YMMV / The Lost Fleet

• Anvilicious: The book forsakes any subtlety in its message about why war crimes are never, ever a good idea and that breaking the rules "just this once because it's important" will always come back to bite you sooner or later.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Captain Badaya for getting some positive Character Development (albeit not without prodding from Geary), being reasonably competent and having some occasionally funny lines.
  • The ever reliable Genius Bruiser Cresida.
  • The Dancers, the first non-malicious aliens encountered.
  • Intelligence officer Lieutenant Iger, for being a decently developed Mr. Exposition character (and for writing haiku, as revealed in Leviathan).
  • The bumbling but well-meaning Seaman Alvarez from the short story Shore Patrol.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The reveal in The Lost Stars that the Syndic ships never carry enough escape pods for the entire crew makes the various incidents where Syndic ships were abandoned without a shot being fired and then destroyed subtly horrifying due to the people who would have been abandoned there.
• Narm: In universe example. The Shield of Sol all have their officers wearing so many medals that they form solid rows. It's meant to be impressive. Every Alliance sailor who sees them ends up snickering.
• Nightmare Fuel: Everything to do with Europa.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Finding out why the Dancers need to get to Kansas in Guardian.
  • A small one, but Desjani hints that, even during their honeymoon, Geary had PTSD fueled nightmares. Later on, Geary reveals that Desjani was in the same boat as him.
  • In Beyond the Frontier, it's revealed that in the aftermath of the war, Duellos' marriage is on the ropes. He is still serving in the fleet, even though he has not seen his wife in a long time and the Alliance's pigheadedness is keeping him from taking leave. Tanya remarks that his wife hasn't pulled the "your family or your career" card, but that the situation is getting dangerously close to that. Duellos is torn between the love he has for his wife, and the love he has for his career. His sad, somber approach to telling Geary this is evidence that pretty much no one in the Alliance knows the answer to the question And Then What? now that there's no longer a war to fight. By the time of Boundless, Duellos and his wife have separated.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The last mentions of Dr. Setin, a fairly helpful and kindly alien expert in Beyond the Frontier, have him hovering somewhere between being a Wide-Eyed Idealist and a Straw Civilian after experiencing disillusionment from the violent conflict with the Kicks and the Dancers (the first peaceful aliens the fleet finds) not communicating with him. Having his weakened relationship with Geary either strengthen or further deteriorate during the fleet's further dealings with the Dancers or the mission in Outlands that results in contact with other (more communicative) benevolent aliens could have been interesting reading, especially given his role as an observer of the earlier alien encounters. Instead, Serin vanishes from the story rather abruptly after Guardian and has yet to be mentioned again.

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