• Renegades

  • Expeditionary Force, Book 7
  • By: Craig Alanson
  • Narrated by: R.C. Bray
  • Length: 17 hrs and 7 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (24,477 ratings)

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Renegades  By  cover art

Renegades

By: Craig Alanson
Narrated by: R.C. Bray
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Publisher's summary

The battle-scarred star carrier Flying Dutchman is finally on her way back to Earth, after an exceptionally successful series of missions that have once again saved the world. The ship needs a serious refit, and her exhausted crew just wants a break from constant clandestine warfare against a vicious and superior enemy. Wishes come true, right? Not for the Merry Band of Pirates.

Includes special bonus note from the author.

©2018 Craig Alanson (P)2019 Podium Publishing

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Same Problems as BSG and LOST

This series has been what I look forward to the most. Every time a new book hits, i re-listen to the series , in order, to get ready..usually to remind myself of whats happened prior. With each book, there is a slight drop-off in enjoyment as the same jokes, one-liners, and themes reiterate themselves without significant story evolution. Note that until This book, I felt the falling off was slight.

My gut feeling with Renegades is that the author never expected this series to be this successful when he set out...and not he's just padding the story with repetitive crap to wring every cent out of it that he can. Its the same feeling I had with ScyFy's Battlestar Galactica, LOST, and a dozen others shows that were overnight hits. Its like, "Holy crap, this is huge...we need more seasons"

The story is languishing. The jokes are pretty old now: "Let's go with the caring thing", "Hold my Beer", "I hate my life" I don't want to give much away, so I'll not say more...but predictable is the word...its become predictable.

We need to evolve the current characters. The story about overarching Skippy story needs to move forward faster, we need some new characters with depth in their own right. Hell, in this book, there were even fewer players...which meant we had to spend even more time with the same circular jokes and plot.

This series has been great...but please move it along, evolve the characters...More has to happen...If the next book falls off harder than this one did, I think I am done. At the very least, I won't pre-oder anymore and wait to read the reviews.

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213 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

I'm Out

The last two books but especially this one have been little more than ongoing side quests to the main story line. I really liked the first five books in the series but after that it just keeps dragging and dragging on ENDLESSLY..."Oh no now we have another problem to solve which is composed of 5 smaller problems and each of those has a ridiculous number of surprises that need to be solved!" and on and on. Almost nothing...again....about the main story line which is really what kept me reading this series. also Skippy is a lot less likeable now and the relationship between him and Joe a lot less fun. Suddenly the phrase "you little shithead" being repeated constantly throughout the book, seems a lot less funny and bit more disturbing. This last book was nothing more than a blatant money grab by trying to extend the story far beyond it's best before date. I count that as a slap in the face by the author towards his fans. I'll be returning this one and won't be getting any more. I'm Out.

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105 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Good But I Hoped For More

Book 7 is a lot better than book 6. For me however, there was too much bantering and not enough story development. Don't get me wrong I like the banter between the characters. But, when I can fast forward a few minutes and the same banter between the same characters on the same subject is still going on for several minutes afterward, its a bit much.

Just my perspective. I am sure there are a lot of Skippy fans who have a different opinion.

All in all I did enjoy the book. Just not as much as if there would have a bit more story development.

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81 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Another filler book

Always better with Skippy and Joe. Unfortunately just a bunch of repeated phrases and events in a different part of the galaxy. Prepare to hear "monkey brain" 300 times and maybe 10 minutes of new information. RC was fantastic as always, though seemed to struggle with the accents slightly in this one.

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74 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Series needs to go somewhere soon

I've enjoyed listening to these audiobooks at work. I skipped Paradise Lost as well as Book 6 as I felt they were nothing more than fillers or contractual obligations to the publisher. While I don't think this book was bad, I feel like it was rushed out just to have more sales. I know this is the goal of any author and publisher, but I would rather not be able to feel that is the case while I'm listening to the book. The series really needs to go somewhere in the next book.
I agree with other listeners that it needs to explore the Elders, more of Skippy's hidden background, as well as some interaction with some higher species.

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67 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

meh

Blah blah blah monkey gets into trouble, fights with beer can, wacky idea. omg we really almost died that time. repeat. love the series want to know more about the elders and the universe your creating here.

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59 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Irrational behavior and Poor Character Development

I keep buying these titles because the narration is some of the best out there. R.C. Bray is the absolute best. His ability to lose himself in the narration and convey not only different dialects, but female voices, is flat out amazing. But this is where the flattery for this title ends.

I cannot, for the life of me, understand why the Earth Governments are being painted as such cowardly imbeciles. Sure, government bureaucracy is sometimes laughably bad, but we can still understand their motivations, even if it is self-serving. But with regard to their treatment of our protagonist and his team, it's utterly baffling. When a military leader is disconnected from his command, he/she makes decisions to further the mission and protect his patrons. At every turn, Joe Bishop has made decisions that aligned with the goals of Earth and her safety. Yet each time they go home, Joe and his crew are railroaded and treated with hostility with no regard to sanity or common sense. They are chastised for making horrible decisions, yet each of those decisions had absolutely no alternative where Earth could have been safer had those decisions not been made. The author seems intent on painting the governments as evil, which is a rather unforgivable writing error. Conflict needs to be believable, and watching as the US Govt creates an adversary out of a supremely intelligent AI makes zero sense. Finding ways to work with that AI would be the most logical choice, yet the government seems content to ignore that, between Joe and Skippy, none of this would have been possible without them. It requires some serious mental gymnastics to explain why they would scuttle the only known means to save the planet.

Furthermore, the exposition continues to be mind numbingly boring and repetitive. Were it not for R.C. Bray, I'm not sure I could tolerate the "planning sessions" which are just a laundry list of in-universe rules which may or may not be broken depending on the narrative required. So much Deus-Ex Machina and MacGuffins are involved in these sessions that it's almost hilarious. "We can't do this because of X, but there is this super secret device that can accomplish this, but it's locked up on a military base/enemy star-ship/relay station." Honestly, I feel as if Alanson if just phoning it in in the last several books.

My personal opinion on this series....take some risks. Change the narrative. Expose the human race, reveal Skippy to another race, even if it's a select few. Let the people on Paradise know about the Dutchman, give them some hope, hell, rescue them. Fight for survival with everything on the table. And can we please, for the love of Skippy, start learning more about the Elders and the origins of our beloved beer can? What can't he tell us, why can't he tell us, can the human race learn the secrets of the Elders? Maybe that's how we win? We've made almost zero progress on this narrative over the course of 7.5 books. We need something more than the same rinse and repeat scenarios.

And lastly, let's get some damned character development. We have seen almost no character growth from Joe Bishop. He remains the same reluctant hero that he was in the very beginning, even with so many accomplishments under his belt. He should be extremely confident at this point. He shouldn't be taking leadership notes from his crew. At every turn he is being chided by supporting characters for not being a leader, yet his actions under pressure is leadership defined. What makes this military genius turn into a cowardly lion between victories? Joe is our protagonist, we need him to grow and succeed. As the reader, we need to have a few "hell yeah" moments every now and again. As it stands, Joe is just a doormat for everyone else's character growth.

Interestingly enough ,even after all these criticisms, I will still be a loyal fan. You can thank R.C. Bray and Skippy for my continued patronage. I would listen to Bray read from my vehicles technical manual..... And Skippy, well that is perhaps the best written character in the series, and even though much of the snark is also rinse and repeat, the combination of Bray and Skippy are just a joygasm for the ears. Anyway, on to the next book...

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59 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

"Didn't I listen to this story 3 books ago..."

I really love this series, but this one is starting to drag. As always RC Bray is awesome, I would have given this series up a long time ago if not for him. The characters and plot are just not moving along well. The joke between Skippy and the other characters are becoming tired now. It was great in the first few books, but things just feel like they haven't progressed. I would love to explore the story of the elders more, what's the mystery with the AI's, anything but the save the world from X alien disaster caused by Joe not thinking plan Y through?? Also, Skippy is not really cute in this one, I found him way more annoying than funny...

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48 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

so repetitive and predictable

I pretty much shipped most of the dialog because I couldn't take the repetitive bs jokes

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31 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Felt weak

R.C. Bray is amazing as always.

This series has been fun to listen to till this book.

This felt like Robert Jordan during the filler parts of Wheel of Time. Amazing detail spanning hours that did not progress the plot much.

Hopefully things get better the next couple of books.

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