The Cruel Stars (The Cruel Stars #1), by John Birmingham

  The Cruel Stars is a typical military space adventure, complete with reluctant military commanders, gruff retired Scottish admirals speaking with an accent, space pirates, space royalty and nobility, princesses, space Nazis, snarky AIs and criminals with hearts of gold. It's the first of a series, naturally, which means that even if you enjoy it, you will not feel you've reached the end of the story.

  John Birmingham's writing is competent, without being anything special. The plot is bit inconsistent technically, though, with technology that sounds futuristic, but is basically what we have now with whistles and bells, and which is used differently depending on what the story requires. The world building is minimal, with some hints on how the different human empires work, but no details.

  Also, no aliens, yet. The book starts with hints of an old and nebulous threat to humanity, that one assumes some exotic alien race, but it's quickly revealed to be an AI phobic and race purist republic of humans.

  The book was good for a palate cleanser, although it was a bit too long for my taste, and as fun as it was, I won't be continuing to read the series. It's space pulp, basically.