The Henry Gallant Saga
There’s a spark of genius in the setup for this new series by H. Peter Alesso. When Stan Lee created the X-Men, he made them relatable by making them mutants—reviled by humanity. Alesso accomplishes the same thing by making his hero, Henry Gallant, normal. You read that right. The military of the future is dominated by genetically-engineered humans and Gallant is a throwback without the benefits of all that customization. This makes him the subject of a great deal of harassment by fellow officers determined to prove he can’t be relied upon in stressful situations. But if Gallant does have one extraordinary ability, it’s perseverance. He just doesn’t quit and he certainly doesn’t lay down and die. So now matter how badly the odds stack up against him, Gallant bulls though to victory.
This book is a collection of the first four novels in the series and chronicle Gallant’s career from his days as a midshipman through his first command and finally his promotion to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. Earth is in a terrible war with an alien race whom they discover developing the outer planets of our solar system. The aliens are not interested in communication or any kind of diplomacy, they want humans wiped out of the way of their developing civilization. So, the setup is apocalyptic, but many of the greatest challenges Gallant faces come from the narrow self-interests and prejudices of his fellow humans rather than the alien menace.
There are four very different styles of military adventure in this bundle—fighter pilot, voyage of discovery, submarine warfare, and covert operations—so every book felt fresh even as it maintained many of the familiar characters from past novels. If you’re looking for a sharp new military sf series, you should give Henry Gallant a try.
Midshipman Henry Gallant in Space by H. Peter Alesso
There’s a spark of genius in the setup for this new series by H. Peter Alesso. When Stan Lee created the X-Men, he made them relatable by making them mutants—reviled by humanity. Alesso accomplishes the same thing by making his hero, Henry Gallant, normal. You read that right. The military of the future is dominated by genetically-engineered humans and Gallant is a throwback without the benefits of all that customization. This makes him the subject of a great deal of harassment by fellow officers determined to prove he can’t be relied upon in stressful situations. But if Gallant does have one extraordinary ability, it’s perseverance. He just doesn’t quit and he certainly doesn’t lay down and die.
Earth of the future has discovered aliens inhabiting the moons of the planet Saturn. These aliens are hostile—harassing human trade in the inner system and threatening human colonies at Jupiter and Mars. Gallant is a young midshipman on his first assignment training to be a fighter pilot. The early parts of the novel are packed with his efforts to learn his trade despite the active obstruction of many of his fellow officers, but as confrontations with the aliens heat up, Gallant begins to earn the other pilots’ respect and his actions open up a critical window into the aliens’ thinking and strategy. If only the human government can overcome its internal problems to take advantage of it…
Henry Gallant shares the spirit of Forester’s Horatio Hornblower or Weber’s Honor Harrington. I was pleased to see that it stands up well beside both series and I’m anxious to read the next one.
I received this book free from Audiobook Boom in exchange for an honest review.
Lieutenant Henry Gallant by H. Peter Alesso
H. Peter Alesso throws us for a major curve at the start of Lieutenant Henry Gallant. Henry is fighting off aliens as they seek to board his ship and he’s not even in earth’s solar system anymore. This is a major change from the first book where all of the action was confined to the region between Jupiter and Mars.
Testing a prototype FTL drive, Henry and his shipmates make a whole host of discoveries. The aliens are not confined to earth’s solar system, other humans have beaten them out to the stars (despite the fact that Gallant’s ship has the first FTL drive), and there are ruins of an ancient civilization that represents yet another alien species on the system’s only habitable planet.
Most of the action in this second novel revolves around the newly discovered human colony and the politics of trying to get those colonists to help repair the damage to Gallant’s ship before the aliens return. There’s a mystery at the heart of the colony involving the source and control of a critically important forcefield that protects the colonists from the aliens. As Gallant’s understanding of the problems confronting him evolves from the crude and superficial to the subtle and sophisticated, the tension increases considerably. Will Gallant be forced to side with a megalomaniac dictator to save his ship and crew?
There’s a lot to like in the second novel of the series. There’s still plenty of ship-on-ship military action, but by branching out into politics and including an interesting mystery, Alesso shows there’s a lot more to Henry Gallant than fighter pilot stories.
Henry Gallant and the Warrior by H. Peter Alesso
For book three of the Henry Gallant saga, H. Peter Alesso turned to submarines for his inspiration. Lieutenant Gallant is given command of the Warrior, a ship with brand new stealth technology. Its mission is to penetrate into Titan controlled space and penetrate its communications to secure critical intelligence for the human fleet. The mission is even more vital than it might at first appear because humans are losing the war. They’ve just lost control of Jupiter and they fear that the aliens will soon be moving on Mars.
This is a great storyline with all the sorts of trouble you would expect to find in a classic submarine thriller. There is even an ingenious problem in which an alien ship appears to be tracking the Warrior despite its cloaking device that I found particularly exciting. In addition, Gallant has to deal with the problems of his first command and frankly I thought the whole vibe worked very well.
However, the real crux of the story for me revolved around the growing tension between Gallant and an intelligence liaison. Their disagreements over strategy and the limits of their respective authorities and responsibilities added tremendously to the tension—especially Gallant’s fears that her concerns were driven not by data and facts, but by her prejudice that he is not a genetically modified human and therefore couldn’t be trusted with the big decisions. The normal versus genetically enhanced human storyline is a great way to deal with so many prejudices of today in the context of a great science fiction story.
Commander Henry Gallant by H. Peter Alesso
In book four of the Henry Gallant saga, Alesso builds on themes from the second and third novels expanding on the intelligence missions of Gallant and the Warrior and continuing the story of the first human colony, Elysium. This is a complicated novel, so let’s take the storylines one at a time.
For the first part, the Warrior, using its cloaking technology, penetrates to the Titan home system where Gallant successfully uses his advanced neuro-link abilities to penetrate the Titan communication grid and disrupt and sabotage elements of Titan society. Unfortunately for Gallant, his very success in accomplishing this task becomes yet another excuse for his nemesis, Commander Neumann, to question his reliability and loyalty.
Neumann has been a significant problem for Gallant from the beginning of the series. His father is one of the wealthiest men (a mining magnate) in the earth system who has given Neumann everything (including a genetically engineered “superior” body), but Neumann suffers from a massive inferiority complex which appears to have been exasperated by Gallant’s (who enjoys no advantages from genetic engineering) continued successes. In this fourth book, Neumann goes all in to prove himself to his father and ultimately to prove he’s Gallant’s better in every way. Unsurprisingly, the harder he tries, the more extreme his actions, the more he throws into doubt everything he wishes to prove. All of the conflict that results from Neumann’s obsessions makes for a tense and exciting book.
Lots of lingering storylines from the first three books come together in this fourth novel as the fate of humanity once again rests on Henry Gallant’s shoulders.
I received this book free from Audiobook Boom in exchange for an honest review.
Captain Henry Gallant by H. Peter Alesso
Politics becomes much more important in the Henry Gallant series with this latest book, and Alesso’s handling of it rises to the occasion. Admirals are trying to disregard Gallant’s reports on enemy activities and capabilities because they do not support their preconceived notions. This obviously does not bode well for humanity as the next big battle in the war against the Titans commences. As usual, Gallant is smack in the middle of the action.
In this volume, Alesso also introduces a new wave of fighter pilots, each with their own personality quirks. Gallant has trained these men and women to fight and now must lead them in war as they try to reinforce stranded marines despite the incompetence of the commanding admiral.
I think the best addition to this novel was the ground action focusing on the marines. Alesso has always done a good job with the naval action, but now he shows a flair for ground combat as well. The battles move quickly and were always exciting. I’m looking forward to seeing more.
Commodore Henry Gallant by H. Peter Alesso
There’s been evidence for a while now in this series that the Titans are also in conflict with another alien race somewhere in the galaxy. At the beginning of this novel, those aliens show up on earth—but will they ultimately prove to be friend or foe?
Aside from that extremely important question, Henry Gallant continues to be plagued by political problems as earth’s elections get closer and it appears that his personal enemy, backed by all of those admirals who make disastrous military decisions that Henry has to pull them out of, is going to win the election. It’s not a pretty picture as we, the readers, are quite certain that this will not help humanity win its war for survival.
The heart of this novel focuses upon the first joint military mission between the humans and the new alien race, the chameleons. As usual, Gallant is in the thick of things, but will his allies stay true to their joint cause?
Henry Gallant and the Great Ship by H. Peter Alesso
The Chameleons have switched sides in the war, joining with the Titans against humanity and Henry Gallant gets the job of trying to take the Chameleons back out of the fight. The mammoth starship of the Chameleons poses special problems for Gallant’s taskforce and Alesso does a great job of making this extended battle very different than those that have come before. We also see the starfighter pilots under Gallant’s commands continue to grow and develop with their mix of strengths and flaws, adding a lot of depth to the story.
Always on my mind as I read was the worsening political situation on earth as characters we have grown to despise over the preceding books win the election which must ultimately hurt earth’s chances of surviving the war. It will be interesting to see how Alesso uses this situation to make Gallant’s life even more difficult in future novels.