Hope by David Feintuch

The Hope series is a good solid space opera. There's good characters, some fine fight scenes, and a reasonably persuasive future. The stories follow a young officer (Nicholas Seafort) in the earth's space navy, as he progresses all the way to the top. He lives in a world where the earth is considerably more conservative (more religious, more law-abiding, more constrictive) than the present, and possesses a couple of space colonies. Seafort fights aliens, deals with onboard discipline, and faces lots and lots of personal angst.
It's this last facet of the Hope series, ironically enough, that is the most memorable. Seafort is incredibly morose. He dwells on his failures, doesn't accept his own successes as being real, detests the adulation he receives for his heroics, etc etc. This can get a bit trying at times. Feintuch seems to have a thing for depressive characters, as can be seen in "Voice of Hope" which is the first to deal with a number of different characters from a first-person perspective. Each character, almost without exception, spends large periods wallowing in guilt.
A second problem I had with the series was the number of characters. There's a lot of them, and towards the end of the series, they all have children, who become characters in turn. Now, this problem comes with the territory, since space opera always comes with a large cast. However, part of the problem is that some of the characters aren't distinctive enough to be remembered easily.
Incidently, if you love the series, go and read the Hornblower by C.S. Forester. There are an awful lot of similarities, from the strict moral environment, to the agonising (as in, he agonises) main character. Both series are also extremely readable.
As I said to begin with, it's a fine series. All the books make fine train/holiday-fodder. Unfortunately, they never quite make it above that level. If you're looking for truly memorable space opera, go for the Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold. It's better, and you don't feel suicidal while you're reading it.

I think that in general the plot of all the books was clear and easy to follow, except for "Voices of Hope", which was the only one that I didn't really enjoy because it was so disjointed. I think my favorite of the series was "Fisherman's Hope" because of its use of flashbacks to allow you to delve into Seafort's past and Feintuch's decision to place him in the position of Commandant of the Academy.

Feintuch has skillfully transported the sometimes brutal british naval history of 18 and 19th centuries to the 22th and 23th centuries. Nick Seaworthy, a young midshipman
on a starship to the planet Hope Nation is thrown into the captain's chair after a mishap kills all of the seniot staff. He must battle a mutiny, execute a sailor and
stop some giant jellyfish type aliens threatens mankind; in the process he loses his innocence. The books so far: