Columbus Day

Expeditionary Force, Book 1

Nominee, Audie Awards—Audiobook of the Year, 2018

We were fighting on the wrong side of a war we couldn't win. And that was the good news.

The Ruhar hit us on Columbus Day. There we were, innocently drifting along the cosmos on our little blue marble, like the native Americans in 1492. Over the horizon come ships of a technologically advanced, aggressive culture, and BAM! There go the good old days, when humans only got killed by each other. So, Columbus Day. It fits.

When the morning sky twinkled again, this time with Kristang starships jumping in to hammer the Ruhar, we thought we were saved. The UN Expeditionary Force hitched a ride on Kristang ships to fight the Ruhar, wherever our new allies thought we could be useful. So, I went from fighting with the US Army in Nigeria, to fighting in space. It was lies, all of it. We shouldn't even be fighting the Ruhar, they aren't our enemy. Our allies are.

I'd better start at the beginning.

©2016 Craig Alanson (P)2016 Podium Audio

I laughed like the hairless monkey I really am.

chapter 10 after 9 already great chapters was what locked this up as the best AND funniest audiobook Ive ever listend to.

Awesome!

Really awesome take on interstellar travel. Skippy is the best, and narration is amazing. Awesome!

lots of swearing

holy cow this book has lots of swearing. overall it's a good story but the swearing makes it hard to recommend

Just fantastic, and perfectly read.

My first book by this author and I'm enjoying it so much I wanted to start this review early. This is the grunt's eye view take on a classic alien war story. Bad guys come to invade, possibly less bad guys come and get us to join the fight back, training, then battle. Nothing new there. What's great is how familiar the author is with the way a grunt sees things. The incredible level of sarcasm, the cadence, the jargon -- perfect.

R.C. Bray reads this book masterfully. I live in Maine, as does the main character in the book. The accent used is excellent. He gets much of it perfect. Where he isn't perfect you don't notice because instead of going over the top, Bray tones it down a bit. I have neighbors who sound just like this.

Super impressive -- or should I say "wicked good".

Nice ideas. Amusing tone. Interesting story.

I wish that four stars had not become the equivalent of a bad review. It leaves no room for truly stellar books which, this is not. For me, four stars is a book that I truly enjoyed and consider hours listening to be time well spent.

The main characters are appealing. The relationship between Colonel Joe and Skippy manages to capture some sincere emotion, as well as provide a lot of laughs. The plot is action based and moves along nicely, at least once Mr Alanson got used to the story.

(You'll need a little patience in the first hour or so. The author is a little more fascinated with the details at first. Fortunately, he finds a much better balance soon enough. The story moves along well after a little while.)

The narration is good. RC Bray always does good work. He's clear with character differentiation and doesn't try too hard to 'act' (I hate it when a reader tries to 'bring characters to life' with accents and such. If the author didn't achieve that with the text, it's not important. Not a problem in this reading.) That said, I don't know if the text has ever "ing" as "in'" but I wish he had stopped it.

I don't know that the book has any real literary value but I don't think it was meant to. It was a terrific ride across the galaxy and I will enjoy subsequent books as they arrive.

When I complete a book, I always try to imagine it in a book club. In this case, I think the conversation about this would focus on "It was funny when...".

And that is a very good thing.