Man of War has a solid story of man being brought to the brink of extinction and the struggle to fight their way back that I find I enjoy reading. It was good enough to pass the time, and I do plan to eventually listen to the remaining books in the series, but it is far from the best example of the genre.

I found that the writing did not engage me as much as I’d like, allowing my mind to wander mid story, sometimes causing me to pause the story and just continue daydreaming as it was more engaging. Characters make strange choices with little justification that really feels like they are just forcing the story in the direction the author wanted it to go. I had trouble connecting with the world building as there are a number of technologies that have what feel like obvious exploits that are ignored by both sides. A few a which even get pulled out as a deus ex machina device to save the main characters, so the author was even aware of those ones. Finally there are too many times we are told that the characters only have a minuscule chance of success, but whatever they end up doing works well enough that only characters we don’t know end up suffering any real consequences.