Picked up from the library after a "if you liked the Martian" recommendation. Extremely quick read. It offered some of the same flavor of "think your way out of this situation" but not even close with regard to the underlying fun or adventure. 
 To be honest, the book felt like reading a not particularly great episode of Doctor Who, especially with the "mystery lead" and the drudgery of the second half of the book, The second half mostly amounted to a lot of running through corridors and away from scary poorly understood monsters. 
 No one was particularly likable, the narrative stalled early and hard, the "romance" was forced and awkward, the author's insistence on pushing class system politics into the narrative and making sure that the hero was authentic by having him (view spoiler)[be from the lowest-classes, acting as a stand-in for the recently deceased prince (hide spoiler)] didn't work for me. 
 The book's best feature was the underlying mystery of who the Admiral was. But since that in no way propelled the circumstances of the rest of the book, I was left with the feel of an adapted script from an unsuccessful series sell. The mystery never played into anything but "how does this guy lead a team that doesn't trust him". There was no growth of his character, no meaningful link between this mystery and the plot. 
 "Admiral" tried really hard to sell itself as a "competence porn" title. While an okay read, I would not recommend for "if you liked the Martian" readers.