Bug Hunt

Argonauts, Book 1

By: Isaac Hooke

Narrated by: Luke Daniels

Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

Starting an interstellar security consulting company was supposed to be easy.

Rade got his ex-military teammates together and they pooled their savings to buy a ship and six mechs. The Argonauts were born.

But it wasn't easy.

Ruthless bankers are breathing down their necks, vengeful warlords are promising to pursue them across the galaxy, and now a mysterious new client wants Rade and his Argonauts to escort her to a frontier planet.

Problem is, the new client won't reveal her cargo. It's probably something illegal. Well, Rade needs the money, so a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

They arrive to find the frontier colony strangely deserted. When the shit hits the fan and the Argonauts face a possible alien infestation, it's time to pull out the big guns. Because if there's one thing Rade and his Argonauts really love, it's a good bug hunt.

And this one looks to be the hunt of a lifetime.

For fans of Old Man's War, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Armor. From a USA Today best-selling author.

©2017 Isaac Hooke (P)2017 Podium Publishing

Not the Firefly meets Aliens story I hoped for

From the title and summary, teasing a crew of former soldiers turned mercenaries encountering an abandoned planet and a bug menace, I was hoping for a pulpy sci-fi military action story. And when Luke Daniel’s narration made MC Rade sound a lot like Malcolm Reynolds, and the opening scene has Rade and crew rescuing a bunch of companions,er, I mean slave girls, from a yakuza sounding crime boss, I was sure I’d struck Firefly meets Aliens gold. Unfortunately, this story lacks the clever dialogue, balance between depth and snark, or action found in either series.

This story takes forever to get going, the bugs appear and disappear so quickly they might as well be cameos, and the stock characters are eye rollingly bad. The worst stock character is the black guy, who of course wears gold chains, cusses a lot, and exists to provide crusty solider humor... or maybe the only female on the team, who exists only to be the love interest of the MC and damsel in distress for a “meaningful” climax. There’s Fx and b!tches that to me seemed unnecessary and an awkward thirty second sex scene.

I did not realize the Rade character is from several other series, starting with ATLAS and including Mech. Perhaps that’s why the characters here seem flat. The other series also gave Rade PTSD, which makes for a lot of broody bits amid the sparse action.

Still, it was free, it played quick (especially at 1.5x), and all nine books in this series are currently free in Audible. I listened to book 2, and the diminishing returns made me decide to stop at 2… unless I’m desperate and number 3 is still available for free.

Similar stories, including many currently free in Audible:
🚀 If, like me, you wanted a pulpy sci-fi military bug hunt, try Harper’s 10 (delivering a better Aliens meets Pitch Black storyline), This prequel is free in Audible.
🚀 If plucky mercs getting in trouble is your thing, go with the actual Firefly series. The narrator amazingly sounds like all 9 of the crew... plus the books take place pre-Serenity, so all the gang can be enjoyed. Some of the Firefly books are currently free in Audible… and I recommend all of them except the Ghost Machine book. Shiny!)
🚀 If your jam is on the pulpier side, try Exo-Hunter by Jeremy Robinson, with pop culture fun, an alien rhino-Dino named Beatrice, and space Nazis!
🚀 If you want grittier, the post-apocalyptic Hell Divers delivers great man vs. mutant monsters vs. man adventures (books 3 & 5 in particular).
🚀 Did you like the humans vs. evil, intelligent aliens theme? Consider the War Wolves series starting with the free Audible teaser Escape First, Vengeance later staring the MC caught in a Sarah Connor asylum time loop.

Bug Hunters Snag Some Bugs!

* Warning spoilers incoming! *
All I can say is buy it: what a romp! Luke Daniels, the voice actor who reads Argonauts Book 1: Bug Hunt, is actually as good as Peter Berkrot (who performed Isaac Hooke’s ATLAS series on Audible). That is saying a lot. I couldn’t say which one is better at this point. I always find it amazing how they can switch voices, tonality, and really, personalities, at the drop of a pin. Luke Daniels got all the lines down right, from serious tones to jokes, and brings each character to life with a unique voice.
If you listen to audio books, don’t miss Isaac Hooke’s Argonauts Book 1: Bug Hunt performed by Luke Daniels… you’ll regret it if you miss it!

glad he got to it early.

The search for clean, well written scifi continues in futility...

...I am grateful Audible allows some titles that are the beginnings of series free...it allows me to sample and search....


I dream if a day when I can find good scifi that doesn't HAVE to resort to porn. Especially porn that doesnt advance or enrich the plot at all.

Today is not that day. Mr. Hooke is another in a long line of authors completely incapable of avoiding the peurile(if universal) trope of writing a scifi story with the shoehorned attempt at rewriting 2000 years of western civilization's sexual morality to allow promiscuous fornication, intentionally framed to inflame.

This particular book took about 10 sentences to get to "scantily clad slave girls."

I have started to appreciate the authors who get right to the stupid, idiotic "sexy-fun-time" early, so less of my time and money is waisted.

Maybe, someday, Audible will allow people to search for works that don't fall into the tired and sophomoric trap of titillation. They'd get alot more money out of me, and I wouldn't end up feeling bitter and tricked into buying books that end up wild dissappointments.

Duke Nuckem Against The Bugs

If you like lots of raunch mixed in with a with a mediocre SciFi story then this book is just what you've been waiting for.

Otherwise, you'll probably rate it two stars.

The names and places have changed

if you just change the names and the places this is about 500 other science fiction stories. extremely predictable you pretty much see everything coming. The writing is decent dialogue is decent but it's just a clone

Almost seems like it was written with a checklist.

Went out of his way to be PC in the first few chapters. Was sure to note the race of nearly every person, those left out can be assumed to be white as they all hade European names.

As to his crew...
White guy- Assumed
Black guy - check
Hispanic - check
Native American - check
Female - check
That's all 5 of them

Only kill robots or bugs so as not to offend anyone - check
Poor writing - check

Don't waste your time, there are far too many better authors out there.

All of the harmful tropes

***May contain spoilers***

The way the only black character and the female character fulfilled every harmful stereotype was disgusting! I couldn't finish! How many times did he have to make a sexual reference, be obnoxious, cuss, use the p***y and b***h words when referring to everything and especially the female character? How many times did she conform to whatever her commander/boyfriend needed? The native American character is all wise and serves as 2nd command and the main character's pet. The Hispanic guy's depiction screams "Ese!" The author needs to do better.

17 Year old's take on romance and special forces

Just immature. Hard to listen to. Maybe it gets better. Maybe not. I'm disappointed however. The reviews did not prepare me for the reality. You'd have to pay me to read this book even tho it's free.

Racist Pablum

Relies on racist stereotypes. Better to pretend only white people exist in the future than to perpetuate a sexualized, muscled, gold chain wearing stereotype. The same goes for native Americans and Asians. Didn’t listen long enough to glean how Hispanics are portrayed. This book is racist pablum pretending to be Sci Fi .

Couldn't Finish it.

if you're looking for a story that hasn't been thought out considerably with a lot of dick jokes and some powered armor, then you might like this... I've never given a bad review, and this isn't a "bad" book. However it's not a great book either, Sorry Isaac this one's not what I was looking for.

Well written military science fiction

Well written military science fiction with characters and a series of stories that I will enjoyed fully as it develops

Now THAT.....

Was great! I do wish they didn't have the twelve word minimum here. It's no reflection upon the book and I will definitely be listening to the rest of the series, and any more to follow also I will certainly be paying attention to any other works by Isaac Hook. Plus please forgive me for leaving it for last, and thank you to the narrator Luke Daniels who added that extra spark that illuminated Mr Hooke's work.... Have I reached twelve words yet?..,Um? One... Two... Three.... Yehhhh!

Nice story with some novel ideas

First time listening to Luke Daniels. I was impressed. Good accents, voices and pace.
The story has some familiar elements like mech suits etc but the character list is short and it feels more personal than other adventures.
Looking forward to hearing the next one.

good book

slow at the start, but as the story is going it becomes better and more interesting

overall a worthwhile freebie listen

lot's of he said, she said type writing where that can be avoided with care, but solid story and character development

average

no character development. the main character was bland and so was the villain. interesting world, but no world building

Great book 📖

Great book love the story and the narration can’t wait to listen to the next book ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Adolescent

Cool concept, firefly inspired I’ll bet. Let down by poorly written uncomfortable sex scenes every couple chapters, sounds like it was written by a 15 year old. Only book on this platform I’ve given up o, too cringeworthy. Sorry to the author but the performance of the voice actor was the best part.

pretty good

honestly not the best sci-fi military style book I've listened to but still pretty decent. action is well done and narrator does a great job

a great start

really good story, looking forward d to reading the rest, including the prequels. I can't wait!