Columbus Day: Expeditionary Force, Book 1

Great book even for a non-scifi fan such as myself. Generally speaking if I have to choose between magic or science in my books I always go for magic. So what made me pick this one up you might ask? That's simple. I wax a road trip with my scifi loving husband and listening to bits a piece of this series on Audible. That's how I fell in love with the character Skippy. I think he really adds the much needed comic relief this book needed to bring home all the elements of a truly entertaining story. When my husband told me about this book series he said I'd love it because Skippy is just like Bob from The Dresden Files but an AI instead of spirit. And that got my attention piqued, cuz, in my opinion, The Dresden Files is the absolute best urban fantasy series out there. And Bob is definitely a favorite among many, many great unique characters. And Expeditionary Force: Columbus Day did not disappoint. When I picked it up, I originally I would be just reading it for Skippy, because that bits I'd heard with Skippy while on road trips liking to the audio book were hilarious. But, much to my surprise, I found myself enjoying the book right from the beginning. And that is factoring that Skipoy doesn't even show up until around the middle of the book. It doesn't bog you with to much nerdy scifi tech talk. The story is a great easy read right from the start with Joe being a really relatable, easy to like character. And right about when the book could srguable have died from the story stagnating from repeating themes the author expertly and suddenly takes the story on a dramatic 90° turn with the entrance of Skippy. At this point, Skippy could have easily taken over the story if it weren't for Joe's ability to ground Skippy's ego more the realms of us hairless monkey's idea of reality. The two play off of each other so well it's almost like a expertly choreographed dance. Bottom line, it's a very entertaining book to read and I highly reccomend it. And if you're more of a magic or Dersden Files fan then I think you will enjoy this book too.

I was browsing Amazon for military sci-fi, and was reading samples of a bunch. The first page or so of this I was thinking this was going to be really cliche and entertainingly bad. By the end of the sample I was grabbed enough that I figured at $0.99 why the hell not. About half way through I had an epiphany in which I realized I was actually reading a very well put together sci-fi novel, and I ended up staying up until five in the morning reading. The biggest strength is the humor, it's a first person narration where the main character has great commentary that really grabs you. The depiction of military life is also one of the best I've seen, with far less of the values based bulls*** that so many other authors put out. Instead it presents it the way that the military is, which is a bunch of guys trying to make the best of a s***ty situation. There's a lot of humor (ex. the acronym BOHICA) that just doesn't get portrayed enough, so I'm glad the author gave it a lot of attention. Additionally it has enough military and tech details to make it a proper sci-fi, but not so much that you get bogged down. It's all through the lens of a guy that knows he doesn't understand any of it, so it's all pretty down to earth explanations. You understand what the technology does without all the technobabble you'd get on Star Trek. There's a lot of military slang and terminology, but most of it is quickly explained well enough that you don't have to be a veteran to have a pretty good idea what's being said. It feels like you're listening to a soldier tell a story, but from a guy that understands you don't know everything he does. It's a good balance. As far as characters go the main character, Joe Bishop, was very relatable and comes off as the kind of guy you'd want to grab a beer with. He's far from the smartest protagonist, but he's creative and has good people skills which makes him fun to read. Unfortunately a lot of the other characters aren't as well fleshed out. I think a lot of it is because Bishop moves around a lot meeting new people, so a lot of people show up and then leave the story. Almost no one from the first half of the book is present during the second half. There's also a couple of characters that get thrown in as butt monkeys that come off a bit too one dimensional, but they don't stick around for long. That said, I'm not going to spoil the surprise but there's a character named Skippy who is incredibly fun and awesome. He's got humor to match Bishop, but is also very well rounded. The story isn't especially original, but the most part it's not cliche either. There's a few cliches here and there, but not enough to be too distracting. The plot is a bit predictable, but it does pretty much tell you how it's going to turn out from the get go. So it's not like it pretends to be mysterious or promise a lot of plot twists. It's pretty straight forward, but it at least avoids a lot of cliches that way. I guess you could say the story use's tropes, but doesn't abuse them. Overall, even though the destination is pretty well known the journey there is very enjoyable. As far as how well put together it is, I'd say very well. Not quite up to the standards you'd expect from a publisher with a professional editor, but not far off. There's a few typos here and there, but far less than you typically see in a self published book. Overall it's a pretty great novel, and an absolute steal at $0.99, this is worth far more than it's currently priced at. It could use a bit more polishing, but it's still considerably better than a lot of stuff I read coming out of the major publishers from well recognized authors. Maybe it'll never win a literary award, but its very entertaining and at the very least well worth the price.

Simpatica la premessa (non originale, ma simpatica) ... però rapidamente la storia si trasforma in una space opera degna AL PIU' degli anni '50, compelta di mito superomistico (più per caso che per capacità) ... e sinceramente ci vuole uno stile di parecchio migliore per reggere una storia così nel 2016 ... forse carino per un quindicenne, però.

This book had me captivated after the first 5 chapters. If you're a fan of sci-fi and black ops you'll love this. Sit back and enjoy the adventures. In my opinion the book is well written; the author does a great job with pacing and story telling. You'll find yourself wanting to find out more about the next chapter as the story develops. The characters all have different personalities and you'll quickly become invested in their individual stories and fight for survival. If you're not a big reader, give the audiobook a try. Its an excellent listen. I'll definitely be buying the full collection

I'll only comment the first book of the series, but this is valid for the whole series (eight books, some spin offs and at least one more in the oven): It's plainly addictive basic adventures-in-space scifi, full of action, cliffhangers (pretty well resolved ones, by the way) and well-placed flashes of humour. It's true that you should not expect here any hard science facts , but the universe depicted has that coherence of functioning that you don't find so easily. The tapestry of alien races, each one with their own motives and each one with some individual characters is extremely well done. Mr. Alanson has the knack of describing characters that *are interesting*, that is: after some pages you really care for what is going to happen to a lot of them. And the action of the plot is a freight train on the loose. It's true as well that some lines of the plot are repetitive, with the same characters making similar things, but it is son neatly done that you not only don't care, but you do expect it to be resolved thus. I am really expecting book number 9 and I thank Mr. alanson for the very good moments he has given me with all of them. That said, I too think Joe should get laid more.

Unless you want to spend dozens of hours and hundreds of dollars on many, many many (20ish now?!) books. Seriously though, the first couple books might be a bit frustrating with the grammar/spelling/formatting errors, but those issues mainly resolve themselves. The style of writing is great, if you enjoy sarcastic humor. The character growth and development are fantastic, gets you invested in the characters. And the situations Bishop and the Beer Can get into are very entertaining. I definitely recommend this book, and the whole series (including the Mavericks books).

Interesting universe but a bit simplistic in some ways.