The Merrimack Event

Shieldclads Series, Book 1

By: David A. Tatum

Narrated by: Troy Duran

Once every four years, the Earth Alliance Naval Academy is included in a war game...or rather, the Wargame: On a distant frontier colony, cadets must repair, recommission, and crew a fleet of old, mothballed warships for a simulated fleet action against a group of seasoned veterans using top-of-the-line warships.

After some meddling on the part of the Admiralty, many of the Academy's best are assigned to the oldest, smallest hulk in the Wargame, the unfortunately named corvette, Chihuahua. Thanks to a genius engineer, an Army veteran loaned to the Navy for the war game, and an unconventional captain, they make a new discovery which turns her into the most valuable warship in the fleet: the first ever Shieldclad warship.

The crew abruptly finds itself center stage in a real combat action, however, when Earth is attacked by an unknown foe, and a lone squadron of these once-mothballed ships is the Alliance's only hope to respond....

©2017 David A. Tatum (P)2018 Tantor

Very good

I enjoyed this very much. I thought it had engaging characters and the narration was good. Try it. I think you might like it as much as I did.

Star ratings are becoming meangless 4 1/2 Stars???

The plot is transparently formulaic and manipulative to the point of being childish. The accomplishments of the two protagonists are so far beyond the pale as to be unbelievable. Examples (Spoiler alert) a first year engineering student - on his first exercise - develops a shielding tech and improved speed that all the minds of the fleet have not been able to invent. He accomplishes all of this before the ship is even out of mothballs. Meanwhile his girl friend who is a second year student and isn't even an engineer figures out how to soup up the ships canons.

I have noticed a lot of ratings inflation lately. There is no way that this book deserves 4 !/2 stars. Audible needs the fix the ratings system. It is becoming meaningless.

Excellent Story, Well Voice Acted

Great space opera with well-developed characters, romance without cringe, military valour, idealized academy training, and interesting Spacebattles reminiscent of Babylon 5. Excellent book.

Need more

Good listen. Found myself looking forward to listening. Looking forward to the next in series.

Merrimack

A little slow to start. Lot of teen romance/angst. But well done action scenes later on. Excellent performance.