Craig Alanson

Joe and Skippy for the win!

With this book I've come to realize that my favourite thing about the Merry Band of Pirates is Joe and Skippy's relationship. Seriously, 90% of my highlights are either Joe or Skippy or both showing appreciation and support for each other. I love books and I read oh so many of them, yet, I can honestly say it's rare for me to find examples of pure unapologetic friendship like these two have. It's awesome.

Back to the book, we see Joe having to come up with a show more BlackOps plan to stop the Kristang from reaching Earth. It's action filled with twists and turns at every corner. One of my non Joe and Skippy appreciation highligts goes like this:
- "Sometimes I wonder why the Merry Band of Pirates even bothers to create a Plan A" - Said Chocula
- Because that gives us a basis for a Plan B?

By now, anyone reading the series knows what to expect, and this book delivers, so it's great. show less

How much more epic can this get???
I probably need a full month to just process everything I read. I am impatient. I can't read a book of this series (or the Dresden Files series if we are being honest) and do it in a normal fashion where I only read a little bit at the time. For one, I am too invested in the story, for another, the fast pace and non-stop action make it hard for me to encounter a natural breaking point (chapters? what are those?). So what did I do? I took the entire day off, show more cooked, walked, shouted, then sadly washed the dishes, as I listened to RC Bray's spectacular narration and immersed myself in the book.
However long it takes me to do a full analysis and update all of my theories about what the heck is going on and how it's going to end, I need to share how amazing this book NOW!
Seriously, it's that good. Like, you'd think after 13 books the whole "new crisis, despair, inventive solution space battles and a few dirtside adventures" formula would get old, but dude, it doesn't! The cast of characters grows with each book and it makes it all the more interesting.
I can't go into spoilers (which sucks because I very much want to go into detailed spoilers of everything so I can explain very clearly why this book was worth the binge) but I'll say this: I like that in this one it's not about outsmarting someone but continuing to fix mistakes and I do like that we are slowly getting more hints about the whole thing. I can't wait to get book 14 and get some explanation for that ending so be advised, this one ends in a cliffhanger and it's not a small one.
Non spoilery thoughts go like this:
- good adventure
- extremely entertaining hijinks
- few hints, more questions
- excellent narration (as if it isn't obvious)
- Bilby is still a cool dude
- I wanted more Joe and Margaret
- I kinda missed Nagatha
- The Ethics and Compliance Office is still awesome
- I liked getting more insight into the spiders and kitties


Tl;dr: It's a great new addtion to the overall series, I thoroughly enjoyed it 5/5⭐ show less

Jeesh. What a turn for the worse from the first book. It went from exciting, fast-paced, and funny to boring, plodding, and very unfunny. I'll echo what I've seen in other reviews--Skippy making fun of everything all the time got old really quick. It's pretty rare that I get outright annoyed while reading, but this annoyed me. A lot. Not to mention the flow of the book was...well, it didn't exist.

There were some highlights and flashes from what made the first novel so good and fun, but this show more was not what I was expecting and just poorly written. I think the author needed to take more time between novels as it appears these were all published REALLY quickly.

I will take a break from these and I might read the next one in a few months when I'm not so annoyed by Skippy. show less

SpecOps (Expeditionary Force #2) by Craig Alanson, narration by RC Bray, is another awesome book I lingered on. I have the wonderful audible version so I can hear the creative and hilarious narration that adds soooo much to this already awesome series. I have not read such a good space opera series like this ever! I am laughing so hard or snickering and then the next they are in battle but still something funny comes up. Then other times, out of no where, he punches me with a new emotion I show more wasn't ready for. There is also so many fun battles, and I do mean fun. These are not normal battles if Joe and Skippy are involved. I can't describe just how exciting these books are. Fun, creative, strange creatures, hilarious, tender, great science, adventure, wonderful and witty dialogue, crazy capers, a Majestic AI named Skippy, a crew that is incredible and adaptable, and many close calls. I have bought the whole series, just trying to get time to get to them! show less