Anonymous

Wasted Potential

Reviewed: 12-17-22

This review is not only for this book but also for the series as a whole as I have heard that this is the final book in this series.

It has been a wild ride and it started out oh so good! Craig Alanson brought a fresh and humorous perspective to the Space Opera genre and for the first 5 books it was really a treat to be able to listen to them. R.C. Bray nailed it and brought out the best in the whole cast of characters, especially with everyone's favorite beer can, Skippy the Magnificent. Alanson even did a good job on the spin off series with the Mavericks, a group of humans not complemented by the godlike powers of an elder AI.

However, after the pirates obtained Valkyire, there was a noticeable shift in Alanson's writing style. Everything went from impossible situation to impossible situation with some fluke idea solving said problem. His books started having an insane amount of filler material that did not progress the story in any manner. At the best of times it was tolerable and at the worst downright insulting to the audience.

Even R.C. Bray could be heard phoning it in on some of the latter books which was concerning. The one thing that kept me invested was the promise of a huge payoff with the Elders in the final books. I kept waiting for the payoff and that leads me to the review of this book where said payoff was supposed to happen. SPOILER ALERT: IT SUCKED!

Yes you heard that right. It was not done well. This book was supposed to give us more information about the Elders, the supposed threat from outside the galaxy, and wrap up the conflicts happening with the other species in the galaxy and at first given the books insane length you would think that could have been done...NOPE

It is just the same amount of filler with the last 2 hours of the book doing a rushed job of ending the elder threat. We get no more information on the supposed threat from beyond, we get no closure on the political and strategic forecast in the galaxy and we get no further information as to what happens to Earth save for a little footnote about how they were going to tow guardians to Earth to replace the Sentinel that was destroyed. There was so much wasted potential here as Alanson could have eliminated the filler and jumped right into a battle with the elders or even better given more time to wrapping up the galactic war. I would have even been fine with the war ending in another stalemate just don't end it the way it was ended. 19 Hours is a long time so it could have been done in my opinion. If G.R.R Martin can do it then I would imagine with all the writing Alanson has been doing he can as well if he slows down and does not get bogged down by deadlines and pressure.

The way I see it, Craig ran out of ideas and wanted to continue making money off this series since it was consistently hitting number one and two spots on amazon and audible. If he had instead not rushed and taken his time to come up with proper ideas or cut the books down into smaller novellas then things likely would have turned out differently and my review would be a lot different.

Overall, while I am sad to see this be the end of Expeditionary Force, I am also happy that it is over since his current writing style cannot be sustained in its current state. If you read his previous book reviews then you will see multiple readers complaining about Craig's writing style and how he has not fixed it.

It is my hope that Alanson will learn from his successes and failures with this book series and someday revisit this world as I am still very invested in it and would easily step back in if things were fixed and he learns from the mistakes made.

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6 people found this helpful

I see patterns in the writing

Reviewed: 06-04-21

If you have been listening to this series from the start and invested as much time as I have keeping up with the author's social media posts, then it is fairly easy to see a pattern that has developed here.

What I have noticed is that Craig Alanson usually has a 1 to 1 ratio of books, with 1 being really good and the other being lackluster or even straight up bad.

This book falls in the good category. The action was very well paced and complaints from the last book seem to have mostly been addressed.

That said, the author still has small segments in the writing where he plugs a political narrative that you may or may not agree with. I just skipped past those segments. Thankfully, they do not take up much time.

Craig still has my support in this series, although this is now the 12th book in the series and while Craig may be at the top of his writing now, what goes up must come down.

I just hope that he ends this series on a good note before that happens.

R.C. Bray continues to deliver his phenomenal performance and narration, making everything here come to life. 5/5 on that.

Overall, this installment is a good addition to the series, I just hope that Craig can continue his good storytelling and not write himself into a corner like so many other authors have done when it comes to long running book series.

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Craig listened

Reviewed: 08-06-20

After the disappointment that was the last book, I was not sure if Craig would be able to pull it off.

Truthfully, I was expecting this book to stumble about trying to find its way.

What really happened was something far different.....

I can tell that Craig listened to the feedback from his listeners by fixing flaws that have plagued many of his previous books.

2 glaring issues he resolved are the use of annoying cliffhangars and pointless adventures.

Also, I was surprised how he was able to justify the pointless adventure from the last book, demonstrating that he still has a roadmap for what he wants to write.

The action was great and there were moments in the book where he genuinely had me biting my fingers in suspense which gives me hope for the series.

Also, the jokes and humor are back with a vengeance and let me tell you, I was howling with laughter during many of the segments.

The only reason I gave this book a 4 instead of a 5 is that there are some continuity errors that are quite obvious in certain parts of the novel, such as how can the alien prisoners be on both the Dutchman and Valkyrie at the same time? That is something that should have been caught by him or his editor.

I shouldn't even have to mention R.C.Bray who to date is my favorite narrator on Audible and dominates the performance.

In conclusion, after listening to this book, my faith in Craig has been renewed in earnest and I cannot wait to listen to the next adventure.

P.S. Craig, if by some miracle you do read this, you may want to consider wrapping up the main Skippy/Bishop story soon. While the series has been great, I have found that writing too many mainline books can get tedious and boring for audiences. I recommend you look into the work of Richard Fox, author of the Ember Wars Series as he made a mainline series of about 6 books then multiple spinoff series in the same universe. Thanks for giving us great science fiction!

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Not his best and not his worst

Reviewed: 02-09-20

Let me start by saying that the Exforce series is my favorite scifi novel series right now.

To that end, I have religiously listened to every release right as it comes out.

With that said, I can see why there were a lot of negative reviews of this book.

The things I liked: The first part of the story commanded my attention and kept me very invested. It showed the need for revenge and how it sometimes is a futile gesture. R.C. Bray nails it again and is to date my favorite audible narrator. Lastly, the final reveal at the end, while rushed, was quite electrifying.

The things I didn't care for: The second half of the book. I see what Craig was trying to do by showing Bishops vulnerable side but it seemed unnecessary and not like what Joe would do given everything previously. In addition to that, I felt that Craig focused to much on the love life between Adams and Bishop. I almost skipped past every line where that dialogue was taking place. Lastly, the ending was very rushed. While the info was fascinating, I cannot argue that it was very rushed.

The verdict: The second half did seem like it was being phoned in and that is not what I expect from Craig. That said this is not his worst installment so I am willing to give him a pass on this one in light of the good first half and interesting ending. A dissapointing 3/5 if I do say so myself.

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1 person found this helpful

A Stunning Turn

Reviewed: 11-10-19

Craig has done it again! This was a very good book and goes up there as being just as good as the first book.

The twists that happen, especially at the end show me that Craig listened to his audience and made some important changes to his writing style, definitely for the better.

Bray as always delivers a stunning performance.

This series is my favorite one on Audible and I cannot wait to dig into the next story.

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1 person found this helpful

A very fascinating 3 stories

Reviewed: 05-11-19

I am not going to lie to you folks, I was very skeptical about reading the first John Carter book, let alone the whole trilogy. I picked this up at the urging of a good friend and let it sit in my library for quite some time while I listened to other science fiction books that I was more familiar with and enjoyed.

One day, I found that I had listened to all those books and no more were available. When I looked at my library to see if I had any other books that I had missed, this one stood out to me.

Deciding to give it a spin, I downloaded the book and started listening.

Folks, knowing what I know now about these books, I wish I had listened to them sooner.

Burroughs has captured the attention of another Millenial and the stories he wrote gave me a greater understanding of some of the science fiction stories that I have been invested in during my entire life.

Of particular interest to me were the annotations at the end of each book. I felt like I was getting a lecture from a history teacher, but in a good way and not the boring way everyone associates with college lecture halls today.

Yes, the first book does start out very slow, but as you progress, things pick up, interesting plots develop, and it is easy for a dedicated science fiction addict like myself to see where these stories influenced much of science fiction as we know it today.

My only gripe about these books is the narrator, which lowers the score to a 4. It did feel like there needed to be more flair and drama in the narrators voice to convey what was truly happening to John Carter.

Despite that though, I was very glad to have finally read these books and will recommend the entire trilogy to anyone who loves science fiction.

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1 person found this helpful

More like a Brave New Monstrosity

Reviewed: 05-11-19

I know that this book is a classic and all, but I had so much trouble finishing this book and after a particular section, gave up altogether.

I can see what the author was going for and all, but the historical exposition was not sufficient enough to get me engaged into some of the scenes that were taking place.

The heavy emphasis on how society pursued a scientific pursuit away from natural scientific law did not sit well with me, both on a moral and logical level.

The scene that finally did it in for me though was where the book started to twist the current orthodoxes of different religions and turn them into abominations that really had no historical context as to how this had come to be.

I can respect what the authors were trying to do, but there has to be exposition early on explaining in detail why these events took place and how people reacted to the changes as they happened. While there were sections that did try to do that, I still felt that there was a huge lack of historical exposition.

The narrator however, was good and gave a good performance, which does increase the score.

I try to finish every audiobook that I get my hands on so take this review with a grain of salt since I did not finish the book, however, I can say that the 3 hours that I did invest in were enough to tell me where things were going, and I did not feel like sticking around after processing the previous content.

One thing that I do want to say however, is that this book does paint a scary picture of a possible future and if you can stomach the questionable morals and corruption that are being painted, I do encourage people to read all the way through. Even though I was not able to finish the book, that does not mean that there is better content ahead of where I stopped.

Hope this helps.

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A disappointing installment

Reviewed: 11-07-18

Now don't let the title fool you. The book was not a bad book. There were many great moments to be had. But this was not a good writing style to go with and is arguably the worst installment to The Expeditionary Force Series.

Lets do the good first. Skippy and Joe moments are on point, with the usual banter and jokes. Some new ones pop up and had me begging for more of the beer can and his monkey companion. R.C. Bray is spot on and truly brings this book to life in a way few others can. Lots of new details are revealed that are begging to be discussed later on and that excites me a lot.

Now the bad. The pacing in this story is horrible. Craig pulls a bait and switch on his audience doing 1 chapter of the Merry Band of Pirates and then digressing and talking about the Paradise team for 20 or so chapters. This was horribly executed and I expect much better from Craig.

I really hope that if by some chance you read this Craig, you either return to the alternating story arcs changing chapter by chapter or just write another book entirely on the Paradise crew. This might be your best bet as it would expand the series with another team that could work in unison, achieving different goals in different fashions.

There is still so much that I feel can be do with Skippy and Joe and I really want to see some of the deeper aspects of the story unfold.

I will continue with this series due to the past successes and interest of writing style, but do know that I am going in with high expectations for the next book, as I hope Craig learns from the less than stellar feedback that this book has received.

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A Captivating Short SciFi Story

Reviewed: 09-30-18

So I am going to review this book as I see it. Not a feature length novel but a short story.

With that out of the way, this book is exactly what a short story should be. A fun, entertaining adventure with one or multiple characters trying to find purpose in some manner.

This book does this very well and the implied developments leave the imagination to fill in the blanks which makes for some fun introspection.

This book is also the type of book that you should go into not seeking detailed explanations of the technology, as it it not touched on a lot. If you can do that, you will be fine. If not, then you might want to seek another novel.

Also the way this book was structured does leave room for future novels to expand more into different paths for the Omega force.

The narration was also quite stellar and I appreciated what the narrator did in regards to painting the picture and characters.

I look forward to seeing what else can be done with this universe.

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A breath of fresh air for a long running series

Reviewed: 09-30-18

This book was a surprising installment and pleasantly surprised me.

You go into this book knowing that it will likely be a brutal affair, but this was truly a brutal affair and I was not really prepared for it.

Characters old and new are thrust into an impossible situation and still manage to make something of it.

This is where this latest installment to The Destroyermen shines and makes you just wanting more of the intense action.

I am also glad that there does seem to be an end in sight and I think that is a good thing for this series as I do think that the time is coming when this series needs to be wrapped up and Anderson needs to move onto a new series, armed with what he has hopefully learned from this successful series.

The only reason that this book gets a 4 instead of a 5 is that the narration was a bit hard to understand at times as Lemurian voices can be difficult to understand.

Overall though, a very solid installment.

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