Earth Alone

Earthrise, Book 1

By: Daniel Arenson

Narrated by: Jeffrey Kafer

Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

They came from deep space. They came to destroy us.

Fifty years ago bloodthirsty aliens devastated the Earth. Most of humanity perished. We fell into darkness.

But now we rise from the ashes. Now we fight back.

Marco Emery was born into the war. After his mother is killed, he joins the Human Defense Force, Earth's ragtag army. Emery must survive basic training, become a soldier, and finally face the aliens in battle.

Against the alien onslaught, Earth stands alone. But we will fight. We will rise. We will win.

If you loved Ender's Game, Starship Troopers, and Old Man's War, you'll love Earthrise, a new military science fiction series. From a USA Today best-selling author.

©2016 Daniel Arenson (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

I JOINED THE ARMY TO DIE

A Liberal in The Army
I found this to be entertaining and the miles melted away as I listened. Yes, it is formulaic and predictable. A lot of books are formulaic, because that is what works. I read a lot of Westerns for that reason. This is a character driven story. We are given a background on most of the characters and I found that very thoughtful. It really made me think in my own life, as to why some people are the way they are.

LOGGERHEAD NOT JARHEAD
The main character, MARCO, wants to be a writer, does not want to fight, but he is drafted. I did not find him to be whiny. The author compares his disgruntle complaints to those of other characters, pointing out that no matter how bad we have it, someone else has it worse. My main complaint would be that they did not go into space. The book has a spaceship on the cover and I like space travel. Like most Military books, this is about boot camp. Unlike most Military books, this has characters with complex personalities. This has some action, but probable not enough to please the hard core action fans.

Kafer is hitting his stride as a narrator and I considered him in the top tier with Bray and Porter.

Polo

this is the worst book ever please don't buy it

I went back and looked at this book again just to see if I can find anything of Merit about it. obviously the female author needs to spend more time with men because the male voice in this story sounded like a girl. he whined through this whole book in the only time he seemed to have a relevant thought was when he was thinking about one of the four or five girls that he was thinking about. Does the author think that males really think this way ? and that there's nothing else in a story line but his angst over females. there wasn't enough action hell the whole thing was humorless and it was just drudgery to get through it. If the author really wants to write Dime store love stories and she should stick to that and stay away from SyFy. because she failed terribly.
I hate this book so much I wish I could eliminated from my library. or get my money back I will not be buying any other books in the series period God this book makes me want to claw my ears out and and hope that I never hear another sound like it.

a total and unabashed ripoff of starship troopers.

it's like if someone saw starship troopers and drunkenly was explaining it to a friend. Bugs, sensitive protagonist, cheesy military tropes, jock gf, super hot girl leaves said protagonist for "fleet" to be a lifer. I actually researched to see if the stories were related because this level of theft must be illegal?

Whew

Whew glad this is over. I wanted to scream at times at the whining and repeating over and over again the whining. I must admit I had to get up and leave the audio running so that I'd hopefully miss it. Finally it's over. I don't know why I'm giving it two stars.

Truly horrible book

Any additional comments?

Listening to this book was torture. Although I have listened to hundreds of books through Audible, this is my first written review. I felt compelled to advise readers to avoid this book. No new ideas, no interesting characters, no pace to the book. A boring tale poorly told. Rehashed and derivative, it stands alone as perhaps the worst piece of fiction I have ever read.

By far the worst book I have ever read!

I read voraciously but have never rated a book. I am doing so now because I feel not to would be almost as great a crime against humanity as this novel. You must be warned!
If I had to guess where the author got his inspiration for this storyline I would say Starship Troopers, not the book that is a classic. Instead he watched the movie which of course was almost as bad as this book. I would guess he also watched Full Metal Jacket and Animal House. Then after a long night of solitaire, porn and solo beer pong he started his epic trek toward artistic mediocrity.
Where do I start?
No I will not do it!
I will not waste more of my precious and limited life describing this travesty. Read it if you must. Remember you have been warned. Shaving a cat while blindfolded and naked in rainstorm would be less painful! And far more fulfilling.

Excellent start book 1

I'm looking forward to the next 2 books. this is a good story. Audio pulls you in like you are there

Once More, Into The Plothole

What did you love best about Earth Alone?

It's a nice action novel. That's really about it.

Would you recommend Earth Alone to your friends? Why or why not?

Depends on the friend. Earth Alone (and the subsequent books) are ... okay. If you're into military science fiction, it's not awful. If you aren't -- well, I'd recommend people go check out exemplars of the genre first, like Starship Troopers and Old Man's War.

What does Jeffrey Kafer bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Jeffrey, I think, captured the author's intent in dramatizing the descriptions the author left in the story. It made an otherwise cheesy story more listenable.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No extreme reactions. It just sort of was.

Any additional comments?

Some books are a fine, gourmet meal. Starship Trooper and Old Man's War are good examples of the genre, and it's exceedingly clear that the author is trying to channel those works. He tries to channel them so hard that it becomes derivative. This is more like fast food. It satiates some hunger, but it's not exactly nutritious.

It's evident that the author knows what he knows of the military from playing roleplaying games or watching bad Hollywood movies. It's in subtle things. Soldiers rarely refer to their weapons as "rifles" or "pistols," instead using the more catch-all, imprecise term of "gun." Boot camp as depicted is very much a caricature of the real thing, and the odd million-in-one chance pairings and meetings (serving in the same unit as your foster sister? Really?) of particular characters constantly war to break your suspension of disbelief. Deus ex machina and unlikely chances abound (especially the very forced timing and outcome of the book's conclusion).

Characters themselves are more caricatures. Each fits neatly into a careful trope. The angsty Leilani, the hot-headed Addy, the "old soul" main character Marco, the burly Russian "Beast," the fat kid. Each is a stereotype. The enemy is a black-and-white evil thing with zero there to lend sympathy to the reader. The "scum" are less nuanced than if the antagonist were a natural disaster like a hurricane or an earthquake. That'd likely be fine if the idea were to not distract from the characters and their own stories, but it's disingenuous in what is ostensibly a "war novel" (shades of grey with the enemy are always evident in wars, and scrubbing this reality here doesn't add any focus to the novel, as it perhaps did in Armor). Even human antagonists in later books are utterly two dimensional, like the uncreatively named Captain Petty.

The plot progresses along in a forced fashion. It doesn't change by the second book, by the way, which plays out pretty much exactly as the latter half of the Starship Troopers movie did, with extremely precious little variation.

It's a YA novel, at or slightly below the same quality level as the Hunger Games or Divergent -- at least those two had something of an original interpretation of older stories behind them. This is derivative. But I still read it, perhaps to punish myself for past sins.

The narrator provided by Audible is a tasty sauce on an otherwise bland dish.

Terrible book

Terrible, mellodramatic, wordy book with ridiculous flowery prose. It was not a sci-fi adventure, it was a typical, corny Army bootcamp tale.

Starship troopers

I am a big fan of sci-fi and I felt this book was well written. It reminded me of the movie starship troopers at the beginning but then it started to sound distinct. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in an starship trooper themed story line. Looking forward to the next book.

Does This Book Stand Alone?

An interesting start to the series. The initial scene setting is pretty standard alien invasion stuff but well done all the same. Arenson outlines a grim future where a war of attrition with a hostile alien race has lead to semi apocalyptic conditions on Earth. The human race is up against it, youth are being conscripted and death is a constant companion. No-one is safe.

After what feels like a very pacey and atmospheric start our hero heads off to basic training and the book seems to slow up and while I expected some time to be spent on this it actually takes up most of the rest of the book. I don't mind that, building characters and their backgrounds is to me the sign of a good author. In truth there are lots of cliches and the similarities to Starship Troopers are hard to ignore but I still enjoyed the story.

Towards the end the action suddenly picks up again and the scene is well set for future adventures in the series. The narration by Jeffrey Kafer sets just the right tone for the characters and story.

It is though a book that you can ask questions of. Why these super intelligent aliens behave in some of the ways that they do is very much open to question for example. For me though while this all looks promising if you want some military sci-fi I do question if this first book gives enough. It's relatively short, in itself not a problem. The author spends time developing his characters, to me a good thing. However, put the two together and in a credit-based system like Audible I think I would have expected more per episode in the series.

Another good book runined by poor naration

What disappointed you about Earth Alone?

The naration

What did you like best about this story?

Dont know didnt get past the first 2 minutes

What didn’t you like about Jeffrey Kafer’s performance?

Very very poor emphasis on the wrong words, over dramatisation of simple terms

Boot Camp

Is there anything you would change about this book?

For a MilSciFi too little sci too much stereotypical boot camp and too little military action. For me chapter 1 and 2 into's chara... chapters 3 to 19-ish could be dropped as too tedious to bother with. As they say I'll never get that time back!

What could Daniel Arenson have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

cut the bootcamp from 3/4 of book to 10%.

Have you listened to any of Jeffrey Kafer’s other performances? How does this one compare?

Performance was fine

Could you see Earth Alone being made into a movie or a TV series? Who would the stars be?

No NO No NO No!

Any additional comments?

Now i have to decide whether to waste another credit on next book or just abandon the author and write this off as experience

Grow up.

It’s a good written story with a lot of potential. The first book is about Marco a young boy who is drafted in military in an after apocalyptic environment. Where earth is still under attack. The story focuses a lot about the camp life. It’s good but I can’t wait for the next book where I feel the story will really begin. I recommend the first book, just to know the Dragon company and how it all started. But I think the second book is where it really begins.

Audio book won't download any more than first 9 mins

Tryed to fix this, been charged for book but only getting first 9 mins!!! Not happy at all will go back to reading rather than using audiobook

basic story written by a toddler

story was not sci fi, nor was it fighting aliens.

it was a rubbish basic character going through basic soldier training whilst dreaming of having intercourse with his girlfriend/ step sister/ ex girlfriend.

the rare alien fights are badly explained as the aliens themselves have not been explained.

even the author is laughing about his work, the aliens are flying through space in ball sacks! somehow more advanced than us and stronger than steel. lmao.

You have to listen to it

A great book loved the story great narration 5 stars I highly recommend listening to this book 👍👍👍⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️