The Lost Fleet

The Lost Fleet is a military science fiction series written by John G. Hemry under the pen name Jack Campbell. The series is set one-hundred-plus years into an interstellar war between two different human cultures, the Alliance and the Syndicate. The protagonist of the story is discovered floating in a suspended animation escape pod one hundred years after he made a "heroic last stand" against an enemy fleet. In his absence, he has been made into a renowned hero in the Alliance, but his legend and actions are used to justify poor tactics and decisions. Awakened after being discovered during a secret mission that turns out to be an enemy trap, he is suddenly dropped into the role of fleet commander and expected to live up to the legend that has grown around him.
The initial series begun with Dauntless in 2006 ended with Victorious in 2010. The author, however, has continued the Lost Fleet series with three spin-offs: Beyond the Frontier, focusing on the main characters from the Lost Fleet; The Lost Stars, focusing on the Syndicate Worlds; Outlands, picking up where Leviathan leaves off; as well as a prequel series, The Genesis Fleet.

Novels

; The Lost Fleet
This is the main book series. It has been published first.

#	Title	Pages	Publication date	ISBN
1	The Lost Fleet: Dauntless	304	June 27, 2006
2	The Lost Fleet: Fearless	295	January 30, 2007
3	The Lost Fleet: Courageous	299	December 18, 2007
4	The Lost Fleet: Valiant	284	June 24, 2008
5	The Lost Fleet: Relentless	336	April 28, 2009
6	The Lost Fleet: Victorious	352	April 27, 2010

; The Lost Fleet - Beyond the Frontier
Sequel of the main series.

#	Title	Pages	Publication date	ISBN
7	Beyond the Frontier: Dreadnaught	356	April 26, 2011
8	Beyond the Frontier: Invincible	389	May 1, 2012
9	Beyond the Frontier: Guardian	416	May 7, 2013
10	Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast	386	May 6, 2014
11	Beyond the Frontier: Leviathan	323	May 5, 2015

; The Lost Fleet - Outlands
The second sequel series. This is the most recent work of the author.

#	Title	Pages	Publication date	ISBN
12	Outlands: Boundless	336	May 18, 2021
13	Outlands: Resolute	384	June 28, 2022
14	Outlands: Implacable	368	July 4, 2023

; The Lost Stars
Spin-off series.

#	Title	Pages	Publication date	ISBN
1	The Lost Stars: Tarnished Knight	390	October 2, 2012
2	The Lost Stars: Perilous Shield	406	October 1, 2013
3	The Lost Stars: Imperfect Sword	369	October 7, 2014
4	The Lost Stars: Shattered Spear	342	May 3, 2016

; The Genesis Fleet
This is a prequel trilogy written after the main series was finished.

#	Title	Pages	Publication date	ISBN
1	The Genesis Fleet: Vanguard	327	May 16, 2017
2	The Genesis Fleet: Ascendant	336	May 15, 2018
3	The Genesis Fleet: Triumphant	336	May 21, 2019

Plot summary

The Lost Fleet

The Alliance has been fighting the Syndicate Worlds for a century. After obtaining a "hypernet key" from a Syndic traitor, they send a large fleet through a hypernet gate to directly attack the Syndic home-world, but are ambushed by overwhelming Syndic forces.
During the approach to the Syndic home-world, the fleet discovers the escape pod of Captain John Geary in an abandoned star system. Known as "Black Jack" in the present, his legendary exploits are taught to every schoolchild and he is revered for his heroic last stand in the early days of the war. The Black Jack Geary legend includes the expectation that one day he will return from the dead to lead the Alliance fleet to victory. Left as de facto fleet commander, and with great reluctance, Geary takes it upon himself to lead the fleet to the safety of Alliance space.
Geary is also forced to retrain the fleet to fight in formation instead of the "modern" free-for-all tactics of charging straight at the enemy, supposedly inspired by Geary's example at his famous last stand, caused by decades of attrition and loss of experience. Geary's attempt to change the fleet's culture causes tension with other senior officers, including one egomaniacal senior captain freed from a Syndic labor camp with a reputation almost as famous as Geary's, who proceeds to split off a portion of the fleet on a disastrous mission.
To complicate the situation, a third faction wishes to stage a military coup upon the return of the fleet to Alliance space with Geary as dictator. Geary resists the temptation offered by this faction with great effort, though they continue to apply pressure to him throughout the series.
As the entire military force of the Syndicate Worlds continues to hunt the Alliance fleet, Geary is often forced to raid Syndic star systems for supplies and raw materials. During these raids, the fleet gradually uncovers evidence of a third party in this war. Geary believes they are an unknown alien civilization who may have tricked the Syndics into starting the war with the Alliance. These aliens may even have been responsible for humans "discovering" the hypernet and may have sinister reasons for giving humans this technology after Geary discovers that a hypernet gate can be used to destroy an entire star system. The hypothetical aliens also have a means of remote destruction of hypernet gates, which will allow them, given time, to extend the war between the humans indefinitely.
The alien civilization, whatever their designs for humanity are, do not appear to want the Alliance fleet to reach their home space. When Geary leads the fleet to attack the Lakota star system, the aliens manipulate the Syndic hypernet to divert a Syndic fleet to the system.
Throughout the series, Geary is troubled by larger issues.
Firstly, he is concerned by the declining state of the Alliance civilian government, which is losing control of its member worlds and the support of the military forces after a century of futile warfare.
Also, even though Geary is unswervingly loyal to the Alliance, he fears that the government may choose to imprison him as a threat to its own power.
In addition, the Alliance Navy itself has allowed its standards to slip, frequently destroying entire planets and their civilian populations in retaliation for Syndic atrocities, murdering prisoners of war, and has ceased saluting and other traditions reaffirming the command structure. Geary therefore fears that the Alliance may not deserve any victory it might achieve.
Combined with these immediate concerns is his speculation that, if the increasingly non-hypothetical aliens are perpetuating the war within human-controlled space, what might their actions be if he can somehow end it?

Beyond the Frontier

Beyond the Frontier: Dreadnaught: Admiral "Black Jack" Geary is given command of the "First Fleet" and sent to the far side of space. The series follows Geary as he leads the fleet through previously unexplored star systems, and to explore the threat of the previously encountered non-human "Enigma" race.
Beyond the Frontier: Invincible: After stumbling upon a second non-human race, which are dubbed the "Bear-Cows" due to their resemblance to teddy bears and their herbivorous nature and herding tendencies, which attack with torpedo-like ships in massive waves and numbers, Admiral Geary jumps farther into unknown space. There, they find a third non-human species, apparently waiting to engage the Bear-Cows. Turning to engage the Bear-Cows with the new aliens alongside them, Geary defeats the force through luck and the Bear-Cows' inability to divert from a charge, after which Admiral Geary jumps farther into unknown space. There, Admiral Geary and his fleet officially meet the first friendly aliens that humanity has met so far, the Spider-Wolves. With the help of the Spider-Wolves, Admiral Geary and his fleet disable one of the bear-cows' massive super-battleships and capture it, to return to their home in Alliance space, Varendal. Realizing that the Enigma race will note their absence from Midway, Geary intercepts another Enigma race attack at Midway, which the Syndicate Worlds are observing. With assistance from the Spider-Wolves, they defeat the Enigma fleet and engage in an uneasy standoff against the Syndicate Worlds force, who demand the surrender of the Bear-Cow super-battleship and the Dancers.
Beyond the Frontier: Guardian: Furious with the standoff and the Syndicate Worlds' attempt to reconquer Midway, Geary orchestrates a trap for The Syndicate Admiral, tricking him into firing first on a ship under Alliance protection. They defeat the Syndicate Worlds forces but realize that the Syndicate Worlds have managed to shut down their hypernet system, denying the Alliance fleet a quick trip home. With their massive fleet, they drive straight for home, winning numerous small engagements and other asymmetrical warfare attacks, thinly disguised by the Syndicate Worlds to be the work of pirates and other non-official parties. Returning to Varandal, Geary learns that the forces of the Callas Republic and the Rift Federation are on the verge of revolt due to their ridiculously long deployment time, and immediately orders them to return home under radio silence, prohibiting them from receiving contradictory orders. The situation defused, Geary escorts the Dancers to Earth, encountering a splinter fleet of humanity, which arrogantly declares the Earth under their control. Despite being outnumbered 5 to 1, Geary smashes the enemy fleet, which lacked any modern weaponry or understanding of tactics, evidenced by their insistence on attacking in fixed formations. Arriving at Earth, the Dancers land in Kansas, returning the body of an ancient deep space explorer whom they recovered.
Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast: After the events from the last book; where Geary and the crew of Dauntless escorted the Dancer ships back to old earth to return a human to Kansas. The book then starts with many of the old Earth leaders wanting to show them places on Earth that held significance. On the last night on the planet, they were whisked off by Lady Vitali and made it back to Dauntless. Unfortunately then Lieutenants Castries and Yuon had been kidnapped. The kidnappers land on a proscribed place Europa, the site of the accidental release of an engineered bioweapon. After rescuing his lieutenants, he returns to Alliance space, and leads a task force to safely return Syndic refugees to their system, formerly Syndicate controlled, and escort the Dancer fleet in their return from Alliance space.
Beyond the Frontier: Leviathan: