Series
RCN
David Drake · 13 novels · 2 short stories · 1998–2019
David Drake's RCN series follows Daniel Leary, an officer in the Republic of Cinnabar Navy, and Adele Mundy, a librarian who moonlights as a spy, across a run of standalone-but-connected novels beginning with With the Lightnings. Drake and reviewers alike have framed it as an SF version of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels, and it plays that way: political intrigue and shipboard command dynamics carry as much weight as the space battles. It's more character-driven than Drake's harder-edged Hammer's Slammers work.
Summary by Loreful, from public sources
The order the books came out.
Best read in the order they were published.
Map
RCN at the centre, its books fanned around what holds them. Pick anything for its details, and zoom out for similar series in orbit — the reading order above lists the same books as text.
Stats
By decade
- 1990s1
- 2000s6
- 2010s8
Shape
13 novels · 2 short stories
1 author · completed series
reads like:science fictionwarspacefar futureadventurousadult
Mood
Bright and intense: 85% of this series' placed works, the catalog's 44%.
this series · the catalog · one dot = one book13 of 15 works carry a tone
Edges of the map
- The Sea Without a Shoredarkest · most intense
- With the Lightningsbrightest · calmest