin Station, three months without even a space drive, the crew without a captain all that time and resentful at his appointment. He did not know it but this was a political assignment, an attempt to shake things up. And it worked.
An unusual storyline, with good characterization and exciting action - a good balance between the two. Recommended to all S.F. fans, not just military. I'm looking forward to book 2 in the series, With Grimm Resolve.3 s Tony Hinde1,571 38

In one way, this is a very familiar space opera. It hits all the usual beats. But its execution is well above average. The pacing is near perfect, leading to a satisfying crescendo. And the characters are decently fleshed out and relatable.

As book one in the series, it sets up a broader political conflict that has sufficient legs for several books. Although the geopolitical structure is strongly reminiscent of the Honor Harrington series, it's original enough to pass muster.

The science and technology didn't raise many anachronistic or physics-defying flags for me... which is rare. Mind you, the drive technology seemed unbelievably simple, (maybe just unexplained).

Overall, there's not much to fault in this novel. I expect to dive deeper soon.3 s T.S. HottleAuthor 10 books3

Cross between Star Trek and Babylon 5.

Grimm is a lieutenant given a thankless task: Take command of a crippled ship with a demoralized crew stranded in a backwater system. When Grimm tried to uncripple the ship, he gives the crew long missing purpose but uncovers corruption along the border and a plot to undermine the Alliance from within by a longtime enemy.

Fast paced and fun, the action never stops. 3 s Hobart2,497 65

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
---
Chief Boudreqx rolled the ship until the belly faced Kremlin and the cockpit looed out into open space...open except for her.

The Interceptor. The front of her hull was painted a shark’s head, but it was old and faded, scratched and worn.

Jacob had spent most of his life waiting for this moment, and in it, all his concerns about his past, his present, and his future faded away.

He didn’t care if she looked a beaten prizefighter with her armored hull dented and streaked from action. Or if the turrets were scratched, streaked, and patched.

Only that she was his.

WHAT'S AGAINST ALL ODDS ABOUT?
Two years ago, Lt. Jacob Grimm, did the right thing in a crisis situation. Sadly, the optics of his action were horrible and the political fallout from it turned a promising Naval career into a dead-end endeavor. He's assigned to an obscure post—where he does well but is destined to fall into obscurity and having to leave the navy.

Then politics intervenes again—and he's assigned a ship to command. The commander unexpectedly died of natural causes a couple of months ago, and Interceptor needs someone to get it back into shape. Grimm doesn't know the politics behind this assignment—and doesn't care. This is his last hope of doing anything with his time in the Navy that won't be covered in scandal.

In the intervening months, the ship has fallen into disrepair (its major drive component is missing!), and there's little-to-no discipline among the crew. Grimm has his work cut out for him.

Meanwhile, a hostile (foreign) government, pirates, other criminals, and an obsessed scientist are at work in this sector—naval high command is up to something, too. Grimm and his crew only know about the pirates, so they don't realize just how interesting/dangerous life is going to get.

THE TECHNOLOGY OF THIS UNIVERSE
He wasn’t in uniform, but the cap was a universal spacer adornment. Ships were almost always on the cold side, enough to be uncomfortable without warm clothes and a watch cap. If a ship was warm, something was terribly wrong.
One thing every book about interstellar travel has to deal with is how both travel and communication are handled. I appreciated Haskell's approach, it feels as grounded as any series that's not going to force generation ships on everything can be.

The way he designed the technology/construction/etc. of the ships really appealed to me. There's a very Star Trek-feel to the whole thing, but without the shiny panels and great lighting, the physical aspects of the ships are more Firefly-. Think Moore's Battlestar Galactica, just slightly less advanced.* There's also a feel of 20th Century Navy ships and submarines—unforgiving metal everywhere, a focus on function over comfort/aesthetics; cold temperatures everywhere; worrying about what could happen to things that aren't bolted down while the ship moves; food that's nutritious, but not necessarily appealing.

* I'm a little annoyed with myself here. I spent the entire novel thinking about the Star Trek/Firefly comparison and only got around to BSG because I wanted to throw on some Bear McCreary as I wrote this. BSG is a better way to envision the tech/atmosphere. There's a very non-subtle Star Trek homage in the novel, so I feel okay getting it stuck in my mind.

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT AGAINST ALL ODDS?
I've enjoyed the first two novels in Haskell's Full Metal Superhero series (and have been kicking myself for years for not reading more of them), but this? He's clearly been working his craft since 2017, and it has paid off here.

I spent a good portion of the novel wishing he'd spend less time on the subplots—assuming they'd end up being important, but all I wanted to do was get back to the Interceptor. It made me question several of my reading choices over the last couple of years—why didn't I read more things this? There was a brief spy vs. spy thing, too, as part of a subplot??I could've used more of that. But once the subplots started converging on the Grimm/Interceptor story? It was having my cake, eating it, too—and not caring about my A1C levels.

My impatience aside, this was skillfully paced—he kept the tension mounting as you become more invested in the various crews and characters, and as the layers of the plot get pulled back to reveal Haskell's game plan. The combat scenes—the ship vs. ship scenes in particular—were great. There are times I feel shallow and adolescent for enjoying that kind of thing the way I do, but I get over that pretty quickly.

I would say the Epilogue felt unnecessary—if the reader didn't assume most of what we got there already, I'm not sure they were paying attention. I think it'd have been better for Haskell to trust the reader to assume the Epilogue and/or to see the effects of it play out over the next book or two without spelling it out quite the way he did. That's my major beef with the book, and if it takes until the Epilogue to get something that? That's a pretty good sign. There were a couple of other choices I questioned, but I want to see what Haskell does with them before I spend too much ink on them.

I've got Book 2, With Grimm Resolve, scheduled for mid-July—and at least one too many books on my June schedule—but it took all my discipline not to dive into it after finishing this. Do yourself a favor, grab some popcorn and settle down with this for a couple of hours—you'll have a whale of a time.2022-reads2 s John854 12

Awesome book awesome 1st of series

So Obviously the author is a Trekkie. DD 1071 Interceptor. That's the enterprise number backwards. Sweet nod. I'm sure Grim wishes the interceptor was constitution class. That said Grimm is a awesome new character and the embodiment of Naval ideals. Not only does he believe in the ideals he executes them, And drags the rest of his crew in to comply as well. And all is normal in the universe As politicians in media try to ruin the lives of good men and women In scapegoating snd CYA. Grimm wont cave though so look out enemy. Obviously In this particular universe destroyers are smaller than frigates as opposed to the reverse In our navy. Sounds interceptor would be a corvette in an our nomenclature. Regardless it gets the job done And so does grim and his crew. If you space opera and good Leeds I recommend this book. I look forward to the next book.2 s Leslie Baptiste1,004 11

excellent book, fast paced, great characters.

I give this book 5 stars even though some of the things I do not understand such as the sci-fi aspects such as they have nano technology for medical as well as weapons but they still walking around with magnetic boots on. That’s the only complaint that I have with this series the characters were likable and enjoyable the main character was not an idiot and the crew shaped up in plenty of time to make the book very interesting. I enjoyed the secondary cast of characters that supported the MC. This was not one of those books that dragged out the story. I’ve read other books by the author and I’ve enjoyed them as well. Going on to read the next book.2 s 2percentright121 5

Only two problems with this. 1) the senator that's a stand in for Dan Crenshaw. Crenshaw is a worthless unamerican piece of shit that doesn't deserve to be pissed on if he was on fire and 2) Grimm's out of place religiousity. Author does a good job portraying the inhuman actions of Islam but fails to point out the lack of necessity for bronze age myths more than 500 years in the future2 s Rhane424 2

So real that I geared up

This is military science fiction for fans. Government and military is shown with unflinching vision. The day is saved by regular people just doing the best they can. We see how powerless important people can be in the face of a population that has its own priorities. These are people you can relate to, and you won’t quickly forget them.2 s Noodle The Naughty Night Owl2,315 38

9/10: Fantastic, left me wanting more.

Someone had attacked them and the man she’d agreed to have dinner with had unleashed hell in response. He certainly wasn’t holding back. She didn’t know if that excited or scared her... Maybe both?

Good start to the series. Loved it.futuristic kindle-unlimited military-special-forces ...more2 s Bill Rowan2

One Great Story

In my distant past I served in the Mortar Battery, 2nd 501 infantry and later in Division Artillery. This story brought back many memories of friends from my youth.2 s Space Cowgirl3,939 127

Which Side Are You On?
Military Sci-fi
Autor del comentario:
=================================