Earth: the Mauritius of this sector of our galaxy.
The Frontline series by Marko Kloos fits this category, and is also pretty good, IMHO.
There was no FTL in the Rama sequels. And I agree, they were terrible, because they were 90% written by Gentry Lee.
This one sounds interesting. Also, I probably should have said interstellar travel. The method they use isn’t important.
I like Reynolds’ stuff, particularly that in the Revelation Space universe.
If you’re in a flotilla of identical ships launched at the same time, and there’s a major advantage to getting to the destination first… what would you do?
Plot spoiler? (I haven’t read the series or any reviews)
Simple: sabotage the other ships. It doesn’t have to be anything major, perhaps simply degrade their engines enough that they can’t go as fast as your ship.
Kinda major spoilers if you figure it out, but I’ll still keep it vague.
There’s some sabotage but that’s not the major factor.
Consider that you can decelerate later (i.e., remain at top speed for longer) if you can do it harder. And if your engine has a fixed thrust, the only remaining variable is mass.