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A review by la5
Captain's Share by Nathan Lowell
4.0
A Modern Tale of Success
I love this series. While it is obviously science fiction, the context is all about how to succeed in today's corporate culture. From the first story about the successful junior guy -- asking questions, working hard, taking ownership, to this story about being in command -- listening, trying to discover the cause of the problem, etc. -- Ishmael Horatio Wang is a success story. The protagonist gets lucky in some cases, but ultimately is a genuinely good person who happens to be extremely competent and unusually wise for someone his age. When my kids get old enough, I'm hoping to get them to read these & perhaps internalize some of the secrets to success. This was a far better medium to convey that lesson than any of the business self-help books out there today.
I have read the books and listened to the podcasts for this series and this review is based on the podcast (though I bought the book to fill out my library). Start with the first book and see how you like the characters. The pacing is pretty constant throughout the series. The most exciting of them is probably the prior book, "Double Share," but Captain's Share is well worth the read. I've seen some complaints that the author spends too much time writing about menus and the routine day-to-day tasks. But that's what makes the story more real -- what would you expect a solar clipper captain to be thinking about while traveling weeks at a time through space? It's a great book and a great series. The character development is greater than your average space opera and the book is not really part of an adventure series. This isn't sci fi about exploring new cultures or detailing new technology -- it's a success story where you have 'ordinary' people doing 'ordinary' jobs. What's interesting is how they solve ordinary problems.
I love this series. While it is obviously science fiction, the context is all about how to succeed in today's corporate culture. From the first story about the successful junior guy -- asking questions, working hard, taking ownership, to this story about being in command -- listening, trying to discover the cause of the problem, etc. -- Ishmael Horatio Wang is a success story. The protagonist gets lucky in some cases, but ultimately is a genuinely good person who happens to be extremely competent and unusually wise for someone his age. When my kids get old enough, I'm hoping to get them to read these & perhaps internalize some of the secrets to success. This was a far better medium to convey that lesson than any of the business self-help books out there today.
I have read the books and listened to the podcasts for this series and this review is based on the podcast (though I bought the book to fill out my library). Start with the first book and see how you like the characters. The pacing is pretty constant throughout the series. The most exciting of them is probably the prior book, "Double Share," but Captain's Share is well worth the read. I've seen some complaints that the author spends too much time writing about menus and the routine day-to-day tasks. But that's what makes the story more real -- what would you expect a solar clipper captain to be thinking about while traveling weeks at a time through space? It's a great book and a great series. The character development is greater than your average space opera and the book is not really part of an adventure series. This isn't sci fi about exploring new cultures or detailing new technology -- it's a success story where you have 'ordinary' people doing 'ordinary' jobs. What's interesting is how they solve ordinary problems.