Description: Douglas Mumphrey does not hold back on descriptions in this book. Everything is brilliantly detailed and you can visualize every part of the ship, the guns that are firing, the uniforms the men are wearing to the courtrooms that dominate this story. In fact, it is too much detail that spoils this book for me. If you are the kind of reader that appreciates having everything elaborately explained to you, if you are a spaceship aficionado and revel in the world of hunks of flying metal, then this is the book for you. I honestly found that the descriptions hampered the pace of the story and the author could have done better by building up a stronger plot, tension and empathy for his characters.
Writing style/character development: Most of the time I felt detached from the story, an outsider looking in, and I failed to feel what should have been obvious distress when people started dying. This was because there wasn't a single character who had been developed properly, aside from Hunter himself. Some of the phrasing was awkward and in the first half of the book, I found the dialogue to be rather stiff and overly formal. I highly doubt that in times of attack, the officers would care about rank/polite talk. It was just … something seriously lacked here.
The 2 parts of the story: this book was divided into Parts 1 and 2. I feel that the author could have done less of narrating descriptions and instead, written an actual account of events seen through Hunter's eyes as they unfolded. He did try to do this in part 2 as Hunter recollected the events that happened aboard Ajax but it was too little compared to all the unnecessary explanation of what went where in the ship, what got damaged and who could have died. With a good editor, the author could have combined these 2 parts into a solid story with more character development, created a buildup to the second part and made the outcome much more rewarding and satisfying for both the protagonist and reader. As we learn, there is a lot of injustice happening under the command of inept captains, some heroism (not enough I felt), deaths and explosions which I felt, could have been capitalized on better. The author could have taken us into the minds of some other characters, to try and understand what made them tick and do the things that they did. He (the author) could have explained the agony or horrendous feelings of what Hunter must have experienced, but he didn't. At this point it is kind of obvious that I feed off emotions and tension - it helps me identify with the characters better. I felt the writing style was cold, almost like an instruction manual but then again, I wonder if it's because I've been reading too many books which are focused on characters and less on the technical/tactical side of things. But hey, that's just me.
Despite what may seem a like a very negative review from me, I wouldn't say 'Hunter's Navy — The Arachni Rebellion' is a boring read. It did have its moments and the courtroom drama is what I enjoyed most. It just could have been a better read.
A quick breakdown of the different elements in this book:
Grammar/style - 3; Plot - 3; Setting - 4; Clarity - 4; Character Development - 2